30th 2002. And we're here at the CSU Information Center at Rural and
Apache. Uh doing a living history interview, Living history for the living
history video project for the Arizona State University retirees
Association. Uh And I'd like you to introduce yourself so we get your name
pronounced correctly.
Well my name is George Morel.
I retired from the university about 15 years ago. I started my
first career at the university in 1946, but I had already been At the
university since 1937. What was your title when you retired? When I
retired, I was Director of purchasing and business services.
I'd like to go back and just talk a little bit about your personal
background. Uh When and where were you born? I was born in Florence just
down the road a little ways. I'm a second generation native of Arizona. My
father was born here in Arizona. I grew up there and came to school left
there and came to school at uh what was then Arizona State Teachers
College in 1937.
I worked my way through school and graduated in 1941, Went into the Air
Force in December of 1941. I spent five years in the Air force as a
fighter pilot and came out In 1946. Why don't we go back and talk a little
bit about your family? I think that's very interesting that your second
Generation native American or native. Arizona native Arizona my
grandmother, my grandmother came to Arizona in a covered wagon in the in
the 18. I'm not exactly sure of the year, but somewhere around 1884,
something like that. They settled in a small little ranching community
called Canal, which is now a ghost town up around Superior, just off the
mountain there. That's where my father was born. And what brought your
grandmother's family here? Well, in those days, a lot of people were
coming west, you know, to, to resettle, they came from Kansas and I can't
tell you too much about the people in Kansas because I don't go back that
far really to to find out, you know, when you get a little older, you wish
you had talked a lot with the people that, that have already passed on,
you know. But of course we didn't get all that. But they came, they came
through in a covered wagon and the whole family settled in that area. What
did they do for a living? There were ranchers. In fact, my, my dad grew up
on a cattle ranch. He was, it's kind of an interesting. My grandmother was
married three times she lost to the first two husbands. And in fact, my
father was uh, let me go back a minute. The her first husband was, my
father's father and my
my grandfather died when my father was about nine years old and he kind of
helped raise the family from that time on, she married to others. But they
all were cattle ranchers in that area up around the Whitlow ranch, which
is in the area of superior up there, that was, that was the man's name
that she married last time. So how did your father end up in Florence?
Well, the family decided, I guess I don't know whether the cattle ranching
business wasn't very good or anything, but they decided to move. They
first moved to Imperial Valley and we're farmers there, then moved to to
Coolidge Florence area where they were farming. And then they got out
during the depression years of course, why everything went bad and they
got out of the farming and lost everything that they had. My father worked
in on a construction crew for the Arizona State Highway department during
the time that I was growing up, my mother was postmaster of Florence. Mm
hmm. They stayed in Florence all that time.
Well, they were at one time, but they lost all that. Yeah, I heard stories
about the depressed cotton. Yes. Well, there was a lot of people lost a
lot during the depression. You know, they didn't. So when you were born,
how big of a family? Children were in the family just have, I just have a
sister. She's two years older than I am. She lives in, in san Antonio
right now. My mother and father are both passed away. My My dad lived to
about, I think it was about 88. My mother lived till she was 89 and both
in reasonably good health until the time they passed away. Yes, yes.
When you were growing up as a boy. Well Florence is about the same as it
is right now. To tell you the truth, Florence hasn't changed any. If you
go back to Florence right now you'd see what it was when we were growing
up. Except there's a few more stores that are closed and the movie theater
isn't there anymore and that sort of thing. But it was small town,
probably Maybe 1200 people that lived in Florence at that time. And most,
most of the uh it was, it was a ranching community farming community plus
the Arizona state prison of course was there and that was one of the big
industries for Florence. You know, a lot of people worked at the prison.
Um Growing up in those days I was a little bit different, we had no air
conditioning and I think of that sort, but we had a swimming pool at the
high school and of course that was our recreation during the summer, most
of the time, you know, we played sandlot football, Sandlot baseball, all
the kids in town all grew up together. Uh just kind of a small town
atmosphere. Do you remember having to do chores as a boy? Oh yes, we lived
on a ranch. So I had do a lot of those, we had, we had to milk cows, we
had three milk cows and we had we raised a few pigs. We raised, we we had
about a 15 acre farm. It was just a little just enough to keep us going,
you know. And besides my dad working at the time we had a couple of horses.
