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Frat guys, a cow and a rotunda
University of Virginia students go mad over cow
November 21, 1997
Web posted at: 6:08 a.m. EST (1108 GMT)From reporter Jonathan Aiken
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (CNN) -- Call it the great university cow caper. After years of speculation, the University of Virginia knows the culprits behind a prank that has long been the subject of mystery and local lore.
In the summer of 1965, a cow mysteriously ended up on top of the campus rotunda. More than 30 years later, University of Virginia graduate and current Nasdaq president Alfred Berkeley III has admitted that he and his friends orchestrated the stunt.
Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, the University of Virginia claims a proud history. It counts such noteworthy graduates as poet former president Woodrow Wilson and Supreme Court Justice Leroy B. Hassell among its alumni.
Back in May of 1965, however, Berkeley and several of his Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers became involved in the decidedly unpresidential prank.
Berkeley recalls a long-ago night involving an idea, a bovine and a rotunda.
"We had a cow that was given to us by the father of one of the fellows who was in this group and we put it on the roof of the rotunda, and then when it got to be sunlight, we went to classes and came back and there was a growing crowd of people on the lawn," he said.
After about two hours and a great deal of coaxing, Berkeley and his fraternity brothers carried the cow up a winding set of stairs to the roof of the rotunda, a half-scale version of the Roman Pantheon.
But what comes up does not necessary have to come down, as the students found out. The bovine died from an accidental overdose of Valium given to it by veterinarians.
Fraternity pranks are nothing new, and many are the stuff of legend. But professor Raymond Bice, who saw the calf the day of the prank, said stunts like this are rare on Mr. Jefferson's campus.
"We don't have many pranks here. Many universities do, but we don't have many pranks and so it wasn't something we were expecting at all. And the students didn't seem to think this was very funny," Bice says.
The caper remained a mystery for 30 years, until Berkeley confessed his role in the mystery at an alumni dinner. An alumni magazine picked up the confession, and it caught the eye of George Bailey.
As the sheriff of Albermarle County in May of 1965, Bailey had expended a great deal of time and effort trying to find the culprits behind the prank. He even searched local farms for missing cattle, to no avail.
Bailey wrote to the Nasdaq president and spoke to him on the phone. Berkeley agreed to donate money to a local animal rescue squad equal to the sheriff's expenses.
"I estimated about how much money I was making at the time. I think it averaged out about $30 a day ... and it came to $1,765. And so when I wrote the letter Mr.Berkeley called me up and laughingly said that looked right high but he was going to send me a check," Bailey says.
And now, Alfred Berkeley's name will forever be associated with the university and a cow on a rotunda.
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