Fort Hays State University - Reveille Yearbook (Hays, KS)

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founders ' day march 3,1952 Dr. L. D. Wooster, president emeritus of Fort Hays Kansas State College, who delivered the Founder s Day Address. The first of three major events planned to celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of Fort Hays State was a Founders’ Day Assembly on March 3, with President Emeritus Wooster as principal speaker. Dr. Wooster paid tribute to Martin Allen, who for many years dreamed of an educational institution on the old fort reservation, but did not live to see the realization of his dreams. A special guest at the assembly was George Brown, now a night watchman at the college, who was one of the signers of a petition sent by Hays residents in 1895 to President Grover Cleveland requesting the establishment of the college. Mm j T Jfik 12

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It looks like things were certainly gay enough around Fort Hays State when grandmother was a girl. The gym in which the Bloomer Girls are posing you’ll recognize as the present Social Building. All was very formal as they crowned a Queen and wound a Maypole in front of Picken Hall, some 30 years ago. The bridge across Big Creek was known as Spoony Bridge, even before Custer Hall was built on the other side. Being a good skater was better than being a good dancer back ' in the good old days. Musical organizations, shown below, dit- fered only in costume from our modern 11 -ai m

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■ l 7 ' r v . r i ; ' i t a j w. a ' ' I tb U w- Y ' £ JS C 7 « - - - Ik : vV r ; v t- - s»w| The petition respectfully represents that the Fort Hays Military Reservation . . . long since abandoned for use as a Military Reservation . . ♦ be used , . For a location of branches of two state institutions ... a western branch of the Kansas Agricultural College and a western Kansas branch of the Kansas State Normal Institute . . It was twenty-three years from the time Martin Allen first formally recommended the establishment of the colleg e until its opening day in 1902. Photostatic Records of the petition to President Cleveland 13