The first day at Boatwright College is full of complications for John-Boy Walton.
The Walton household is upset when John-Boy brings home a teenage college-student genius with a photographic memory.
Ponch and Jon try to intervene between the surfers and "valley" kids before things get out of hand and someone gets seriously hurt.
Bob and his friend "The Peeper" take a trip down memory lane and wind up in the slammer.
A sequence of tragedies leads to the death of three cowboys, one of them an old friend of Matt's.
