While looking through the archives, I found a copy of the Manhattan Mercury newspaper in which a story I wrote in November of 1965 was published. For my first college level reporting class, I wrote about a college stunt I was involved with.

Unlike some student stunts which are filled with danger, ours was pretty harmless, if you don’t take into consideration college students losing a few hours of pre-Thanksgiving break sleep.

While I didn’t have a hand in organizing the stunt, the organizers expected me to use my connections and get them the desired publicity. I served as their spokesman dealing with university officials and newspaper reporters.

The story I wrote for the Mercury began with “Hello Moore? This is Marlatt, Funston House to be exact and

we just started a talkathon with you.”

So began what the organizers hoped would be the longest telephone conversation in the history of Kansas State University. Had we known about the Guinness Book of World Records, I’m sure we would have reported our stunt.

Telephones in 1965 were not like they are today. While Dick Tracy, the cartoon strip cop, had a wrist radio, college students did not have cell phones. The 100 residents of Funston House didn’t even have landline telephones in their rooms. We did have five or six phones that connected with a student operated switch board with limited hours. As residents, we were supposed to be studying and phone calls were not permitted between 7 and 10 p.m. or between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. when we were supposed to be sleeping. We did have one pay phone in the lobby which the 100 residents of Funston House could use 24/7.

The talkathon started as a science experiment designed to see how long Southwestern Bell would allow a 10 cent phone call to go on. The experiment grew out of a bull session in the Funston lobby. One guy wondered how long he could talk for a dime and another guy happened to have the number of a pay phone located in a girls dorm (Moore Hall) on the other side of the campus.

The conversation started at 6:45 on a Monday evening. Though not warned of what we were doing, the girls were willing to join in and help with our prank.

From a casual and haphazard beginning the talkathon soon became organized. Schedules were established to make sure someone was always awake and manning the phones. No one had to talk more than 30 minutes at a time.

Free coffee was provided those manning the Funston House phone. For fear someone might hang up the phone, the phone hook was tied so the connection could not easily be broken.

The conversation continued for 191 hours. With proper scheduling and planning, it might have gone on longer but the dorms shut down for the Thanksiving Holiday at 6 p.m. the following Tuesday. Since all residents had to be out, the shutdown ended the long phone conversation.

In the girls’ dorm the participants provided more comfortable seating by adding a desk chair to the phone booth. They added a blanket and pillow because of drafts. A lounge chair was pulled up to the phone booth so the girls could prop their feet up while talking.

During my sophomore year at Kansas State University, I served as Funston House president. When the call began, I accepted it as a ho-hum event that wouldn’t last long. As the hours accumulated, I realized it was uniting the 100 guys who called Funston House their winter home. With their support, I was elected Marlatt Hall president that spring. The following year I won a seat on the inter-dorm council. And my last year at K-State I served on the university-wide Board of Student Publications. Leadership skills I learned in those years continue to be useful.

We must have conducted the talkathon during a slow news week. Reporters from around the globe spoke with us about what was going on. I remember a call from Hong Kong and one from England.

After Thanksgiving, a victory party was planned to let the participants meet who they had been talking to during the talkathon. Only we didn’t call it a party for a party implied activities the university did not condone. Instead it was called a victory social.

Remembering what big a deal the talkathon was, I went to the internet hoping to find more information. I’ve been told you can find everything on the internet but I couldn’t find a thing about our talkathon. I did find information about Marlatt Hall but not sure the information is up-todate

I watched a virtual tour of the building built in 1964 at a cost of $1.7 million. I thought it looked to be in excellent condition but I read elsewhere on the internet Marlatt Hall is the most dilapidated of the KSU dorms. I was surprised to see the two-person rooms now have loft beds. In my day, we had seven-foot long single beds bolted to the walls. The loft beds would give more floor space but I think I would prefer the original arrangement. When we had guests in our room, they sat on our beds. That doesn’t work with a loft bed. I had a big pillow so I could read while reclining on my bed.

The internet reported Marlatt was the university’s only all male dorm. Of all the university’s dorms, Marlatt was said to have the highest concentration of engineers and architects. I didn’t realize it, but that may have been true when I was there for I certainly had friends in both disciplines.

Marlatt was said to be one of only two KSU dorms with a darkroom. The Marlatt darkroom was an idea I promoted. When the idea was accepted, I was given a budget to equip the darkroom and had to teach a course on proper darkroom procedures. Before being given access to the darkroom, the photographers had to take and pass the course I taught. Apparently, I was wrong in assuming the darkroom closed soon after I left school.

Before the darkroom, I used a changing bag and developed my film in my room and the communal bathroom which was a few doors down the hall from my room. After developing my film and making sure I had the desired image, I either went on campus and used the journalism school darkroom or drove back to Superior and used my personal darkroom to make my prints. With today’s digital cameras, I don’t know why anyone would want to use a dormitory darkroom.

The Marlatt Hall history site didn’t have a single bit of information prior to 1972. I moved into the building on opening day in September of 1964 and left it for the last time in May of 1969. It wasn’t finished on opening day but classes started the next day and the housing office had rented all of the rooms.

I was invited back to attend a 50th year reunion of the building’s opening but did not attend.