We had all that sort of thing. So I had to milk cows. I had to clean
chicken pans and do all that sort of thing. What about school? What was
what was, where did you go to school As a boy? We had one grammar school
and one high school. The high school was actually a union high school that
took in Florence, Coolidge, red rock picazio. All that area kids came to
school in Florence for that during high school. Uh I can't remember an
awful lot about my high school days. You know it goes back too far. But I
know I worked at the time not only going to school but working at the time.
What did you do? Well I was a soda jerk in a drugstore when they used to
have soda fountains. You probably don't ever remember those. But I was
delivered milk for a dairy. Of course I worked around it one Arm Ourselves
delivered newspapers. Yeah those were depression years and everybody had
to pitch in and do something. My dad had two jobs because they didn't
people just didn't have jobs anymore. So he only had a half time job on
the highway department. He had to leave halfway through and somebody else
took his place for the rest of the month. But he was a night watchman at
the same time. So that kind of helped out.
We raised a lot of our own produce and eggs and milk and butter and pork
and so forth. So we never we were never hungry at all. But the depression
days were different than they are now. So in high school or school did you
have favorite subjects? No it wasn't a particularly good student in high
school you know just mostly playing I think more than anything else. Not
really. I guess that I probably like mathematics and that sort of thing as
well as anything. Um I wasn't very big at that time. I must say that I
grew up about the time that I left high school. Um Because I was I had
skipped the second grade. So I was a little young for my age going through
school so I wasn't quite big enough to play football. I did play baseball
and I did play basketball but football was one of my favorites. But I
never was a was big enough to play football when I came to issue which was
A. S. T. C. In those days I was on the track team. Well a couple of years
as a boy growing up. What were your plans? What were you going to do? Well
I don't know that I had plans until it was you know, getting along toward
the end of high school years, but what I wanted to do, I wanted to be in
the FBI
and you had to have in those days you had to have either an accounting
degree or a law degree in order to get into the FBI. Well, I knew I was
never going to be able to get a law degree, so that's why I've set my
sights on a shoe to come and get an accounting degree, which I did. But
the war coming along changed all that. What do you want to be in the F. B
. I don't know. Well
I had some friends that had gone to the FBI, some older friends and it
just seemed like I guess supposed to glamorous career in those days. And
that was that was what I was hoping to be. But when the war came along
that changed plans for a lot of people. When did you first come to A. S. U.
1937 what was it called then? Here's an Estate Teachers college had about
oh I suppose a little over 1000 students at the time. The campus was maybe
10 to 12 major buildings.
We had, let's see, I think we had about seven dormitories at that time
because a lot of students lived on campus, The ones that didn't actually
weren't from Tempe or phoenix to that area. Usually lived on campus. We
didn't have all the outside apartments and that sort of thing in those
days that they have now,
of course, the university, I call it, the university. The college at that
time was bisected by Orange Street. And college at rand college ran all
the way through north and south, and Orange Street ran all the way through
east and west as far as Forest Avenue. So there was traffic through the
campus at all times until they closed off in later years after the war, in
later years closed off and built the malls. But, and we had the, well,
let's see the quadrangle,
which was East Hall, North Hall, Southall West Hall, Very imaginative
names, weren't they? For dormitories. That was probably the area that was
the most popular in those days. As far as the campus was concerned, that
was kind of the hub. I happen to live in East Hall in those days.
No parking lots. Nobody had any cars. So they didn't need any parking lots.
Most of the cars that were on the campus parked on the streets in those
days in Orange Street or College Avenue. I think we had Maybe two cars in
our dormitory. That was about the extent of it. Um,
At, at college and what was then 8th Street, which is now university,
they had the varsity in which was a hangout student hangout in those days.
Across the street. Cat a corner over on the other side was joe pigs. I
don't know if you've ever heard of joe pigs, but that was also on campus.
Uh, place for students to hang out next to the varsity. N was a barber
shop and a cleaning establishment. I think haircuts were a quarter. I can
always remember that haircuts were 25 cents in those days. But if you had
a date in those days, you probably picked up your date at one of the
dormitories and you went down to the bar city in and you had a coke or ice
cream cone or something like that and sat around and talked and that was,
that was about it. Or you went to the library and did a little studying
first. You know, most of them are studied in the library.
