Buying rings wasn’t just for Valentine’s Day, 54 years ago

Throughout the year in 1965, local stores placed ads in the La Crosse State campus newspaper, selling diamond rings and other types of rings…apparently, in case students were planning to get engaged.  One issue of the Racquet featured jewelry ads from Doerflinger’s, Crescent, and Cremer’s Jewelry.  

A small ad in the Tribune asked the question ‘Are you afraid of Virginia Woolf?’  The ad was promoting a one-night stand for the Broadway play ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ at the Vocational Auditorium downtown.  Ads described the Edward Albee play as ‘hilarious and electric.’  The following year, it would be made into a hit movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  

The La Crosse Chamber of Commerce added to its list of celebrity speakers for the annual banquet, by inviting CBS reporter Harry Reasoner to speak at the Sawyer Auditorium for the ’65 dinner.  Reasoner, formerly from the Twin Cities, told the La Crosse audience that the truth ‘is more elusive now, and more concealed.’  He also said some news reporting was ‘pretty bad, but improving.’  The week after the banquet, Reasoner hosted a CBS news special about bridges, written by future ’60 Minutes’ commentator Andy Rooney.  The Chamber was wild about Harry in 1965, yesterday in La Crosse.