During the 1920s and ‘30s, one of Creighton’s most revered and cherished traditions was a campus-wide festival celebrating both the Omaha area’s productive farmland and the baking and food preservation skills of many community members.   

Each October, after the harvest season was complete, hungry Creighton students, faculty and alumni would gather at booths assembled in front of St. John’s church to share a bounty of appealing treats. Some members of the group would demonstrate their kitchen skills by producing their very best baked rolls, often from recipes that had been handed down from generations past. Another group would set their sights and efforts on the crafting of various jams, jellies and other fruit preserves, which would then be combined with the roll selections and judged by the college’s most senior alumnae.   

The festival was informally known as “Roll Jam Days.” Eating and sampling took place during the final Friday and Saturday of October, and awards were handed out to the winning contestants on Sunday morning after 9 p.m. Mass. 

Tragedy struck one particularly cold and blustery October day in late 1934 when Delores Thornwhistle, the event’s oldest living participant and seven-time winner of the “Best Apricot Jam” award, was struck with a nasty case of pneumonia. Rushed to nearby St. Joseph’s Hospital, Ms. Thornwhistle was quickly given last rites by a Creighton priest, Father Thomas Mulligan. As she neared her final worldly moments, Father Tom thought to ask her if she had any advice that she would like him to relay to the Creighton men’s basketball squad, which was just then preparing for an on-court showdown with Creighton’s rival school in Lincoln.  

She croaked out her thoughts and then took her last breath. We’ll never know if it was the feeble state of the dying woman’s voice or if was Father Tom’s poor hearing that was to blame, but when her message for the team was delivered that night in the pre-game locker room, Father Tom told the players, “Delores Thornwhistle’s dying wish was for me to tell you boys that there is only one thing that really matters in this life, and to her that was, ‘ROLL DAMN JAYS!’”   

Of course, those three words have been forever enshrined in Creighton basketball history, and each year a new group of Bluejays is sent onto the court with Delores’s three-word exhortation, urging them to basketball victory. Needless to say, none of this ever happened, but I wish you all a happy (late) April Fools.