That was Matthews library. The library was upstairs, the administration,
administrative offices were downstairs, President's office, registrar,
business office and so forth. That's now Matthew center. And I suppose
it's mostly
a gallery.
Yeah. It's going to be a little, what was your dorm room like?
We had sleeping porches in most of the dormitories in those days because
it was so hot. There was no air conditioning that most of us slept out on
the screen and sleeping porch, The dormitory room was just a plain room.
Uh no beds in it. You had a couple of study tables and a couple of closets
and a couple of chairs and that was it, but kids went in and out and those
that didn't live in the dorm stayed there every once in a while anyway,
whether they were actual occupants of the dorm or not. I remember our our
room was a little large because it was on the corner and we had, we're
supposed to have three roommates, but we had about 56. Sometimes you never
knew for sure who was going to be there that night. I didn't sleep in the
room, didn't sleep in the room, slept out on the sleeping porches. Yes.
Mhm. Okay.
All the dormitories were not like that. East hall was like that. Some of
the dormitories like Matthews hall alcohol. And so we've had sort of what
you would call sweets. In other words, maybe two rooms that would have a
sleeping porch
Connected to the two rooms, nobody had any private bass, they were all
down the hall type things, gang type showers. And so
What did you think of it coming from Florence? Well, I thought it was a
large place, really, a big school because I I graduated from a class of 28
And when I got over here we had almost a 1000 students, you know, that was
pretty good, good.
But
and I did, I'd never been anyplace before really. I don't think, I think
I've been to California a couple of times. Right. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
But
and you, I did, it was a lot. It was my four years in college was really
enjoyable. You've never been to phoenix? Well we've been to phoenix back
and forth because phoenix was the place that we did our major shopping
about three or four times a year if you wanted to buy school clothes and
that sort of thing usually came to phoenix to do that. What was that? Well
, phoenix was a small town to really in comparison to what it is right now
, but it was a pretty large city as far as we were concerned. And it had,
we had a number of major stores in those days. Uh they're no longer there
Kerekes, boston store, that sort of thing which were bought up by some of
the larger the department stores and they became, I forget the names of
them now. They're probably Dillard's and all that sort of thing. But it
was a place to come and spend a day. It was kind of an adventure to get
over to phoenix. You know, have lunch in one of the restaurants. How did
you get from Florence?
Where were the highways? Well there was no freeway but they had the same
highway that you come from Florence to Florence junction on on and on up
through Mesa on into phoenix,
A
lot of it was not paved, it was paid from mesa onto phoenix, but from
Florence up it was not paved. In fact as we in the summertime we used to
make sure my dad would make sure that if we came to phoenix, we always
left by two o'clock in the afternoon because if the rains came, the
washers ran and you were not going to be able to get back and that sort of
thing. Yeah,
well it was a trip of a couple of hours at a time, you know, you know, It
was all day and it was an all day adventure going 65. Not really. Yeah,
you mentioned that, you know, people didn't have cars like that at the
college then. How did you get around? Well, we, we bought gas for whoever
did have a car, if we wanted to get into Phoenix to go to a movie or
something like that, we pay 10 cents apiece for half a gallon of gas or
whatever it was that we needed. And the bus line ran, I can remember
Mendelssohn's bus line ran between phoenix and Tempe and Mesa so we can
get around pretty well.
So when you came to college, what would you say you wanted to get into the
FBI? What kind of classes? I just took a general of course with a major in
accounting in those days. There was no, there were no colleges as such. In
other words, you took a degree, you took a bachelor of arts degree in
education is that that's what I got was to be an education, although my
major was in accounting uh and so I took the same thing that most
everybody else took in those days, you know with with the exception of
some special accounting courses.
So when did you graduate, graduated in 1941? Mm hmm. I had already joined
the Air Force. I got into the Air Force about April or May of 1941
and passed my physicals and was accepted. But at that time the war had not
broken out. So I they didn't need pilots for a while. But as soon as
December seven came I had a telegram that said you will report to Hillary
Air Force Academy. And so I went in the service at that time.
