GARY ANDERSON DAY, OCTOBER 26, 1964

GARY ANDERSON DAY, OCTOBER 26, 1964

After Gary won his Olympic gold medal and returned home from Tokyo, Hastings College and the City of Hastings (Nebraska) organized a huge welcome home celebration for Gary, with a downtown parade that included dozens of school bands from the surrounding area.    

Gary returned from Tokyo to Denver with some other U. S. Olympic team members.   Hastings College arranged for Ruth Ann to travel by train (Union Pacific Railway) from Hastings to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Ruth Ann’s parents (Virgil and Helen Bell) lived. They drove to Denver to meet Gary’s plane.

After a weekend in Cheyenne, Gary, Ruth Ann, Virgil and Helen Bell traveled by plane—it was a company plane provided by the Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas Company--from Cheyenne to Hastings where the big welcome home parade for Nebraska’s Olympic Hero was ready to unfold.   Greeting Gary on his arrival at the Hastings airport were his parents, Roy and Ruby Anderson, his sister Karen Hulce, and step-sister Peggy Erickson, plus close friends, well wishers and the press. 

Ruth Ann and Gary arrive at the airport

Gary meets his parents at the airport 

Gary's father Roy greeted Gary with a firm handshake and asked if it would be all right to take a picture of him (Roy) with Gary and Fred Mayberry and Maurice Knutson, the men he was farming with the day Gary won his medal. 

Ruth Ann wore a blue suit ensemble and hat she made for a 4-H project, and an Olympic pin with a pearl attached.  A reporter asked if Gary had marriage in mind, to which he responded, "One step at a time."

"One Step at a Time"

Pin for Olympic athletes with pearl attached.

At a press conference at the airport, Gary, wearing the official dress uniform of the Olympic Team and with the gold medal around his neck, told reporters he needed a few days to get caught up after missing 30 days of classwork.  He “took some books along to study, but didn’t really get a chance to look at them.”  Gary told reporters the shooting team went to Tokyo fully expecting to win, full of confidence after the 1962 World Shooting Championships in Cairo.  He said the rifle team proved in Cairo that the Russians were not 12 feet tall  (See “1157”).

He said, “When you stand on the gold medal stand and hear the National Anthem, you realize that the sacrifice and hard work was worth the effort; you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the personal satisfaction of accomplishing an extremely difficult goal.  Then, when you come home, you have another reward – the warmth of the people, your people; their enthusiasm, their responses, that made it all so special.” 

Gary with Danny Olson, personal hometown friend

 

A motorcade took Gary, Ruth Ann and honored guests down the parade route in downtown Hastings and to the reviewing stand.  Eight thousand admirers welcomed the Olympic Hero.    All Hastings schools were dismissed early that day.   The Hastings High School, Central Catholic High School and Hastings College bands, pep clubs and precision drill teams participated in the parade.  Gary's hometown of Axtell also sent their high school band.   Several civic clubs had parade entries, including Gary's Optimist Junior Rifle Club.

The reviewing stand included Major General Lyle Welch, Adjutant General of the State of Nebraska and Commanding General of the Nebraska National Guard, who was the featured speaker (Gary was a Lieutenant in the National Guard and Executive Officer of C Company, 128^th Engineer Battalion in Grand Island, NE); Hastings Mayor Lyle Schuster, who proclaimed the day in Gary’s honor; Dr. Harrold Shiffler a Hastings College professor, who served as Master of Ceremonies, and Hastings College President Dr. Theron Maxson, who welcomed Gary back to the campus and called him Hastings College’s “favorite son.”

Gary and Ruth Ann on the reviewing stand.

Gary spoke briefly to the crowd, "someone said American youth are soft.  Our Olympic Team proved in Tokyo that American youth can work to conquer the highest challenges.  As a young boy, I dreamed of standing on an Olympic victory stand and hearing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ played in honor of an American victory.   On October 15th, by the grace of God, my dream came true."

Gary was overwhelmed by the turnout in his honor.   The greatest praise, however, came from hundreds of youngsters who swarmed around the reviewing stand after the ceremony eager to clutch his hand, touch his medal and get his autograph.  He said “now is not the time for words, it is a time for deep emotional feeling that cannot be expressed in any way but to say Thank You.”