Steve Puidokas, a six-foot-eleven point guard, sets the Cougar men’s career basketball points record. Puidokas other career records would include scoring average (18.6 points per game), field goals, and rebounds (9.7 per game). He was the second-team all-conference for four straight seasons. Puidokas is the first WSU basketball player to have his number (55) retired.
Orville Vogel, developer of the world’s most productive wheat strains, receives Regents Ninth Distinguished Alumnus Award. Vogel received his Ph.D. at WSU in 1939 and stayed as faculty for several decades. His work helped start the “Green Revolution” in agriculture. He led the research team that produced the first commercially successful semi-dwarf wheats and was known for his inventions of scientific research equipment. He received the National Medal of Science, presented by President Ford in 1975, as well as the State of Washington Medal of Merit in 1987.
The facility, a five-story brick-and-wood building vilified by President Bryan for its lack of looks and efficiency, burns after a kitchen fire spreads out of control.
In 1900, the new Ferry residence hall opens. A four-story brick structure topped with a four-sided cupola, it houses between 100 and 180 students. Ferry serves as the only men’s residence hall on campus for three decades. The hall also houses the first campus fraternity, which starts as a club before moving off campus.
Despite an effort by alumni, students, and staff to preserve it, Ferry is demolished in the late-1960s—but not before the cupola was saved. In 1975 it’s relocated to the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall, near Murrow Hall. Construction in the Murrow Yard in 2008 sparks the cupola’s relocation to its present site in the new arboretum near the Lewis Alumni Center.
The Washington, Oregon, and Idaho (WOI) regional Veterinary Medicine program begins, led by the WSU Veterinary College.
The Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho (WAMI) program is established in 1971 to create a cooperative agreement among the aforementioned states, and WSU becomes part of it in 1972. The program provides access to medical school to state residents of Alaska, Montana, and Idaho — states without medical schools — and also brings medical education into these states.
WAMI students are admitted to the University of Washington Medical School. They initially spent their first year at satellite universities including Washington State University, the University of Idaho, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (later the University of Alaska-Anchorage), and Montana State University. During their first year, all students of the UW Medical School, including WAMI students, were registered for the same first-year course. Consequently course topics, materials, evaluations, and exams were similar at all five sites.
In 2015, WSU left the WWAMI partnership in favor of forming its own medical school.
Geologist Roald Fryxell examines lunar rocks in Houston after all six manned moon landings. Fryxell was initially asked simply to present to the lunar teams on core-sample analysis, but so impressed NASA that he was asked to join the analysis team. A leader in the field of geoarchaeology, Fryxell was the co-principal investigator with Dr. Richard Daugherty of the Marmes Rockshelter site and designed the apparatus used for collecting the lunar rocks. A lunar crater is named Fryxell in his honor.
The Washington State University Alumni Association introduces the Alumni Achievement Award to honor outstanding Cougar alumni. Edryn “Ed” Jones (Sept. 21), Asa V. “Ace” Clark (Sept. 28), and Harry E. Goldsworth Jr. (Nov. 9) receive awards in 1970 as the first three recipients.
Gerry Lindgren, WSU track All-American, wins 11 NCAA titles during his time at WSU. He never loses any NCAA event he enters during the four years he attended the university. Lindgren majored in political science with a minor in Russian.
Matsuyo Yamamoto is presented with Regents Eighth Distinguished Alumnus Award and is the first woman honored. After receiving her degree in home economics in 1937 at then Washington State College, Yamamoto returned to Japan where she pioneered home economics extension programs, eventually overseeing a staff of 3,000 home advisors that served the rural populations of Japan and other Asian countries. The College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Studies offers the Matsuyo Yamamoto Endowed Scholarship in her honor.
R.A. Nilan, geneticist, develops new barley strain with chemical mutagent.
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.
Howard B. Bowen, president of the University of Iowa, delivers commencement address and receives the sixth Regents Distinguished Alumnus Award. Bowen received his bachelors of arts in 1929 and masters of arts in 1933 from then-WSC. He served as chancellor of Claremont University, as well as president of the University of Iowa, Grinnell College and the American Association of Higher Education. He researched and wrote extensively on the economics of higher education, and was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to chair his National Commission on Technology, Automation and Economic Progress.
WSU and UW establish the State of Washington Water Research Center (SWWRC) on the WSU Pullman campus, in Albrook Hall. The Washington Water Research Center is established by the Water Resources Research Act; the SWWRC is one of only 14 centers which begin in that first year.
Famed “Agony Hall” (Music Conservatory) is torn down to make way for the new Kimbrough Music Building.
Nearly 14 years after his death, President Holland’s final estate of $410,000 was gifted to WSU. Two weeks later, the John I. and Orpha Preissner estate of $300,000 is also gifted to the school.
