Ethel's Jayhawk: An Introduction

The Item

In February of 2014, my neighbor here in Lawrence, KS, Ann Hedrick, brought over one of the most unique pieces of University of Kansas Jayhawk memorabilia that I had seen.

It is a 2 x 1.5 feet Jayhawk, handsewn and felt. We'd never seen one before. My stepfather, Joe Ruocco, of Rock's Dugout Cards and Memorabilia in Wichita, KS, a noted expert in the field, had never seen one before. What was the back story on this piece?

This introduction is a summary of our work. The tabs above will take you to further photos and discussion of our materials. 

Provenance

From a letter by Ann:

I acquired this 1923-style handmade Jayhawk from Ethel Margaret Hinds Burch, a student at the University of Kansas in the mid-1920. She and her husband, Vance Lindill Burch, became friends of my family when they taught with my father at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Ethel and Vance had no children, and they knew that I had gone to KU and wanted me to have this piece. 

Ethel told about being a member of the Jay Janes, a women's pep club at KU, while she was a student. She said each member made their own felt Jayhawk. According to information in later years found in the Jayhawker yearbook, the handmade Jayhawks were displayed in car and train windows as they traveled to out of town football games.

Ethel Margaret Hinds Burch was born in Missouri on January 22, 1906, and married Vance Lindill Burch on May 29, 1937, in Jackson County, Missouri. Ethel taught drama and theater at Pasadena Community College, Pasadena, California, for most of her working life. She died on March 1, 1976, in San Marcus, California, where she and Vance lived in retirement. She is buried in Cass County, MO, with her husband.

There is a grant for a Graduate Assistant given each year in the Drama and Theater Department at KU in Ethel's name, established by her trust after the death of her husband in 1996.

Ethel, then Ethel Margaret Hinds, had been a student at KU in the 1920s. Before she met her husband, Vance, a graduate of Kansas State University, Ethel had been active in the KU community. In her years at KU, Ethel participated in the Dramatic Club, the History Club, and we are told, the Jay Janes, an early women's pep club at KU. As a member of the Jay Janes, founded at KU in November 1923, we are told that Ethel and her fellow club member sewed these Jayhawks to use to show spirit in car and train windows at away games.  

As Ann and I worked to confirm this information, our mystery began. 

Ethel at KU

In our attempt to confirm that Ethel did sew this Jayhawk as a member of the Jay Janes, Ann and I both turned to yearbooks from her time there to confirm photographically Ethel's time at KU and the use of this felt Jayhawk. 

While we were able to find Ethel at KU in the 1926 and 1927 Yearbooks, we were not able to confirm that she was a member of the Jay Janes in her junior or senior year. Click Here for Ethel at KU. That does not mean she wasn't a member of the Janes in her sophomore year or that she didn't join later in her junior or senior year. She's just not pictured. 

The "Duck" Jayhawk

We can confirm that this Jayhawk is in the fashion of the mascot used at the time she was at KU. 

Nicknamed the "Duck" Jayhawk, this version was created in 1922 by James O'Bryon and George Hollingbery. Students and artists at KU, the pair devised this Jayhawk to paint on the windshields of any cars that would caravan to Lincoln, NE, for the annual KU vs. Nebraska football game. O'Bryon and Hollingbery continued to the paint the mascot throughout the year on windshields and store fronts in Lawrence to show the KU spirit. The university adopted it as the official mascot between 1923-1929. Click Here for the History of the Jayhawk.

The Jay Janes

The Jay Janes, conceived in November 1923 for primarily upperclasswomen, were the first women's pep club at KU, serving to complement the men's cheer club, the KU KU Klub. While the men were know as a rowdy bunch, the women's club was focused not only on cheer but also on service to the university through fundraising and service projects. 

We are told that the felt Jayhawk was sewn as part of a Jay Janes spirit initiative, carried by the women on the fields or placed on the windshields of cars in caravans to away football games, in the spirit of O'Bryon and Hollinbery's original concept of painting the mascot on the windshield. Click Here for a variety of articles on the Jay Janes.

Bud Jennings and the Jayhawk

Yes, we have spoken to the foremost collector of Jayhawks, Bud Jennings. Mr. Jennings has spent most of his life collecting Jayhawks. Recently, KU, with a generous donation from James J. and Mary Ellen Ascher, purchased the collection of more than 1,000 unique pieces. While KU owns the bulk of his Jayhawks, Mr. Jennings still maintains a special stash. And he was quite interested in Ann's Jayhawk. He had never seen one like it, but he did say it fits the type of item that would come from the 1920s.
Click Here for a great overview of the collector himself.
Click Here for more from our interview with Mr. Jennings.