Student Shook 12,258 Hands For Record

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30094, 30 March 1963, Page 16

Student Shook 12,258 Hands For Record

(New Zealand Press Association)

PALMERSTON N., Mar. 29. Palmerston North’s handshaking. student, 23-year-old “Fred Bear,” today set a world record by shaking 12,258 bands in nine hours. A Canadian student recently shook 10,292 hands. The bearded Massey University College undergraduate reached his ten thousandth shake in five hours 45 minutes, compared with seven hours 45 minutes taken by an American student. Bear’s nine hours included about half an hour for meals.

He said tonight he found middle-aged women the most co-operative. Women were generally more co-operative than men in his hand-shaking rounds. Public response was .slow early in the day, but heightened later as radio broadcasts gave him publicity. There was some uncertainty about the conditions followed in Canada Bear admitted he shook hands with many people more than. bote. He said in a small centre like Palmerston North H was inevitable, if the world record were to be

beaten, that he shake hands with the same people over again on occasions. Asked how he felt, he replied: “A bit tired. . . . Boy. some of those handshakes were beauts. You could tell the farmers from the townies.” And his hands? “Oh, they’re fine. I've got some sticking plaster on to keep the blisters in and the typhoid out.”