The 1960s were a time of change – a time that crowned crooks out of kings and drafted a generation of young men to war in the dense jungles of Vietnam.

Prior to the Kennedy assassination and Richard Nixon backlash, NIU was relatively unscathed by any of the later radicalism.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, NIU students dressed in shin-length skirts, checkerboard vests and sport coats, with thick, black, wire-rimmed glasses and flipped-out or pompadour hair styles, according to photographs from the Northern Star archives.

On Feb. 22, 1963, students voted 1,972 to 850 to approve a proposal to build a $1.75 million stadium – Huskie Stadium.

Also, NIU student support for the war against communism was in full swing prior to President Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration and political destruction.

In a student poll, “Existence with Reds Can Be Peaceful,” NIU alumna Mary Alive Borrowdale said, “The communists tend to lead to policies that we cannot accept or adhere to. We cannot trust the communists to do anything but what they’ve said -they will destroy us.”

Soon a country united became a country divided over the decade. Marred by racial tension and violence in the later years, the 1960s commenced with a “Leave it to Beaver” innocence, shattered by former president John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

“People were captivated by him; he was so much more glamorous than the guy he succeeded. He was this glamorous, younger guy with the movie star-looking wife with kids,” said Dan Distelheim, editor of the Northern Star in 1963.