WSC builds a ski jump on campus near the east end of what’s now the CUB. It runs down the hill towards what’s now the Football Operations Building and was reportedly one of only two ski jumps on college campuses in the United States. During World War II, the jump became part of the obstacle course for the fittest of the soldiers; it was even displayed in Life Magazine (Oct. 12, 1942, pg. 142).
The ski jump was repaired and reworked in 1947, but by 1950 it was permanently removed to make way for the construction of the CUB.
WSU alumnus Edward R. Murrow returns to campus and delivers the annual commencement address at Rogers Field. Rogers Field was located where Martin Stadium is today. The introduction was delivered by President C. Clement French who can be seen with Murrow in the first photo. The video seen here is the audio from that address, with a select few photographs from the ceremony overlaid upon it. Murrow died from cancer just three years later in 1965.
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.
Dolph Lundgren, best known for his action roles in Rocky IV (as Ivan Drago) and The Expendables, spent the 1976-1977 school year at WSU as an exchange student, working on a chemical engineering degree. He was also a member of the Cougar Marching Band. Contrary to some reports, he did not actually graduate from WSU. Instead, he finished his coursework at Sweden’s Royal Academy and the University of Sydney in Australia.
Paul Allen, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, attended WSU and became a member of Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. He dropped out of school to work for Honeywell in Boston a couple years after enrolling. In 1975 Allen co-founds Microsoft with childhood friend Bill Gates in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The recently constructed Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum opened for hosting the 1973 commencement ceremonies. In previous years, commencement ceremonies had been held either in Bohler Gym or, weather permitting, at Rogers Field (now Martin Stadium).
In 1972, students Gary Larson, creator of the acclaimed comic strip “The Far Side,” and Patty Murray, future United States Senator, graduated from WSU.
United States Senator Patty Murray speaking with a student at the Vancouver campus in 1996.
George Nethercutt, elected to Congress in 1994 by unseating then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley, graduated from WSU in 1967 with a B.A. in English. Nethercutt would serve five terms in the House of Representatives and then run unsuccessfully for the Senate against fellow Coug Patty Murray.
Nov. 8, 1994 campaign handout distributed at WSU/USC football game
KWSC-TV went on the air for the first time under the direction of Cal Watson. Though the university was already WSU, KWSC did not become KWSU until March 1, 1969.
The Regents adopted a Ph.D. in American Studies, an interdisciplinary degree within the Departments of History and English, for the 1961-1962 school year. It was the first doctoral program in American Studies in the Pacific Northwest and by 1975 it was only one of six programs west of the Mississippi.
Two WSC students, Richard Thompson and Russell McCormmach, were the only representatives from land-grant colleges among the 64 U.S. students to win Rhodes Scholarships in these two years.
Patrick McManus, humorist and outdoor writer for Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and other magazines, graduates with a B.A. in English from WSC in the Class of 1956.
Keith Jackson, president of Crimson Circle, outstanding senior student, and chief announcer at KWSC (now KWSU), graduated from WSU and began a world-class career as a sportscaster.
Post-WWII construction at WSC was marked by the importing of many temporary buildings to handle the boom of returning soldier students. Many of these buildings came from the Farragut Naval Training Station near Coeur d’Alene, ID while others came from Vancouver, WA. These buildings were torn down by the mid 1990s.
Timothy Leary, a troubled psychologist and popular counterculture figure of the 1960s, who coined the phrase “think for yourself and question authority” and was once called “the most dangerous man in America” by Richard Nixon, graduates with a master’s of science in psychology from WSC. Leary only attends WSC for about a year, moving to Pullman in early 1946, gaining admittance in March of that year, and graduating in June of 1947. He and his wife Marianne lived in a house at the corner of C Street and Alpha Road, enjoying what one biographer would later call “the only uneventful period of their life together.”
In the late 1930s, the WSC Creamery wanted to find a new way to store cheese. Wax cracked easily and plastic hadn’t been invented. The only option left was cans. In the 1940s, the U.S. Government and the American Can Company funded WSC’s research into storing cheese in cans.
An unexpected product of this research was Cougar Gold, an American cheddar named after Dr. N.S. Golding, one of the researchers.
The WSU Creamery continues to produce 250,000 cans of cheese a year, 80 percent of which are Cougar Gold. Cougar Gold has won multiple awards, including the World Cheese Awards Gold Medal in 2006 and makes great mac and cheese.
Research Studies of the State College of Washington provides an avenue to publication for faculty and graduate students. The journal publishes a few issues before funding is cut due to the Great Depression. It is revived in 1935 and eventually becomes the WSU Press.
As the Great Depression deepens, the college is forced to reduce the salaries of faculty and staff by an average of 25 percent in order to meet reduced state appropriations. The budget granted to WSC for 1933-1935 through the legislature’s “barefoot schoolboy” measures represents a cut of 36.5 percent over previous budgets.
Due to widespread unemployment, enrollment falls, allowing President Holland to close Ferry and Stevens residence halls in the spring of 1933 and keep them closed until September 1934, saving as much as $6,000. The library budget suffers a cut of 33% in the 1933-34 college budget.
