TE ON eB ee EO Re oR ee OE ee History in the making back one—"Dad did a great deal of shooting, but realized that his aim was not up to par and could not down the buckI got.” | In 1953 Governor Lee called our new buildings “Chicken % ya ’ ~~ a member, Dr. Robert A. Clarke. Almost every working day one can find him mulling over old yearbooks, Signposts, faculty meeting minutes, administrative and alumni records, as well as the Ogden Standard Examiner in an attempt to recreate on paper the sights, sounds and flavors of days gone by. “History is made up of small things,” Dr. Clarke smiled as he thumbed through a personal journal from the years he spent at WSC as a faculty member, dean and administrative vice president, beginning in 1937. “Most colleges write an administrative history, but you don't feel you have been at the college when you read those histories," he mused. “You feel more like you have sat in the president's chair." Dr. Clarke was a professor of mathematics and physics. He doesn't profess to be a writer nor a historian, but for the past three years he has been picking up WSC's past where the only “official” historian, Clarissa H. Hall, left off back in 1926. Thumbing through his neatly typed manuscripts from the year the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned the college over to the state, 1933, we read: 1933 Dances: The next dance will be the annual Junior Prom to be held April 20 at the Berthana Ballroom. It will be semi-formal. Tickets are 7S cents a couple or 40 cents each. and The problem of student smoking was mentioned. Teachers were asked to discourage it whenever they found someone smoking. and team members had joined the Navy, the Army and the Merchant Marines. “Plans for the annual Varsity Show have been cancelled..."because the draft board might select one or more important members of the group." The entire campus turned into a training ground to support the war effort. Everything from supervisory training to mechanic learner courses accommodated students from across the U.S., stationed at Hill Air Force Base. But even through those difficult years, Dr. Clarke lets the lighter side shine through: C.H. Skidmore, state superintendent of public instruction, Faculty Meeting had called for Oct. 22, 1943: dismissal of five A report on deer instructors (for hunting is given. improved efficiency). Among those reportFollowing this the Dr. Robert A. Clark ing: Clair Johnson Weber College faculty said that he had voted to take a ten percent cut shot one buck and two does. He in salary rather than have their said the buck was the largest deer number diminished. he had ever bagged and weighed close to 250 pounds. It was reported that Reed Swenson and Wallace Baddley, George Hyde and Clyde Decker had gone out and brought photo by Jim Sawdy i i One look at the beautiful sprawling 400-acre campus and it would appear Weber State College does not have a long history. Its new buildings boast modern architecture— with a look toward tomorrow, not back at yesterday. Yet WSC does have a history. And that history is being recorded, even as this story is written, by a proud and dedicated emeritus faculty coops." 1943 Ten years later the scene changes drastically with entries about war bond drives and the discontinued football season because so many back three deer. John Dixon, Captain of the football team, stated that he and the President had been deer hunting and had brought “And that same year the faculty requested more money than the budget would allow,” Dr. Clarke continued. “So you see the problem haven't changed much," he chuck ed. "President H. Aldous Dixon said they would have to take their requests back and submit them more in the line with available money." And they did! 1953 The next decade brought the big gest change of all to the college wi the completion of the first four buildings on the new site above Harrison Blvd. : “They were built so as you looke from Harrison up the hill you got the feeling that it was one building) he said, pointing to an old photograph. “Governor Maw said the old seven-acre Campus on Washington ay was sacred and that no campus could ever repace it; and Governd Lee called our new buildings chicken coops,” he laughed, but ~ quickly recalled the pride of both’ faculty and students in the new Ee location. "The buildings were completedi 1953, but we couldn't move up heey z : until the summer of 1954 because there were no roads or sidewalks’ he continued. He spoke of student and faculty rubbing shoulders as” they raked weeds and rocks from the new th ; soil for planting grass. And again faculty and students cutting brush for the road above the campus. ~ And page after page these memories are recorded as WSCS_ campus - > . history. But with each new buildi ; each new program and each new r student — another history begins. site to prepare ; It is comforting to know that on so dedicated as Dr. Clarke spends his “retirement” days filled witha effort so grand, to record at least? segment of the days, the months” and years we spent in search of © knowledge of our world and of © ourselves at WSC. photo by Jim Sawdy PRR