Comedian, Musician and Athlete

- Bison Photo by Orvis Kline

Neil was a comedian, a musician and an athlete. Who can forget his hilarious Downbeat duos with Denny Boal?

He loved jazz and played the xylophone and saxophone in small groups and in the Downbeat. There’s an Orvis Kline photo in the 1959 Bison of Neil in beatnik garb (see photo above, at the top of this Neil Buckley posting) on a huge saxophone (believe it’s called the contrabass sax) with Tom Trout and Amos Hixon. Hilarious.

At various times, he ran track and played JV football, basketball, and baseball. He didn’t particularly excel at any of them, but at least he was on the field. In the 1959 Bison, he was voted the "wittiest male" by his classmates.

A bit of his rebellious personality also began to emerge. He called his mother “Helen - not Mom or Mother. Helen. For most of us, such “disrespect” would have warranted a good slap on the back of the head. But Helen, being Helen, simply rode with it. Or maybe even encouraged it.