The WMEL was an integral part of WSU’s materials science and engineering program and an early contributor to sustainable resource use from forests. WMEL researchers developed nondestructive testing methods that revolutionized production of high quality engineered wood composites. Ultrasonic veneer grading technology was key in the development of the I-joist material that now claims about 30% of the market for floor supports in single-family homes.
Four generations of the Appel family, starting with Don in the 1930s, have migrated from farming on the Palouse to cultivating their knowledge at WSU. While Don had to withdraw due to failing eyesight one semester short of his degree, he made sure that all nine of his children (Dick Appel ’59, David ’61, Tony ’63, Fred ’65, Donna ’67, Colleen ’68, Steven ’74, Laurette ’78, and Renata ’82) received their college degrees at WSU. Most of their spouses are WSU degree-holders, plus a host of cousins. They were followed by a third and fourth generation of graduates. Dick and his wife Helen, also a WSU graduate, farm on 1,700 acres near Dusty, Washington and many of the Appel children have degrees in agricultural or engineering related fields.
Faculty members Thomas Besser, School for Global Animal Health; Don Dillman, Department of Sociology and Community and Rural Sociology; and B.W. Poovaiah, Department of Horticulture are elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Robert Nilan, WSU professor emeritus and former College of Sciences dean, received the WSU President’s Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service. Nilan is a leading international authority on barley genetics who came to WSU in 1951 as an agronomist and geneticist. While at WSU he served as chair of genetics, and his worldwide recognition as a plant geneticist earned him an appointment to the Danish Academy of Science. He trained more than 75 graduate students during his career at WSU and, as dean, he oversaw development of programs in statistics, environmental science and plant physiology; laboratories in bio-analysis and biotechnology; and centers of electron microscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance.
Nilan and his wife Winona have given generously to the arts and sciences at WSU. Attracting students to WSU’s Department of Genetics and Cell Biology was at the center of their decision to create the Robert A. and Winona P. Nilan Graduate Fellowship in Genetics.
The WSU Regents renamed two Pullman campus buildings. Wilson Hall became Wilson-Short Hall, honoring James F. Short, Jr., influential WSU sociology professor. This building was first named for James Wilson, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1897 to 1913. The Plant Biosciences Facility I, part of a multi-building bioscience complex, became the Orville A. Vogel Plant Biosciences Building, named for one of WSU’s great agricultural researchers and wheat breeders.
The Spillman Stone, a two-ton granite rock with William Jasper Spillman’s name engraved on it, was rededicated October 21 at Clark Hall Plaza on the Pullman campus. A wheat breeder at WSU from 1894 to 1902, Spillman was the only American to independently rediscover Mendel’s Law of Heredity and was also influential in early agricultural economics.
Jack D. Rogers, professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, was honored as the sixth recipient of the WSU Eminent Faculty Award.
R. James Cook received the WSU President’s Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service. Prior to becoming interim dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, he was a plant pathologist with the USDA-ARS at WSU and later held an endowed chair in wheat research at the university.
Clarence A. Ryan Jr., emeritus professor, plant biochemistry researcher in WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, and first WSU professor in the National Academy of Sciences, received WSU’s honorary doctoral degree at spring commencement.
Construction began on the new Plant Biosciences Building, the first of several new buildings that will create a new research and education complex along Stadium Way. The building was dedicated on October 14, 2005 and named for wheat researcher Orville Vogel in 2007.
Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Norman Borlaug, received an honorary doctoral degree from WSU during commencement in 1995. Borlaug and WSU professor, Orville Vogel, are credited with research crucial to the “Green Revolution” in wheat breeding, which has saved an estimated one billion lives in the twentieth century.
Karl Sax, internationally acclaimed scientist, receives the seventh Regents Distinguished Alumnus Award. Sax attended then-WSC from 1912 to 1916, earning a bachelors of science in agriculture, and while at WSC he met and married his cytology teacher, Dr. Hally Jolivette. Sax is perhaps most well-known for his research in cytogenetics and the effect of radiation on chromosomes.
Life magazine features WSU animal science reproduction research. S.E. Hafez, animal physiologist as WSU, is the primary researcher in planet colonization.
Nutritionist Leo Jensen and geneticist Igor Kosin refine the hatch process for turkeys, which dramatically increases the survivability of turkey eggs and returns an estimated $9 million in annual savings to turkey producers.
The station, near Lind, Washington, promotes and improves dryland farming in an area of eastern Washington that typically receives 8 to 12 inches of rain a year. Wheat breeding, variety adaptation, weed and disease control, soil fertility, erosion control, and residue management are the main research priorities.
Morty the Moose, a WSU research animal, was featured in the opening credits of television’s “Northern Exposure.” In 1994, Morty died of an illness linked to a mineral deficiency.
