The Norse Stars on the Campaign Trail

 October 1952

 A Mystery Ensues. Can you solve it? 

Left to Right: Zierta Foust, Pat Neel, Georganna McBee, Shirley Berry, ?, Nancy Schaff Ferguson, Dorothy Draeger, ?   
The uniforms shown above were each made by Hildreth Patrick, mother of Virginia Lee Wilson and grandmother to Tom Pat and Dr. Bob Wilson. 

How ironic that, during this season of ferocious campaigning for the Presidency, I should be writing about politics that relate to 1952 in my hometown of Miami, Oklahoma and the drill team that made history in 1952 (and later in 1953 with a performance at the Jr. College Rose Bowl).

If it had not been for Nancy Schaff Ferguson, I never would have known this colorful piece of Oklahoma history. Nancy Schaff was a member of the Norse Star drill team in 1952-53. She danced in the precision drill team the first two years of it’s inception under the direction of Virginia Lee Wilson. Nancy’s folks, Bernie and Helen Schaff were also good friends of my parents, Johnie and Helen Stapp.

On a warm August afternoon in Tulsa, Oklahoma this beautiful woman appeared at the desk of the Oklahoma Golf Magazine where I was selling my tribute to golf history “The History of the Miami, Oklahoma Golf and Country Club 1914-1984.”

She introduced herself and our connection with the Miami Golf and Country club. Thirty minutes later she handed me her copy of the LIFE magazine October 27, 1952, with instructions to give it to the Dobson Museum in Miami. There begins our story.

As an original member of this precision drill team for NEO A&M junior college she re

membered the excitement they shared at being asked to perform for the Democratic rally in Oklahoma City for Adlai Stevenson’s visit.

Between 1908 and 1948 Oklahoma voted Democratic for all but two elections. In the late summer and fall of 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower campaigned heavily throughout the old solid Democratic South in hopes of winning the election.

At this time in history (1952) the eleven states of the old Confederacy were lumped together as “the solid South” with 128 electoral votes for the Democratic party. However, there was a handful of vulnerable states for the Republicans to capture: Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama.

In his story, Robert T. Elson writes, "Oklahoma sat on the fringe of the Old South with "Little Dixie" known as the stronghold. The Democrats have remained loyal. The Oklahoma Democrats have energy and wealth on their side. Two Senators, Mike Monroney and Robert S. Kerr both energetically campaigned for Stevenson."

He goes on to write, "Even in 1948 when South Carolina's native son Strom Thurmond was running on the Dixiecrat ticket only 143,000 out of 480,000 registered voters went to the polls in November. But this year the Eisenhower invasion of the South has produced new highs in registration records and promises to bring out masses of new voters.

One voter explained, 'I am sick and tired of my vote being taken for granted. It is time for a change.'  In Ft. Worth 350 women representing 84 towns and cities paid their own way to attend a briefing on how to organize a precinct campaign." 

On November 4, 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower easily defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. (Southern states voting Republican were Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma.)  

It is lost to history as to who invited the Norse Stars to perform at Stevenson’s speech in Oklahoma City and who renamed them, “Democratic Belles,"  for that occasion? What is known is that our hometown drill team took center stage and kicked those lovely long legs and white boots proudly into the air on an October day in 1952.

Here is what I know:

I have names for five of the women in the first picture but no order:  Shirley Berry, Gearyanna McBee, LaDonna...., Phyllis Berkey, and Nancy Schaff. 

Who might the other young women be?

Who invited the Norse Stars to perform in OKC?

Who changed their name to the "Democratic Belles."? Jordan Boyd from the Dobson Museum shared a photo from the NEO 1952-53 yearbook in which the Norse Stars are marching in the parade and the quote reads "A performance by the Belles of Oklahoma." We are wondering the "Democratic Belles" was used as a particular performance as to be politically generic and no assimilating the college in any way in the naming.