Oregonian
January 31st, 2015
Oregon State University President Edward J. Ray gasped Friday after completing an upbeat speech at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
It wasn't the repeat standing ovation that blindsided OSU's popular 70-year-old president, a veteran public speaker who had played to a friendly crowd of 700 lunch guests. After all, Ray had launched his state-of-the-university address with a crack about an orator who advised speakers to say you were "prepared to talk a very long time, if necessary, but as soon as you get a standing ovation, you'll stop."
No, Ray's uncharacteristic shock stemmed from the clamorous arrival of the Oregon State University Marching Band, 190 students bused from Corvallis to Portland under cover of a self-imposed ban on advance social-media posts. The entire orange-clad squad, deposited at a Lloyd Center Light Rail station, played the OSU fight song on a train, becoming the first marching band ever to do so on MAX, according to TriMet.