Students and faculty gather to celebrate union birthday

ERIC M. JUKELEVICS/Arizona Daily Wildcat

Billy Joe Varney, director of the Student Union from 1958-1985, right, enjoys a piece of the Memorial Student Union's 50th birthday cake, Friday behind the newly build Student Union Memorial Center, with the current Union director Dan Adams. Approximately 40 people attended the '50s-themed party, which honored the original Memorial Student Union's founding in 1951.

Students donned 1950s costumes and danced the jitterbug to celebrate the Student Union's 50th birthday on Friday.

Approximately 40 people attended the '50s-themed party, which honored the original Memorial Student Union's founding in 1951. That union was demolished last year to make way for the new Student Union Memorial Center, scheduled to be completed in December 2002.

"I thought it was a fun crowd," said Christina Lieberman, coordinator of campus activities and union galleries.

Lieberman said she would have liked a larger group of people but was still pleased with the turnout.

"I was hoping for more people to stumble back here, but all the cake was gone," she said.

Billy Joe Varney, director of the Student Union from 1958-1985, remembered some of his favorite moments during his time working at the old union, including a time when he found an Arizona State University Sun Devil flag on the clock tower.

Varney said that without even thinking, he climbed the brick clock tower to pull it down. He said he did it to make sure no one would find out about the flag.

Later, Varney said he wondered if it was really worth it.

"I thought to myself, 'you dumb cluck, you could have killed yourself,'" he said.

Varney said that while he was director, he tried to maintain an open-door policy for students.

"I came to the student union when I was 28. I was like an older brother to the students," he said.

The construction of the Memorial Student Union in 1951 replaced a more informal gathering area - located in the former Women's Physical Education Facilities building next to the Administration building - that was nicknamed "The Coop."

Students there played card games and used the music library, which was equipped with individual music rooms.

Varney said he was sad that the old union was demolished, but that it was for the best and that the new union is in capable hands.

"(Arizona student Unions Director) Dan Adams has done a great job," he said. "They couldn't have found a better individual to deal with the planning and construction."

The old Memorial Student Union - which cost just less than $1 million to build - honored students and faculty who had died in world disputes.

The new Student Union Memorial Center - which has an estimated price of $60 million - will keep a similar theme. When it is completed, it will look like the side of the USS Arizona, a battleship that was sunk during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

It will also display pictures and objects once housed in the old student union that memorialize lost soldiers.