Remembering the Magic of Dolphy Day… 40 Years Later

Steve Ripley ‘77 was just a small-town kid from Hamilton, NY— one of about 70 graduates from his high school and a good basketball player. He heard about Le Moyne from a high school referee who thought he’d be a good fit at the Heights. So Steve became a business major, played basketball, and was an all-around fun guy to hang out with.

He was also the Wizard for the Class of ‘77.

Being on the basketball team, Steve met a lot of the students involved with the Dolphy Day festivities, one of them being Fran “Hoj” Hojnacki ‘76, a fellow wizard.  When Steve moved into Foery Hall in ‘76 with a bunch of seniors, he found himself among the group who would take over the celebration that year. “That’s how it was passed down,” he says. “I don’t know how it happened but these were the people—it was just this secret thing.” “Hoj” was picked by fellow friend (and wizard) Billy Holmes ’75. “Hoj” then passed it down to Steve, who became the College’s sixth “wizard” for its annual Dolphy Day celebration.

For Steve, there was no fussing with lighting torches, the senior class procession, or even the “scares” that have become synonymous with recent celebrations.

In ‘77, it was all about the day.

“When it’d start to become spring time, you’d stay up all night watching the weather report. People would start to get antsy—they want the day off. They want sit up on that wall and drink beer and listen to music,” he says.

“It was all about waking up and finding out.”

To let the campus know that it was Dolphy Day, he threw toilet paper at the trees the night before and waited. “It was about the day and you just prayed that it was going to be nice.”

Breaking with tradition, Steve brought in a band called “Homegrown” to play at the celebration, a small band from the town where he grew up that played covers of The Allman Brothers Band and The Doobie Brothers. “It was a good time to be young, even though politically it wasn’t a good time to be young. It was just non-stop fun.”

After his reign as Wizard came to an end, Steve went on to live an equally exciting (and, at times, just as spontaneous) life. After graduation, he moved around the country and took on as many opportunities as he could. He lived in Wyoming, in a log cabin on top of a mountain; in Tennessee, where he worked at the Opryland Hotel; and in Texas before moving back to Central New York. He started a sound company that brought the pop rock band Orleans, reggae stars Toots and the Maytalls, folk singers The Burns Sisters, and the “Queen of the Blues” Koko Taylor to Ithaca, NY.

He eventually went back to school to Upstate Medical University’s Medical Imaging Science/ Radiography (X-Ray) program. There, he met his wife of 20 years and has had a successful career as a radiology technician. “When you get to be where I am now and you look back on it,” he said, considering his journey from his time as Wizard to now, “if you’re happy, then the journey was worth it—with all the pratfalls and pitfalls and everything that goes along with it. It was worth every second of it.”

And how does he feel about his legacy as the Wizard as the Class of ‘77 approaches its fortieth reunion?  “I think it was something that I could kind of hang my hat on, because this is a big deal for thousands of people that have gone through this campus,” he says. “Every time I see somebody out and they have a Le Moyne jacket on, I’ll go ‘you can tell your kids or your parents that you just talked to the Wizard. And they’ll go ‘… you were the Wizard?’ in disbelief.”  And while he may be relieved of his duties of toilet papering the trees and announcing the day campus-wide, as a fellow wizard, Steve helps keep the spirit alive. “On Facebook, I’ll say: ‘Hey kids—it’s Dolphy Day—go outside and enjoy the day.’”

“Dolphy Day is a celebration of whatever you want to celebrate—a celebration of being together, of being young and alive.”

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Business Administration
Madden School of Business