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Web Exclusives:
Under the Ivy September 14 , 2005:
Ride
a white horse He may not have been the savior of his class, exactly, but Albert Hinckley ’55 played the part during his senior year. Class Day 1955 saw him ride into Cannon Green on a white horse, wearing shades and carrying a coonskin cap. The prank was the last gasp of a senior class presidency that literally started as a joke, remembers Hinckley. While he was away from campus, a group of his friends decided to throw a campaign for him. Late-night sessions yielded campaign posters bearing slogans such as “Albo is the Rich Man’s Rich Man,” “All men are created equal, but some are more so,” and “Albo believes in Santa Claus.” One gag Hinckley remembers is an illustration that spoofed a popular cartoon: a drawing of two straight lines with two circles on either side was transformed from “Panda climbing a tree” to “Albo climbing a tree at the Palm Beach Bath and Tennis Club.” The ridiculous campaign worked all too well. When Hinckley returned from his trip, he recalls, he bumped into a classmate at the Princeton Junction train station. “Congratulations,” the fellow said. “For what?” Hinckley asked. “You’ve just been made class president!” the friend informed him. “I didn’t even know about it,” Hinckley still marvels today. “They ran me as a joke. But I guess people were fed up with straight arrows, as they were called, and, well, I swept in, to the consternation of the others running.” But Hinckley proved a better sport than his class could have imagined. Having been elected, he took on the job, and took it seriously. “It forced me to come out of my shell,” Hinckley says now. (So much so that he auditioned for, and won, a lead role in the Triangle show of that year, “Tunis, Anyone?”) By the end of his term, his class was impressed enough with his dedication to vote him the W. Sanderson Detwiler 1903 Prize, which goes to the senior who has done the most for his class. It was the cap to a charmed senior year: In addition to the class presidency and the Triangle role, a number 1 in room draw had allowed the future architect a prized room over Blair Arch, with a big bay window that allowed him to marvel at the beauty of the campus, especially on a spring day. The magic eventually wore off. When Hinckley ran for president of the class the year after graduation, “I lost,” he laughs. “That was a message from above.” Once again following the mandate from his classmates, Hinckley concentrated on a successful architecture career instead of politics; he is principal architect of Hinckley Shepherd Norden in Warrenton, Va. But without a doubt, a spring day in 1955 was fine
time to ride off into a Princeton sunset — even if it was
a on a rented horse.
Jane Martin ’89 is PAW's former editor-in-chief. You can reach her at paw@princeton.edu
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