HAPPY BIRTHDAY HERKY!
In 1948 Dick Spencer III, a journalism professor at University of Iowa, was teaching a course on political cartooning when a contest by the Athletic Department caught his eye: illustrate a new Hawkeye mascot. After sitting in the University of Iowa Natural History Museum and sketching hawks, Spencer drew a hurried caricature of what would later be known as Herky. His illustration won the contest and the impish hawk became the official mascot for the University of Iowa Athletics Department. Today marks the first day that Herky was pictured in the Daily Iowan. So happy birthday to a real chirp off the old block.
For more on our feathered friend: http://magazine.foriowa.org/story.php?ed=true&storyid=1769.
Images from Dick Spencer III Collection: RG30.0001.048