THE COLLECTORS Susan Mayer Schmidt, ’64 and the late Bob Schmidt 44 For nearly 50 years, Susan Mayer Schmidt and her late husband, “Beaver Bob” Schmidt, never missed a football game — home or away. They tailgated with the same crew for 38 years, had season tickets to multiple Oregon State sports and built what might be the most jaw-dropping Beaver memorabilia room there is. Every inch of the couple’s sunken family room bursts with orange: 376 vintage pins and buttons; 202 ornaments, bracelets and keychains; 32 hats, including an OSU Santa hat, a beaver- head hat, and two original rook lids (“I probably snatched one of those off of someone’s head at Bonfire!” she says). Plus, there are autographed photos and footballs; collages of iconic OSU sports moments; pennants; stuffed animal and figurine beavers; and even a neon “Beaver Bob” sign. “I wish I could remember how this started,” she says. “We’d go to a game, find something cute and bring it home.” Some of her favorites? A hula-dancing beaver found at a Honolulu swap meet during their 1999 Oahu Bowl trip and a newspaper clipping from an early ’80s college football prediction contest where she ranked in the top three. Schmidt was the only woman to place then, just as, for years, she was the only woman on the Beaver Club Board. (She served with the booster club’s leadership for 15 years.) Now a retired real estate agent, she laughs when recalling a home full of teddy bears she once showed: “I thought, ‘How can anyone live like this?’ Then I hit myself on the forehead and said, ‘I do live like this!’” For her, fandom has always been about friends and, above all, fun. “I keep telling the gripers around me that they’re kids playing a game!” she says. “I just love watching them play.” LOCATION: CORVALLIS, OREGON OCCUPATION: RETIRED REALTOR
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