The Clean-Cut Kid

One thing a pressagent cannot provide is a bachelor of science degree, magna cum laude, from Columbia University. This week Columbia's School of General Studies gave one to Pat Boone, boy singer (at 24, a whopping 20 million records claimed for him by Dot Records). Bland, brown-haired Pat has confounded the swamp dwellers of the music world because he leads a blameless home life, and he has delighted parents of teen-agers because, although he sometimes sings rock 'n' roll, he sings it in a damply pleasant voice and does not keep time with pelvic spasms.

Charles Eugene Boone first enrolled at Nashville's David Lipscomb College with the idea of becoming a teacher or a Church of Christ minister (he has given sermons as a lay preacher, dislikes nightclub dates because his church frowns on drinking and dancing). He studied for a while at North Texas State College, signed on at Columbia in 1956 as a speech major, English minor. Among his senior year courses: chamber music, third year Greek, history and theory of music, movie production. Extracurricular activities: recording sessions, rehearsals for his limp but likable TV show, ukulele concerts for his wife--who is his own age--and four daughters. He averaged six hours of sleep a night while working at Columbia, studied Ibsen on transcontinental flights, still managed to look buttercup-fresh in two movies made last year (he was Hollywood's third biggest dollar draw). Singer-Scholar Boone racked up an A-minus average, missed Phi Beta Kappa only because he took too many technical courses.

Next project for well-educated TV songbird Boone: helping set up a program of educational TV for Philadelphia's Northeastern Institute for Christian Education. His prophecy: "Television will be the greatest influence on education since Horace Mann."

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