"Lost Battalion"

The five oldsters--four men and a woman--were not the sort to badger officials, but something had made them desperate. Last week they trooped into the office of Colorado's Governor Dan Thornton to present a special petition. "Governor," said one of the men, "I'll bet you a cowboy hat and a new pipe that you can't match this story any place in the U.S."

The petitioners had come on behalf of 18 retired professors from Colorado A & M. Their average age is 77.6, and they served on the faculty an average of 32 years. Among them, they have 21 advanced degrees, have headed the college's major departments, have written scores of articles and books. But each retired before either the state or the college had an adequate pension program. Since retirement, the 18 have been living on an average monthly annuity of $60.25.

To make ends meet, the retired professors have been forced to take up odd jobs. One runs the local community-chest drive, another works for the Masons, still another serves as a part-time consultant to a big Colorado cattleman. The former head of the chemistry department has worked as a printer in a Fort Collins print shop, but to supplement his monthly $37.14, his wife must baby-sit. Professor G. A. Schmidt, author of six textbooks on agriculture, has worked as an 80/-an-hour land appraiser, and Entomologist Miriam A. Palmer, an expert on aphids, receives only $39.97 a month after 48 years of service. Professor Burton O. Longyear, who founded the department of forestry, last year spent the last of his life's savings ($5,000) on his wife's doctor's bills; now, at 85, he has nothing left to live on except $46.73 a month.

Sad Miss Inga Allison, onetime dean of the home-economics division: "In our active years, we taught from 7:30 in the morning till 5 at night. We were the student-loan fund. We loaned our money without regard for whether we might get it back. We all made personal and financial sacrifices, and we did so gladly, because it was for the good of the school. Now, many of us won't be here long. We want to think that we can meet our last expenses out of our own resources. We don't want to be stripped down to our last cent before we die."

Said Governor Thornton: "These folks are a lost battalion." Something, he promised, would be done.

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