Unfortunately I'd already graduated though a lot of the guys that were
friends of mine, I had a year ago, two years ago or something like that.
They had to come back after the war and finish up. And we had a lot of G
. I. S. That came back after the war as a pilot to fly. I didn't know how
to fly. I had to go in as a, as a fact is to be honest with you I had
never been in an airplane before. I when in the flight training but
I went through the program
went down was sent to March Field first fly bombers. And then from there
we were sent to Orlando florida and trained in night fighter training. I
was a night fighter pilot in the war over in europe mediterranean and so
forth. I was there for two years
and came back. And uh I had actually worked for the university from june
to december because I had, I had graduated and I was just sitting and
waiting for my call to go in the Air Force. And my friend Gilbert Katie,
who was the business manager at the university, I had worked for him as a
student, gave me a job as a
work in the business this office
for six months
from june to december until I went back in the Air Force. Tell me a little
about your World war two experience. There's not too many, you know, we're
losing a lot of you guys. Um Any experiences stand out of what, what are
you doing? Oh I probably did what the same as everybody else did over
there. I was over there for two years. We first started in England flying
an english airplane because at that time the U. S. Air Force did not have
a night fighter aircraft. There's such, in other words
there's one,
thank you.
But that okay all the time. Midnight mostly. Yeah right.
We had used
38
training but we didn't have what was called a night fighter aircraft. So
they sent us to England and we outfitted in what was called the british
bow fighter. It was a twin engine night fighter aircraft that had been
used during the battle of Britain and all that time. You know the british
were in the war for four years before we ever got in and we were outfitted
and trained there and then our squadron was sent down into the
Mediterranean into Africa during the African campaign. And we moved up
through Africa into Sardinia and Corsica in Italy and southern France in
that area. We flew almost always at night. Why? Well, somebody had to fly
at night. You know, we were night fighter deals rather than day fighter
pilots. And so we did a lot of harbor patrols. We did a lot of night
strafing and back of enemy lines. In other words, you go up into southern
France and do strafing of airfields and whatever, moved another trains and
trucks and convoys and so forth. So we did all of our nuisance at night
more than anything else. And for 86 missions came home and gosh, I don't
remember when I came home, came home and about november of 1940 for I
guess I was over there about two years.
Well, everybody that flew in the war had close calls. Yes. In fact, as I
crashed on takeoff 11 night I took off and about halfway down the runway
my left engine exploded and caught on fire and we cracked up at the end of
the runway. Everybody got we only had to we had radar observer and a pilot.
We both got out okay with just a few bumps and bruises and scratches. But
we were lucky. Very lucky We had a few like that. You know you can't fly
86 missions in two years without having some close calls. But that's not
unusual with most of the pilots. Well we didn't have any too much of a
problem with enemy planes. By the time that we got into that area, the
german Air force had pulled back to really protecting Germany more than
anything else. They weren't doing much in the way of bombing raids. We had
a few bombing raids. We covered we covered the Angelo Beach Head when they
were bombing There we are quite a knockdown about four airplanes I think
at that time I never really did. I chased a lot of them but I never really
was able to get close enough. But anyway we we had mainly
what we call intruder missions which were taking off and flying into an
area and back of the lines and doing whatever straight thing you could
find during the night, surprising what you can see at night even though
it's dark. You didn't have all the fancy night vision stuff. They have to
do nothing. But we did have radar which we had airborne radar which we had
a radar operator he could pick up he could pick up planes in the air, he
could pick up things on the ground and that sort of thing which helped but
you still had to see it before. You could do anything about it much
different than the wars are now where they can Lock on five miles away and
and shoot a rocket in. You know, you said you'd never been in an airplane
before. I've never been in an airplane before. I started flying well in
those days. You know you have to have money to take a ride in an airplane.
