"Presidential Scholarships’ to honor five Louis F. Moench Funds raised by the Weber State College Alumni Association for “Presidential Scholarships” now total $30,000 according to Alan E. Hall, alumni director. Five former WSC presidents will be honored by having scholarships in their name presented to outstanding students. The presidents are Louis Frederick Moench, David QO: McKay, Aaron W. Tracy, Dr. Henry Aldous Dixon and William P. Miller. “We hope to offer a full-ride scholarship in the name of each president and it is our goal to raise $60,000 per president. The scholarships will be funded by the interest from the money, rather than using the money itself. Families of the presidents will be asked to identify the areas in which the scholarships will be awarded. “Mainly the donors have been family members and close personal friends but we invite all alumni to participate in this “presidential scholarship,” designating, if they so desire, which president they wish to honor,” Mr. Hall said. The presidents made many varied and significant contributions to the development of the college. Louis Frederick Moench, first president of what was then Weber Academy, started off on his educational career in the kingdom of Wurtemburg, South Western Germany, where he was born. Wurtemberg was at that time a center of education with the University of Tubingen and the common school and gymnasium were highly rated. As early as 1900 there was no Page © age.8 David O. McKay person in the kingdom over 10 years of age who could not read and write. Louis attended the gymnasium during his 7th, 8th and 9th and part of his 10th year. He was young enough to be vividly impressed by the teachings of the school and old enough to remember the fundamental principles of the strictly formal education of the German schools. At 10, following the death of his mother, he came with his brothers and sisters to American to join their father who was “in the land where opportunity beckoned.” He walked two miles to the nearest school and worked in his father’s tannery, studying at night and devoting hours to perfecting his penmanship and to increasing his knowledge of the English language. On his way to California with a friend, Louis Moench stopped over in Salt Lake City and was cordially received and made at home by Almeda Farr, wife of Winslow Farr, in Salt Lake City. The young professor soon found employment in the commercial department of the University of Deseret. Later, when he became the first principal of Weber Academy, Professor Moench remarked “it was with strange feelings that he arose to address the students, especially so when he realized the great responsibility which he was about to assume. From a dream which he had when he became a member of the L.D.S. Church, he felt to devote his life to the education of the youth of Zion. He could only lay the true foundation...he desired to give the Henry A. Dixon students a practical education, one would enable them to copy with all the difficulties of life.” (Walter A. Kerr, The History of the Weber Stake Academy.) | David O. McKay, a faculty member and President of Weber Academy from 1902 to 1908, expressed special sentiments about Weber in “Home Memories of President David O. McKay.” He said “my attachment to Weber is rooted in the fact that not a few years of my life are interwoven in its history and growth. As a youth of sixteen I was a student in its first rented home in the Second Ward meetinghouse. Three instructors of that year stand out in memory -- Principal Moench, Professor Haag, and Professor Pedersen. Later I was a student when it entered its first new home on Jefferson Avenue. “As I search for the source of my affection for the good old school, I find it not in its architecture, not in its brick walls, its beams and rafters, not even in the classrooms that connote so many fond memories, nor in the scholastic courses of study and the efficient instruction of the professors who compose the excellent faculty, but in the personal integrity and worth of the hundreds and thousands of students who in their lives in this old work-a-day world exemplify the ideals for which Weber Stake Academy, Weber Academy and Weber College have stood. “These ideals are the eternal verities... 1) Individual freedom Aaron W. Tracy to choose one’s life as long as one does not deprive another of that same right. 2) integrity, fair dealing, unbroken pledges whether spoken or written 3) faith in God and belief that there is still good in our fellow men.” “Let us ever keep in mind the ideals for which the founders of Weber College stood: not only must we teach the three Rs, but we must also cherish above all the ideals of character which are higher than the intellect.” David O. McKay’s son, Llewelyn R. McKay said, “Father always maintained that people became interested only when they themselves help to make or to build, so he became a zealous and courageous leader for building a great school for the future.” Students said of him in the Acorn, “Fortunate indeed are the students who have been registered in his classes; for when he taught religion, he gave truths he believed and had proved in practice. His lessons in literature were interpreted in the light of love and charity for all mankind, 200 38t bui wel } adn rec tec esti eve con © P ’ © and his moral teachings had behind them all the force of a perfect, moral life” § pres Dr. Henry Aldous Dixon became president during 1919-20, and then returned as president for a 16-year period, from 1937-53. In the interim he followed a varied educational and business career. During his later administration Weber’s new (continued on page 9) was whe inst fron yea criti tran Chu Latt