Keith Eiken, 57, brought national publicity to Theta Chapter and himself during his recent campaign or student Body president. Keith used the slogan “I LIKE Ike as the major part of his campaign publicity. The chapter notified national Republican headquarters of the “other Ike for president during 1956” campaign which was brewing on the OWU campus. The Republicans promised that 1,500 “I Like Ike” buttons would be shipped post haste.
Having received the promise of assistance from such elevated levels, the chapter publicity machine went to work. The university publicity director came to the house to get a picture of “Eik” with an “Ike” button and one of the large “I Like Ike” signs which was to adorn the campus during the campaign. The picture and an article appeared on the front page of the DelawareGazette the following day.
With front-page publicity proclaiming the fact that the buttons were “appearing all over campus” and the Beta Breakfast drawing nigh, concern set in because the buttons had not arrived. A second phone call to Washington, D. C., brought the promise that another batch of buttons would be shipped immediately. Just before the Beta Breakfast, all 3,000 buttons arrived!
After the buttons had arrived, a telegram was sent to the other Ike campaign. We received a telegram during the middle of the campaign wishing us luck. It was signed “Ike.”
The AP and UP picked the story up from the Columbus papers and sent it all over the country. It appeared in Keith’s home-town Louisville, Ky., papers with a cartoon entitled “When EIK means IKE.” One of the brothers who is no longer in school wrote us a letter to say that he had seen the article in the New YorkHerald-Tribune and had heard an announcement on Schenectady, New York radio.
All the publicity was to no avail, however, as Keith was beaten in the election. Maybe the defeat was due to the hypocrisy of the publicity and aid we had received- Keith is, as the newspapers pointed out, a leader in OWU’s Young Democrat Club.
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