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Ki Tecumseh, founder of Native American Student Association, stretched the rules

Growing up on the Yakama Indian Reservation, Kiutus “Ki” Tecumseh Jr. told his high school counselor that he wanted to go to college and was told, “You will fail. You are good with your hands. You can be either a baker or a bricklayer.” Tecumseh applied for admission to Washington State University and was accepted. While earning a degree (’72 Comm.), he served as an ASWSU senator and was an assistant instructor in a contemporary American Indian Studies class. Many remembered him best as founder and first president of the Native American Students Association.  “Indian people don’t consider themselves to be a minority people. They have their own religion, own culture, own life and land,” says Tecumseh, a member of the Winnebago Indians of Nebraska. During his student days, he and his Native American peers pushed the University to recruit more Indian students from the state and provide the support services they needed to be successful.  He believes that traditional fishing rights, shoreline and mineral issues, and treaty rights transcend the reservation and are important to all people living in the Northwest.  Ki is now retired in New Mexico, where he formerly chaired the advisory council on Indian education to the state board of education.

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The student show choir, The Crimson Company, debuts

The Crimson Company student show choir first performs for Dad’s Weekend in 1977 and goes on to be one of WSU’s most popular public relations vehicles. In almost 23 years, they do over 650 shows for over 350,000 audience members. They last perform in May of 2000, after the WSU Alumni Association could no longer afford to sponsor them.

1982-1983 Crimson Company
1982-1983 Crimson Company

WSU has largest intramural program west of the Mississippi

According to intramural program supervisor Mary Ann Steele, the University “has the largest intramural program West of the Mississippi” based on the number of participants compared to total enrollment The participation rate ranks WSU’s program among the top 25 in the nation.

Liberty ship named after WSC president explodes at naval base

The 7,212 ton liberty ship E.A. Bryan, named after the former WSC president and funded by Washington State 4-H Club members, explodes while workers load it with explosives. The ship had been dedicated to former 4-H Club members who were then serving in the War.

On July 17, 1944, the E.A. Bryan and the Quinalt Victory were moored across from each other at the Port Chicago Naval Base, in the San Francisco Bay. They were being loaded with explosives when something exploded; pieces of the Quinalt Victory were recovered but the E.A. Bryan was effectively vaporized. There had been an estimated 4,600 tons of explosives and ammunition on the E.A. Bryan when it detonated.

The E.A. Bryan

Edward R. Murrow graduates

He earns a degree in degree in speech while immersing himself in the campus culture during his four years in Pullman. Among his activities: president of the student body, actor in school plays, four-year participant in ROTC, debate team leader, member of Kappa Sigma fraternity, and president of the National Student Federation.

After college, Murrow works as a journalist in Europe during WW II, helps pioneer television news, and produces a series of reports that help lead to a censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Murrow was highly respected by journalists of his generation and praised for his honesty and integrity in delivering the news.

 

Edward R. Murrow (at right) walking from Pullman to Moscow in 1927.
Edward R. Murrow (at right) walking from Pullman to Moscow in 1927.

 

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Murrow and his Kappa Sigma brothers at Washington State College.

The Associated Students create “The Bookie”

The Associated Students vote to invest $2,000 in a co-op bookstore on campus which will sell books, supplies, and, as an Evergreen ad from that year notes, “hot chocolate, milk shakes, ice cream, soft drinks, and sandwiches.” The Students’ Book Corporation (SBC) becomes an instant hit for students who save 10 percent on all supplies.

The original Bookie operates in a small wood-frame building on the present site of Wilmer Hall until 1923, when a new brick building is constructed next to the music conservatory. A larger two-level red brick bookstore rises in the same location in 1954. The Bookie remains there until 2008, when it moves into its present location in the remodeled Compton Union Building.

The Students Book Corporation (Bookie) ca. 1926.
The Students Book Corporation (Bookie) ca. 1926.

Students Book Corporation