Lightbulb Eaters Curb Hunger After a Short Talk With Epps

Dean Epps met the glass eaters yesterday, and both sides reached a modest agreement to curb future undergraduate consumption of lightbulbs.

"We were surprised he took such an interest," one of the students, called to Epps's office as a result of Monday's Crimson publicity, said yesterday. "He was just interested in our welfare."

The students--Jay Bennett '75 and Thomas J. Donovan '75--have swallowed broken lightbulb glass before admirers on a number of occasions. Last Sunday night, for newspaper photographers, Donovan devoured a lightbulb in Quincy House dining hall.

"I was concerned that they might be causing injury to themselves, and asked them not to do it again," Epps said yesterday. After trying to reach Dr. Warren E. Wacker, director of the University Health Services, Epps said he decided "to use my common sense."

"I didn't think it was a craze we wanted to export from Harvard," he explained. Epps said he did not request a demonstration of the practice from the students, and that he had "no desire" to eat lightbulbs himself.

Epps said the students assured him that they wouldn't do it again.

Although reluctant to talk, one of the chastised lightbulb eaters left open the possibility that his resolution may fail him in the future. "It's the type of thing you do at a party--not usually when you're sober," he said. "I don't know when, if ever, I'll do it again."

Epps, asked if deficiencies in Food Services perhaps explained the hunger for lightbulbs, said "It's clear that something is missing in their diet."