mare to a with the catch avoid be by first BLM have of would the about bureau the she said. that past collect range, with all the one Past, Present--Future? Sundowners--Evolution Of a UNR Social Group transport Sundowners--what are they? Perhaps a better way to put it is Sundowners -- what have they been, what are they now? It was tough to get a handle on the 54-year-old University of Nevada social group Monday in the wake of the drinking bout death Sunday of 23- year-old Sundowner initiate John Davies. (See related stories Page 1) That was because no member of the group was available for comment. So, piecing together a portrait of the evolution groups over the years relied mainly on recollections of past members and old newspaper clips. "That's just no way to treat a chicken." That's the way Nevada Humane Society official Ruth Bay said she felt Monday about the relationship of years' standing between the Sundowners and their feathered trademarks. "They have, though, been getting tamer in recent years," she said. University sources and former Sundowners, such as university placement officer Sam Basta, say the group was founded in 1921 as a meeting point for world travelers anxious to swap stories of their travels. "As I recall," said Basta, 1936 Sundowner president, "right after World War II it started to degenerate in a drinking club." But they ain't what they used to be, he suggested. "The present Sundowners attempt to dignify themselves by association with the name," he said. Retired Reno newsman Ty Cobb recalled the Sundowners of the late 1930's. "We were called Sundowners of the Sagebrush," he said, "and it was a good fellowship organization. "We got a little boisterous at times and we did some drinking. But we didn't have drinking tests or any of that stuff." He did recall, however, the famous Sundowner "chicken chases;" when caged cacklers were turned loose and aspiring Sundowners had to catch them and then sell them to sororities which were supposed to cook them for dinner. The original club soon evolved into a campus-wide fellowship society bent on instilling good relations between fraternity residents and dormitory students, Basta recalled. It met annually back then and its emblem and initiation ceremonies were in Latin, he said. But he, too, recalled the Sundowners' early association with feathered fowl and trains. "Later," he said, "the club started a few silly things. For initiation in the late '20s prospective n~.crr.bcrs had to hop a freight to Berkeley and back. "This practice was discontinued when an initiate was injured." He said the hobo theme continued with the homecoming "chicken chase" in which Sundowners would buy or steal a chicken, take it to a favored sorority and exchange it for a meal. That tradition may have become a bit garbled as it passed down through the years. Present Sundowners reportedly were required to bite the head off a live chicken they had carried with them for weeks or days Basta could not say whether this definitely evolved from the oldtime practice of chasing the chicken and eating at the sorority. Any comparison between the old- time Sundowners and the present group is unjust, Basta said. He called the death of Davies a horrible tragedy which leaves him with "a cold blank feeling." The headlines of a decade and more depict the club's decline: "Chicken-slaying Youths/ Overdo Humor in Bar" -- October, 1965. Here, tavern operator John Mondelli tossed several Sundowners out the Siamese Room after, he said, they snapped the neck off a chicken and swung it around, spraying blood in bar. Mondelh asked them to leave. They left. And a rock came crashing through his window. The chicken reposed headless on the sidewalk outside. "Sundowner President Arrested" -- April, 1967. Here, Reno police collared the club president, on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor which reportedly stemmed from a police raid on a dance at Washoe County Fairgrounds. Twenty persons including minors were arrested in that raid and reported to possess liquor be under its influence. Sundowner Emblem "Three Students Seeking Props Land in Jail" -- November 1960, Here, Sundowner hopefuls were jailed as chicken thieves as police reported finding one standing by a at Threlkel's Ball Park with two friends inside nearby chicken cages. They wer seeking chickens for club initiation rites, the police reported and a search of the car uncovered three brown chickens, one white one and a turkey. "Fed Up With Chicken Thieves -Lady Farmer Chases Youths Off Her Ranch With a Rifle" -- May, 1974. Here, Spanish Springs rancher Carrie Fishburn took a two-by-four five bearded youths who told her were looking for initiation chickens when she caught them in her coop. They were "drunker'n skunks," she said, and she sent them packing, chickens, with her thirty-ought-six rifle. To be sure, some of the old clips detail the club's also-traditional good works including raising money for churches, rounding up old toys to Santa Claus, and establishing scholarships. "So many of us oldtime Sundowners don't like to make any comparison with the present organization," said Basta. Former Sundowners, from the 1920s and 1920s \vcr.t or. to bccorr.c prominent men, both in Nevada and nationally, Basta said. Members in those days included many faculty members and usually the football coach. Many former members are pillars of the educational community. Two oldtime Sundowners have local high schools named after them: Procter Hug and Earl Wooster. Other former members include John Robb, administrative assistant with the Washoe County School District; John Sala, superintendent of buildings and grounds at the university; Dr. Russ Elliot, history and political science professor and author of Nevada history books. Other alumni of the Sundowners who gained prominence include Louis Spitz, executive director of the Motor Vehicles Department in Washington, D.C., William Gilmartin, official with the World Bank's Far Eastern Division, the late Roy Bankofier, former Reno mayor and the late William Cashill, former speaker of the Nevada Assembly.