Morty the Moose and WSU Zoology professor Charlie Robbins
On March 7, 1985, the Board of Regents selected Samuel H. Smith to serve as the eighth president of Washington State University. He took office on July 1, leaving his position as the dean of the College of Agriculture and director of both the Cooperative Extension Service and Agricultural Experiment Station at Pennsylvania State University.
President Smith’s administration is best known for the establishment of the WSU branch campuses in Spokane, Tri-Cities, and Vancouver in 1989. In 1997 Smith chaired the NCAA Presidents Commission, the major governing body for college intercollegiate athletics. Smith served as president until January 8, 2000.
The Samuel H. Smith Center for Undergraduate Education, also known as the CUE, was named in his honor.
On October 18, 1976, President Gerald Ford presented the National Medal of Science to WSU Professor Emeritus, Orville Vogel. Vogel helped develop wheat varieties with stronger stalks and higher yield potential, which now grow on five continents. This research launched the “Green Revolution,” a push in agricultural research to help feed the world’s hungry. Vogel worked at WSU from 1931 to 1973, receiving his Ph.D. here in 1939.
WSU signs a pact with the Kingdom of Jordan to provide educational services. A team of twelve staff members (all but one from Pullman) traveled to Jordan to assist the creation of animal science, plant pathology, irrigation, agricultural marketing, and other programs, working with Jordanian students and faculty.
J.W. Kalkus, superintendent of the college’s Puyallup Research Center, reported that “one new berry plant developed at the station has added $15 million to the state’s wealth during the last 10 years.”
The one story brick structure (located where the Terrell Library now sits) houses agricultural and biology laboratories and a museum. The facility is absorbed as part of a new gymnasium, later known as the Temporary Union Building, or TUB, in 1901.
In June 1917, President Holland announces that the institution will reorganize into 5 colleges (Agriculture, Mechanical Arts and Engineering, Science and Arts, Veterinary Science, and Home Economics) and 4 schools (Mines, Education, Pharmacy, and Music and Applied Design), with deans as administrative heads. The College of Home Economics is to be one of the first of its kind in the nation. However, World War I interrupts these plans, delaying implementation of the new structure to the 1919-1920 school year.
The act links cooperative extension services to land-grant universities. The program is designed to keep citizens informed about developments in agriculture, home economics, public policy, economic development, and other subjects.
The Washington Legislature creates the office of State Veterinarian specifying that they also be the Professor of Veterinary Science at the college and a member of the State Board of Health. Sofus Bertelson Nelson, a native of Denmark, an Iowa State College graduate, and Spokane practitioner, is appointed to the post by the Board of Regents. Nelson later serves as Dean of the College of Veterinary Science and in 1919 he resigns to assume the post of Director of Agricultural Extension. In 18 years of service, records show he personally examined 149,182 animals. Cost of the services rendered is $45,000 total. The initial curriculum consists of a series of courses intended to supplement agriculture classes and to provide initial training to students who intend to transfer to another school. The veterinary labs are housed in (old) College Hall and a shed is constructed for $60 on the south end of campus to house the operating rooms.
After an infestation of hops lice destroys crops in the Puyallup River region in 1891, the legislature decides to locate the state’s first experiment station in Puyallup instead of Pullman. The station is constructed on 40 acres of land donated by the Ross family, giving the facility its first name, Ross’s Station. Now called the Puyallup Research & Extension Center, the center continues to provide valuable services and information to the local community.
The college inaugurates the sport by defeating the University of Idaho, 10-0. The team doesn’t employ a paid coach until 1900, but advisers in the first couple years include newspaperman William Goodyear, agriculturalist William J. Spillman, and young athlete Fred Waite.
1894 team, reproduced in a 1934 40th Reunion Banquet brochure. Item held at WSU’s MASC, Collection WSU 31Pullman Herald, November 1894.
Students pelt Heston with rotten cabbages, plucked from icy fields nearby, as well as eggs and snowballs, marring the day he is introduced as president. The president of the Board of Regents, Andrew Smith, is also pelted as he walks with Heston across campus. The new president spends more time in Olympia and Seattle than tending to campus matters, fueling accusations around the state about unruliness in Pullman.
From the first issue of The College Record, the predecessor to The Daily Evergreen, absolving former-President Liley for any involvement in the attack on Heston
The institution welcomes 13 collegiate and 46 preparatory students who study agriculture, mechanic arts and engineering, and sciences and arts. President Lilley teaches mathematics and elementary physics. The Morrill Act specifies that one of the major subjects to be taught is, “veterinary art” and Charles E. Munn, a veterinarian, is among the first six faculty members. Tuition is not charged the first year.
The new institution, Washington’s land-grant college, is a product of the 1862 Morrill Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The act gives the state 90,000 acres of federal land to support its agricultural college and 100,000 acres to support its school of science.
The Board of Regents holds its first meeting on April 22, 1890.