Didn't have any money for one thing and we certainly didn't do any
traveling by air. So we just hadn't, I just never had an opportunity to
fly. What made you think you'd want to be a pilot? Well, I didn't want to
be on the ground for one thing. You know, I was always be honest with you
. I was always really interested in flying even though I'd never flown, I
made model airplanes and did all that sort of thing when I was a young and
I just always had an inkling to, to kind of be a pilot really. I never
thought I would be until the war came along of course. But what do you
think on your first flight? Well it was kind of very interesting. You know
, it was a thrill. Yeah, I can't remember it to be honest with you. I
can't really remember exactly what but I felt like at that time it's a
long, long time
March Air Force Base. That would be interesting. Well when I went to March
Air Force Base, those were B 20 four's. My
first one that I went to to Larry. I trained in PT 13, which was a
Stearman biplane open to open cockpits, You know that sort of thing. We
did our primary training in that. We went to Bakersfield after that and
flew B 13 which was enclosed, but it was still just a smaller plane. Then
we went to Victorville Air Force Base and flew advanced training there in
a twin engine, small twin engine plane In 89, which I'm sure you don't
ever know what an 89, was but it was a small twin engine aircraft and
that's where I got my wings at Victorville
And then went to March and flew B- 24 is for just a short period of time.
Then I went down to Orlando trained in knife fighter training Most of
those 86 flights. What were you flying? Flying a Bullfighter? All my
combat experience was in a bristol Bullfighter british airplane Later on
after I had left the squadron Uh, and came home, the squadron was
outfitted with P- 61, which is the black widow. That's what the air force
built as their night fighter aircraft. I flew that when I got back from
overseas in training, but I never fluid in combat. So after you had all
that adventure, what, what were you thinking about doing after? Well, I
didn't know really, when I was in, I was stationed in Fresno at the time
and I had an idea that I might stay in the air force because I like to fly
and I thought well maybe I'll just make a career of the Air Force. I
didn't get out of the service until February of 1946, which was well after
the war ended because I didn't know for sure whether I wanted to make a
career of the Air Force or not. And at the time Gilbert Katie was back out
of the service and was the business manager at the university and he
called me and offered me a position as assistant business manager if I
wanted, if I got out of the service. And so I thought about it for a long
time and finally decided that even though I liked the Air Force, I didn't
like the idea of moving around all the time, you know to be stationed in
one place for 2, 3 years and then moved to another place to three years
and on and so forth. So I finally decided that I would leave the Air Force
and I came back to the issue as assistant business manager,
I had a wife, I didn't have any kids, but I had a wife, we got married and
when we were in Fresno right after the war,
Well that's a long story, I met her when she was in grammar school and she
, she had a she had a cousin that lived in Florence, she lived in phoenix
, I had that she had a cousin that lived in Florence. She came down to
Florence to visit during the summer and we got acquainted there and we, it
was a strange thing you know we kept in touch all during the war we never
really were close close but A letter ever two or 3 months or something
like that you know? And so we kept in touch with each other all during the
war. And when I came back from overseas I went for my arrest and
rehabilitation santa Monica California rest center at that time she had
moved to santa Monica and was working at north american aviation over
there during the war. And I thought gee I know a girl that lives here so I
called her up and we had a few dates and just went from there.
We were married about I suppose about a year later after that. So you
decided to come back and I decided to come back and and was was assistant
business manager. Again, this was in 1946. Again the school was the
university of Willow College, I should say to college at that time was
Arizona State College. It had changed names from Arizona State teachers
college years in State college And I suppose there was about 1200 students
, maybe a few more than that when I came back. It was still bisected by
college and orange in other words the campus hadn't changed much at all by
that time because during the war, of course there was no building or
anything that was going on at that time. But the students started coming
back on the G. I. Bill and I think the first year we're just about doubled
the enrollment. The second year, I think we just about double that
enrollment and it just kept going up from there. Every year was a big
expansion. And during those early years, although I was assistant business
manager, I was everything I, the business office did the physical plant
from Emma, graphing the motor pool of you name it. It was anything that
was part of the facilities where we, we handle that physical plant. Um,
and I was not actually a purchasing agent at that time, although I did
handle purchasing, but that was just kind of a sideline in those days. And
uh, yeah, we
had students coming out of our ears. We had students that we tried to
house in the basement of the lyceum building. All the dormitories were
filled and probably had more than they should have had in each room. You
know, we had Olive hall. Olive hall was a hotel down in middle of Tempe,
took that over as a dormitory. Students lived there and we actually
couldn't handle them because we didn't have any new dormitories for quite
a long time until they built irish hall and finally got some breathing
room. But in those days the budget was very, very slim. We had to scratch
for everything that we got in those days. Talking about housing. Somebody
tell us about Victory Village. Victory Village was Part of it was there
when I came back from the service, they had already started victory
village with 50 trailers that they got from the federal government. I
don't know if the story of that's been told or not, but a man by the name
of john Sandy Bridge was one of the old alumnus of the university and he
right after the war he was he was too old to be in the service. I mean he
was an older man at that time. Right after the war though he saw the need
for G. I. Married housing G. I. That had been married in So in some way or
whether they were able to get 50 traders from the federal government. They
in some way or other raised the money to put in the sewers and in the
utilities and so forth. And he brought those trailers in and set them up.
