Friday, October 17, 2014

Spirit the Tiger


As part of the homecoming events today, there was a fancy luncheon, and then a visit to the RIT archives, where the curators had arranged a whole collection of items from 1964 for us to look over, including copies of the student newspaper and photographs.  Oh, and the tiger.  "Why the tiger?" you might ask.  Well, in 1963 a tiger cub was acquired to be the RIT mascot.  It was so cute, and students would lead it around the campus on a leash, and bring it to sporting events.  Within a year or so it got too big, and I guess too dangerous, so the tiger was given to the Rochester Zoo.  We learned today that it died in the zoo at about age 2.  So they brought the remains of the tiger to a taxidermist, and now "Spirit the Tiger" lives on in the archives.

2 comments:

  1. I am impressed that the curators put so much together for your reunion.
    Joan

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  2. Cannot believe the size of the head for such a young tiger. I probable would have been one of those students parading the tiger @ campus :-) bsk

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