'Cliffe Skater Turns Figures On Ice for St. Paul's Shows

Though it is legend that one freshman came to Radcliffe because the annex had a lacrosse team and other college did not, Barbara Bancroft '51 is currently the only student who chose the 'Cliffe only after a painstaking rink-to-rink survey of Boston's ice skating facilities.

Radcliffe's foremost figure skater is a nationally known amateur from St. Paul, Minn. The record of her gay blades includes two summers of appearances in St. Paul's ice shows and dizzying twirls in more benefits and revues than she can name off-hand. Last winter she took a brief fling at monarchy as Queen of the snow and ice carnival at Carleton College, in, Northfield, Minn.

She skates every day. Here Second move, after opening the official note of acceptance from Radcliffe, was to enroll as a members of the Boston Skating Club. Though daily practice has polished here style, she will never try for an Olympic laurel wreath. Nor will she turn professional. She prefers to skate for fun and exercise.

Already listed in the ranks of U. S. figure skating judges, Barbara hopes to move up to the top bracket in this field. She is now rated a "low test judge," which qualifies her to pass on the ability of those who are cutting their first figure eights.

Skated First at Four

Barbara started skating when she was four years old. Someone strapped old-fashioned double runners to her booted feet and showed her out on the surface of a local pond. Unable to do more than skid and stagger, she wept, Kicked off the blades, and gave up skating.

In the last five years on ice she has moved up from the last row of the chorus in ice shows, to the spotlight. For two summers show has been featured at the St. Paul Pops. The Pops are evenings of Music supplied by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, punctuated by two short ice revues. The season is a rugged one of three performances and six daylong rehearsals every week, and Barbara keeps fit for them on a concessionaire's diet of vanilla ice cream canes and potato chips.

She trekked to Hanover last month for the Dartmouth Carnival, where every girl who has ever slipped on an icy sidewalk endeavors to impress her hosts with a camelback spin. Barbara looks a back on that weekend with whole-fouled pleasure. "I left my skates at Radcliffe," she says happily, "and didn't even see the ice. It was my first real vacation in years."