This is a serious case of right place, right time. The Class of ’75 at Holton-Arms had a notable classmate in Susan Ford, the daughter of President Gerald Ford. So the seniors held their prom at her house. The White House.
It took more than luck. Susan petitioned Chief Usher Rex Scouten, and the answer came back yes, with conditions. Not a dime could come from the government, every guest had to submit their name, birth date, and Social Security number to the Secret Service thirty days ahead, and no band member could have an outstanding drug charge.
The class covered the entire $1,300 budget themselves, raised through bake sales and raffles going back to seventh grade. Tickets were $14.
Oh, and Susan had her own car, which she was washing below, next to the White House. That is so bizarre.
Seventy-Four Seniors Fill the East Room
On May 31st, 1975, the East Room of the White House filled with 74 Holton-Arms seniors and their dates. Not many proms get covered by the Washington Post, or frankly any newspaper. This one was.
Susan had just split with her beau, Gardner Britt (of the Ted Britt Ford clan), and invited a college junior she had met three weeks earlier. Billy Pifer was a pre-med student at Washington & Lee University, and the two met that May at the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. That is a serious stroke of luck for Billy, given that three weeks later he was tearing it up on a White House dance floor.
Before the dance, Susan, Billy, and three other couples had dinner aboard the presidential yacht Sequoia. Your prom limo was not this cool.
The best part was that Susan’s parents were out of the country that night, on a presidential trip to Spain, of course, so she partied the night away sans supervision. Okay, not really. Her aunt Janet Ford and the Holton-Arms staff chaperoned. But I find that part amusing.
Washington Post Coverage
Here’s a bit from the Post’s article a few days later.
An attempt had been made to hire the Beach Boys as the prom band, but if the Beach Boys weren’t going to charge an estimated $25,000 fee, they at least wanted permission to video tape the gig for later use. Permission denied.
Hmm … didn’t ask Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or the Rolling Stones? You can probably leave out The Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd. They’re not really prom bands. Maybe the Bee Gees? They didn’t hit their Saturday Night Fever stride until 1977 and I’m sure they would have been cheaper than the Beach Boys.
The class booked two bands instead: Sandcastle and The Outerspace Band, the latter originally formed at Trinity College in Connecticut. The Outerspace charged $350. Talk about the gig of a lifetime.
The party ran until 1 a.m., a half hour past schedule. This was the best prom in the history of proms, even though it was heavily chaperoned, by the Secret Service no less, which is also kind of cool.
By the way, did you know her first marriage was to one of her father’s former Secret Service agents?
Even more random trivia … Christine Lagarde, who went on to run the IMF and later the European Central Bank, graduated from Holton-Arms in 1974, one year ahead of Susan. Bet you didn’t know that one.
Below is a series of photos we dug up from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
It is still the only senior prom ever held at the White House. And if you like stories of a first family treating the place like a family home, check out Nellie Grant’s 1874 White House wedding, when the East Room hosted a very different kind of party.
I loved meeting you Susan. I was a triplet. The only one alive. I remember knowing you.
Wait- is that actually Billy Pifer, because the dude is dressed exactly the same as the band.