FSCW: no boys allowed

Just call them the boys of summer.

For nine months of the year, Florida State College for Women was true to its name. But in the summers of the 1930s, it opened its doors to men.

Fitzhugh Carter and Rex Yates were two of the first boys of summer. They were already teachers when they enrolled in summer school to meet state requirements for renewing their teaching certificates.

Carter, now 88, was the older of the two "crazy country boys" who lived near Chipley. He and Yates roomed together just outside the college gates in a two-story boarding house on Macomb Street.

"We couldn't go inside the dormitories," recalled the 80-year-old Yates. "We'd stand on the lawn and yell up to the girls on the second floor."

But in the classroom, "we were treated just like any other student," he said. Except maybe in square dancing class, where the young men were recruited by a teacher delighted to have male partners for her students.

Economics - not "pretty girls" - led Carter and Yates to FSCW. Carter's first choice wouldn't accept the "due bills" or promissory notes he was paid with as a teacher. For Yates, Tallahassee was close enough so he could go home on the weekends to save money on food.

The men roomed together for two summers at FSCW, and then attended the all-male University of Florida. The Army interrupted Yates' education after three years, but Carter earned his degree in 1939 and continued to teach school until 1957.

Now retired, Carter and Yates still live within 20 miles of each other and share a love for hunting and fishing. And they share fond memories of a summer place called FSCW. - Judy Taylor Cramer