Crestubilee

In Creston, Iowa (pop. 8,317), high-school graduation time was approaching, and parents were worried.

Custom in Creston, as in hundreds of small towns across the U.S., demands that the high-school kids take off after the annual senior prom and speed merrily around the countryside until dawn. As plans rolled along for the traditional all-night sprees, the elders frowned, though not entirely on moral grounds. Auto accidents worried them most: in the May 1-June 10 periods since 1946, 50 Iowa teen-agers have died on the highways, most of them on prom night. The all-night graduation rite has long been prevalent, but it took on a sort of tomorrow-we-die bravado during World War II, when most male graduates went directly from high-school commencement to the induction centers. Since the Korean war, it has grown worse.

Creston's worried parents scouted around, found that the grownups of Eldora, Wapello, Clinton, Columbus Junction and other Iowa towns had met the menace by offering an annual community-sponsored all-night fling. Last week Creston tried the same remedy. Druggist Rex L. Mitchell sparked the party, got 33 local organizations to cooperate. The junior and senior classes approved the plans, added stipulations: 1) no teachers allowed after the prom, 2) other adults could serve food and drive the cars but were in no way to act like chaperons. The kids picked a name for the fling: "Crestubilee," for "Creston Student Jubilee."

Jackets to Jeans. The Crestubilee got under way at a big banquet in the high-school gym, beneath a giant, school-painted mural of Waikiki Beach. After dinner the basketball floor was cleared and a band, imported from Des Moines, struck up. At 11 p.m. everyone proceeded to the Uptown Theater for a "Hollywood First Night." Searchlights probed the sky and more than 1,000 Crestonians pressed against the ropes and ogled the kids as they went up the blue carpet past photographers and radio interviewers to see a Technicolored musical, The Girl Next Door.

At 2 a.m. the youngsters were chauffeured home, changed from filmy evening gowns and white dinner jackets to jeans, skirts and blouses. Next stop was the Elks' Lodge, where supper was waiting. There were hot dogs, half-pound hamburgers, sandwiches and deviled eggs. After supper there was a floor show featuring a lady ventriloquist from Kansas City, who had been tipped to the names and peccadilloes of members of the senior class.

Boxcars to Breakfast. At 4 a.m. the floor was cleared for more dancing--much more enthusiastic dancing than at the gym--and at 5 o'clock the party moved to the depot for a train "trip to the Orient" (Orient being a hamlet twelve miles away). The orchestra hit it up in a boxcar between two coaches, and the boys & girls who were too weary to dance either necked or threw confetti out the windows on the sleeping countryside. Two hours later, as the train clattered back into Creston, past the water tower, the band broke into Auld Lang Syne. It was 7 a.m., past sunup, but the party went on for another hour and a half at a breakfast at the Eagles' Lodge. In the end, 156 youngsters out of 183 had gone the nonstop, 14-hour course.

Next day the kids did something unprecedented. They paid for a three-column bread & butter note in the Creston News Advertiser: "Thanks to the people of Creston. We had such a good time . . . We'll never forget."

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