Pomp and Circumstance

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(Image: OSU spring commencement, 1997) Ohio Stadium has served as the setting to many memorable occasions for OSU graduates. It has been home to nearly every spring commencement ceremony since 1928, and has witnessed a variety of pageantry, firsts and unusual student displays. In 1986, graduating dentists, doctors and optometrists got a little too rowdy for some during the spring graduation ceremony. The dentists, with high-flying balloons announcing "We ain't afraid of no teeth" were seemingly outdone by the optometrists, who had hired an airplane to fly over the Stadium, hauling the message "Optometry '86, You Look Mahvelous". The horseplay caused OSU President Ed Jennings to advise the College of Dentistry to have a separate ceremony the next year, with hopes to avoid the disruptive behavior. But sometimes, the outcome of an outdoor ceremony is beyond anyone's control. Shortly after commencement exercises started on Friday, June 13th, 1997, a downpour caused the ceremony to be cancelled - for only the second time in University history. Soaked graduates waded in knee-deep water in the end zone before relocating to the French Field House to receive their degrees. In a follow-up letter to the graduating students, President E. Gordon Gee noted that "One graduate remarked that she wasn't sure she had graduated, but was certain she had been baptized."