Ivy Lewellen passes away at age 83. She served as executive secretary for 37 years to three presidents: Bryan, Holland, and Compton.
J. Clifford Folger, Nixon’s 1960 campaign finance chairman and member of the board of directors of IBM, and C. Glenn King, one of the two biochemists to isolate vitamin C, are selected for the fourth and fifth Regents Distinguished Alumnus Awards. Folger receives his award on June 3, 1963; King on April 11, 1964.
Hugh Campbell, WSU record-breaking football pass receiver, is voted MVP of the East-West Shrine game after setting a new record after catching 10 passes. The East-West Shrine game, sponsored by the Shriners, has been played annually since 1925 and teams are drawn from the two geographic regions east and west, including Canada. Campbell played wide receiver from 1958 to 1962 and during that time he appeared in the Hula Bowl, the College All-Star game, the Coaches All-America game and the aforementioned Shrine Bowl, and while at WSU he was awarded the 1961 W. J. Voit Memorial Trophy as the outstanding football player on the Pacific Coast. After playing for WSU, Campbell went on to play for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders and coach several Canadian and US college and professional football teams.
Dr. John Fred Bohler passes away. He served as a basketball coach, athletic director, and physical education administrator at WSU for 42 years.
George Marra, WSU wood technologist, develops a high speed lamination process capable of producing a weatherproof beam in seven minutes.
History professor Herbert Wood gives the first WSC faculty member-led “Invited Address,” known today as the Distinguished Faculty Address.
WSC graduate Pete Rademacher wins the Olympic heavyweight boxing title, knocking out the Russian finalist in the first round in Melbourne, Australia.
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.
WSC ties San Jose, 13-13, in a football game played in subzero temperatures in Pullman. Exactly one game ticket was sold at the gate.
Philip Phibbs graduates a top scholastic student. Phibbs later becomes president of University of Puget Sound in 1973, helping transform the institution into one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
Plant pathologist Frederick Heald donates his personal library to WSC, including 300 volumes and 10,000 reprints in plant pathology.
President Holland’s full estate, by then $410,000, would come to WSU in 1964.
The State Legislature gives the WSC Board of Regents the power to develop a police department. H.E. Sims is the initial acting chief.
Sarboe with football queen Donna Jacobson, 1949
Arthur Drucker, Dean of the School of Mines and Geology, donates the Minnie Barstow Drucker Oriental Art Collection, valued then at $50,000. The gift is presented in the memory of his late wife. Eight years earlier, the Druckers donated a collection of over two hundred rare books on Asia to the WSC library. Arthur Drucker came to Pullman in 1926 and was heavily involved in mining research during his tenure at WSC, retiring in 1945.
Bryan, Enoch Albert, 1855-1941 at desk, 1937
After several years of trying to get state funding, the Board of Regents establishes WSC’s first retirement system, to begin on October 1st of 1941.
Weldon B. “Hoot” Gibson graduates with a B.A. in Economics. Gibson attended WSC with the help of his Uncle, Arthur “Buck” Bailey, and was a member of the football team and the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. After graduating from WSC, Gibson studied at the Stanford Graduate School of Business receiving an MBA in 1940 and a Ph.D. in 1950. Gibson was a long-time executive at the Stanford Research Institute from 1947 until 1988. He earned the Legion of Merit in 1946, Commander of the British Empire in 1947, and the Washington State University Distinguished Alumni Award for his role in creating the Washington State University Foundation.
President Holland falls ill in early January and for several months runs the school from his bed in St. Luke’s Hospital in Spokane. When he leaves for an April to August recuperative trip to the eastern U.S. and Canada, Holland and the Regents appoint Dean Herbert Kimbrough to act on his behalf, and on Oct. 2nd Kimbrough is made the school’s first Vice President.
The football stadium at Rogers Field gets a complete renovation. The new horseshoe-shaped structure is named for former Washington State Governor, John R. Rogers. The wood bleachers supported by concrete pilings seat 23,500 fans.
During spring break of 1970, a fire destroyed the wood stands. The Cougars were forced to play off-campus for two years while the university built Martin Stadium.
Marshall Allen Neill, future Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, graduates with a B.A. in Political Science. In 1938, Neill received his law degree from the University of Idaho. He engaged in private practice in Pullman from 1938 to 1967, and during this time he also served as Pullman City attorney, assistant attorney general for Washington State University, part-time assistant professor at WSU, state representative (1949-1956) and state senator (1956-1967). In 1967 Neill was appointed to Associate Justice in the Supreme Court of Washington, and in 1972, President Nixon appointed him to the prestigious U.S. District Court in Spokane, a post he held until his death on October 6, 1979.
