38 ForOregonState.org/Stater " KARL MAASDAM; OSU SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES Nº HISTºRY BENNY’S 1941 One of the earliest mentions of a beaver named Benny — “who laughed in the red faces of experts” after the college broke Stanford football’s 1941 13-game winning streak — appeared in the 1942 yearbook. Made of wood, chicken wire and plaster of Paris, this Benny was wheeled into football games by the Rally Squad. It met its unfortunate demise in the fall of 1945 when it was “smashed to death by unknown assailants,” according to the Oregon Stater. The editor of the Daily Barometer, Bob Knoll, ’48, warned against seeking retribution: “Dynamiting of certain southern branch installations will not bring poor dead Benny back on this Earth.” ↗Today’s Benny, with his distinctive nose and buck teeth, has been around since 2005. Rumor has it that his head and costumes — along with the heads of all previous Bennys — are tucked away in a special room in Gill Coliseum. How long has Benny been Benny? The Daily Barometer reported “pasteboard replicas of the Benny Beaver and Donald Duck families” decorating the walls for an inter-school dance way back in 1937. (Admission was 80 cents per couple.) But his transformation into the o! cial school mascot — and a traditional part of game days — took a little longer. Here are some highlights: BECºMING BENNY
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