Alan Twedt ‘57 was a happy-go-lucky, good-looking fellow who was a good athlete (He had played on both the 1956 and 1957 Milford Basketball teams that won the Story County Basketball Championships). Naturally he was a member of the baseball squad and on that baseball team he played shortstop.
One day at spring baseball practice, the coach was hitting some grounders to the infield players. He hit one at Alan. (We all called him Tweedy Bird) Ol’ Tweedy Bird simply puts his glove down to the ground at full arm’s length, lifts his chin and turns his face to the side. “Good golly, Tweedy Bird, stay down on the ball-- it can’t hurt you!!” the coach yells at him. “Here, take another.” as he hits him a blue darter grounder. Zip, Zip the ball darts across the ground and that second zip it jumps up and hits ol’ Tweedy Bird smack on the mouth. Well, Mr Alan Twedt has just had his four upper front teeth knocked loose and they don’t recover so he lost his four front teeth.
Tweedy Bird makes lemonade out of lemons, and gets a special set of front teeth made and somehow gets the word “Cyclones” embossed on the teeth so when he smiled, there’s the ISU message smiling at you
Alan passed away in Sept of 2002 shortly after retirement and moving to Florida. He had just finished his routine morning jog on the beach.
In High School, Alan often danced on WOI “17” and won many dinners at the Solar Inn from the dance competition. He was well known for immitating Elvis. Pictures of a “Sock Hop”, in Chapter VII, page 263.
Alan Twedt ‘57, looks elated at some event he and his wife, Myrna, were attending. It looks somewhat like a bride and groom shot but it isn’t. They were married almost 40 years when Alan passed away in the fall of 2002. Found out later this shot was taken in 1969 or ‘70 when he was the Exalted Ruler of the Elks in Ames. Short article about their daughter on page 207.