Eastern mourns Burl Ives’ death

Many faculty and friends are saddened by Burl Ives’ death Friday morning after he passed away from a deep coma in his home.

Actor-balladeer and Eastern’s famous alumnus, Burl Ives, of Anacortes, Wash., was diagnosed with mouth cancer last summer and slipped into a coma Wed-nesday.

“He always said that ‘none of us are gonna get out of here alive’,” said his wife Dorothy Ives.

“We believe in the process of everliving,” his wife said, adding that the family was prepared for his death and glad he died the way he friends and family.

Ives attended Eastern from 1927-29 and in the sum-mer 1980.

Dan Thornburg, a retired journalism professor at Eastern, said: “Dorothy was largely responsible for his rebirth. She encouraged him to come back out into the public when he was 71.”

Dorothy Ives said his body will be returned to Illinois sometime in May where he will be buried in Hunt City, in Jasper County where he was born.

“I felt taken in by him. He enveloped me. I felt so much a part of him,” Thornburg said. “He touched the hearts of anyone in the audience and those around him.”

Ives was co-chairman and promoter of the EIU Foundation’s 10th Decade campaign which raised $7 million for the university. Thornburg was an executive officer of the EIU Foundation while Ives studied to be a history instructor while at Eastern.

“(Eastern) President (Livingston C.) Lord saw a gift (in Ives) that wasn’t to be a teacher, but to be out on stage in the public,” Thornburg said.

He said Ives was grateful for the direction from Lord.

“Since then, Ives has tried to reach the young people of today to help preserve richness in our society,” he added. “Ives was a free spirit, full of wanderlust. There wasn’t a place on earth that he wouldn’t like to see and learn about.”

Stephen Falk, vice president of Institutional Advancement, said Ives was a distinguished alumnus and probably the most famous alum-nus prior to 1940.

“He was honored as a member of the Centennial 100 and he was gen-erous with his time and resources to the university,” Falk said.

President David Jorns said that because he has a doctorate in Theater History and Criticism at UCLA, he followed Ives’ career for many years.

“He is an American icon,” Joins said. “He was the first real folk singer and a wonderful actor.”

Ives may be best known for his recordings of folk and children’s songs including “Frosty the Snowman” and “The Blue Tail Fly,” which has the chorus “Jimmy Crack Corn (and I don’t care).” Poet Carl Sandburg once called him “the mightiest ballad singer of this or any other century.”

He also defined the role of Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway and film, and won an Oscar in 1958 for his supporting role in “The Big Country.”

At Eastern, Ives was a member of the school’s only undefeated football team. In 1929, he was selected as an all-conference left guard and the conference’s best tackle.

In 1987, he was given Eastern’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 1990, he attended the dedication of the Burl Ives Art Studio.

He performed at Eastern four times, including one appearance in 1990.