CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
It's been said that "An actual size pencil is a commonplace of daily life which we look at without reaction, but a giant pencil makes us think of pencils in a new and original light" (American Stationer, 1922). From St. Patrick's 1962 yearbook.
A caution to writers: a celestial globe is like spell-checking software, in that once you grow accustomed to having it, dependency grows. A celestial globe is one of the many tools we use for writing our lesser-known works of esoterica.
A strange trend in old yearbooks: men with unexpected lower halves. Top photo: Maryland's 1989 yearbook. Bottom photo: Virginia Commonwealth University's 1990 yearbook.