For students, dropping out of school for a semester or two to earn money was a common practice throughout the ’30s. Typical part-time jobs for women often involved cleaning and babysitting in private homes, while male students worked on farms surrounding the college.
In the summer of 1936, Randall Johnson, a fine arts student at Washington State College, was hired as a sign painter by Fred Rounds, director of Buildings and Grounds. Johnson’s job was to paint door numbers and names on buildings around campus.
One day, Rounds mentioned to Johnson that the college needed a trademark. After that, Johnson designed the first WSC cougar logo, which appeared on the door of a college truck.
When the college became a university in 1959, President French asked Johnson to revise the logo, changing the “C” to a “U”.
Phillip Abelson graduates in chemistry and two years later earns his master’s degree in physics from WSC. He is later recognized as the “father of the atomic submarine”, the co-discoverer of neptunium (element 93), and later serves as editor of Science magazine and president of the Carnegie Institution. He is also the first recipient of the WSU Regent’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He is the son of Olaf and Elle Abelson, who first attended WSC in 1905 and built a home where Fulmer Hall now stands. The Philip M. Abelson Hall was named in his and his wife’s honor in 2002.
A fondly remembered place on campus, Silver Lake, also known as Lake de Puddle, was drained in summer of 1927. This made way for Hollingbery Fieldhouse and Mooberry Track. The manmade lake became part of the college in 1899, and shortly after the creation of the 1.6-acre lake, Professor Balmer from the School of Forestry directed the transplanting to the site of some 6,000 trees and shrubs to create “The Tanglewood”, a dense thicket offering a private retreat for students.
The library’s volumes total 104,000, up from 17,000 in 1909, under the guidance of W.W. Foote. By 1935 the library holds 275,000 volumes, and by 1936 it is considered the fourth-largest educational library on the Pacific Coast.
Zella Melcher writes the lyrics and Phyllis Sayles pens the music to the well-loved song, which receives a ringing endorsement from the Evergreen when it’s sung for the first time February 20 at a school assembly.
Fight, fight, fight for Washington State! Win the victory! Win the day for Crimson and Gray! Best in the West, we know you’ll all do your best, so On, on, on, on! Fight to the end! Honor and Glory you must win! So Fight, fight, fight for Washington State and victory!
W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N-S-T-A-T-E-C-O-U-G-S! GO COUGS!!
The song appears in the 1985 film Volunteers, sung by John Candy’s character Tommy Tuttle.
The February 26 issue of the Evergreen gives front page coverage to the first performance of the new fight song.
New fight song, first printed in the Evergreen, Feb. 26, 1919, page 8.
Legendary coach and athletic director J. Fred “Doc” Bohler leads the Crimson and Gray to a 25-1 record during the 1916-17 season, the best record in school history. The team features the core of Bohler’s outstanding 1915-16 squad: Roy Bohler (captain and brother of the coach), Ed Copeland, Bob Moss, Ivan Price, and Al Sorenson. The team’s accomplishment is even more remarkable considering it plays 18 of 26 games on the road.
In 1917, college basketball doesn’t yet have a formal way to determine a national champion at the end of the season. A panel of experts chosen by the Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936 in part to retroactively select national champions in football and basketball for seasons in which a formal champion wasn’t determined, didn’t forget WSC. In 1943, the foundation declares Bohler’s team 1917 national champions.
In November of 1893, Board of Regents chair Charles R. Conner persuades the state and others to donate their exhibits from the Chicago World’s Fair to the fledgling Washington Agricultural College. In 1914, the museum is officially named after Conner. As the collection evolves in the following years it focuses on vertebrate mammals. Now housed in Abelson Hall, the Conner Museum displays 700 specimens, with more than 65,000 in its research library.
Students and faculty replace wooden walkways with paved sidewalks during the first Campus Day event. On this day each spring for about 20 years, classes are canceled and the entire student body forms work parties to improve the physical appearance of campus.
The arch, located over the Opal Street entrance to campus, is a gift from the class of 1905. The arch is razed in 1955 and some of the rock is included in the Stadium Way entrance sign. The rock is maintained through various reworkings of that sign and entrance until 2015, when it is removed entirely.
The dedication of the Administration Building, known today as Thompson Hall, serves as a tangible sign of the college’s growth under President Bryan’s leadership. The regents describe the building as ”an excellent piece of work and one that in point of convenience, strength, and architectural beauty compares with any state building.” Built with granite quarried from Spokane and brick from clay deposits near Stevens Hall, the building’s two large contrasting towers make it one of the campus’s most distinctive landmarks.
Former United States President William Howard Taft speaks briefly and presents a few student awards at Rogers Field in the afternoon, then delivers a speech titled “Capital, Labor, and the Soviet” that evening in Bryan Auditorium.
The president had previously traveled to Pullman on October 7, 1911 while still in office, but he didn’t make it to campus, as he spoke from his train car at the Northern Pacific depot downtown. The visit appears to be the only time a sitting president has visited Pullman.
WSC President Holland, Doc Bohler, former U.S. President Taft.