And that was the first GI housing on campus that was on right where.
Gammage Auditorium is now on the curve down there. Later on they brought
in some flat top dormitories and those were used for G. I. S. Coming back
and then they brought in some flat top duplexes. I think they came from
one of the relocation centers. In other words the Japanese relocation
centers down in post, in that area. They brought those in and those were
used for marriage students housing a little bit later on. They brought in
I think for barracks buildings and converted those into apartments. And
those were used for faculty housing at the time. And we also converted
what we call the NY apartments, which is, which was a building at the
university owned out on Mill Avenue.
And it was used for part of the farm at that time, converted that to
apartments. Those a little just very, very small efficiency apartments
where you had a little the van that you made out into a bed and so forth
and couples live there mostly faculty. I think there might have been a few
students there, but mostly faculty.
Can I interrupt for a moment. You mentioned the curve. The curve actually
go in, wasn't that? It used to be a corner, it used to be a corner. Well,
I'm not exactly sure, but it it went in well before, before night, before
the war, it was there during the war. Right, uh huh. So I'm not exactly
sure of the year, but it was there. But that was a college farm. That was
a farm when I came back from the service. There weren't very many where
there were no no new buildings, we were just starting to grow, you know,
in all that area where Gammage Auditorium is now and all that curve in
there except for where the trailers were, was the college farm. We grew,
oh, I don't know what they grew. I remember that we raised chickens and we
raised hogs and we we had a dairy farm but it was a little bit out of out
on Mill Avenue and part of the produce was used for the dining hall. What
little bit that they could all the eggs and that sort of thing. And the
reason I know it well is because when I came to school, that was my first
job with cleaning the chicken pins and the pig pens at the college farm.
That was my first job. I did that for a year and then I was promoted. I
went from there to the dining room and I was in the dishwashing crew in
the dining room for a year and then I was since I was in accounting and
had done some clerical work and new, got acquainted with Gilbert Katie, he
gave me a job as a student assistant in the business office. So I spent my
last two years as a, as a clerk in a business office for I'm working my
way through college a little better than cleaning chicken coops very much
better. But going back to going back to the years when they first came
back from the service. Um
I wish, I wish my memory we're clear on all those years back there. But we
built another stadium, We built stadium across the way from old Goodwin
Stadium. It was two sides to it. Goodwin Stadium was at the end of college
, right on the highway.
There's a parking garage there now. Uh and it was just one side held. Oh I
suppose probably had 4,003, 3 or 4000 or something that could sit in the
in the stands. Then we build another one across the way and we build a
dormitory underneath. Where was that? That was just across, I mean that
was the other side of the football field.
It was, I can't remember the name of the streets over there now.
Yeah,
it was all normal. Yeah, normal Avenue. But and and for I don't know
whether right at the beginning or not but for a long time it was used as
an athletic dormitory. We had a stadium. All the athletes lived in there.
It was underneath the stadium but there were rooms built in, their rooms
were built in there and it was it was used as a dormitory. It was a man's
dorm. Was used as an athletic dorm for a long time. Yeah.
We didn't really start building until oh, I suppose we built
uh the Union building in about Somewhere in the early 50s. We built the
administration building which was also the Business, the Business
administration building. The other wing Somewhere in the early 50s. So
where was your office before that?
My office was in the Hallway of Matthews Hall when I 1st started. Yeah,
that sounds kind of funny but that's the truth. Matthews Matthews Library
, as I told you before. The upper part of it was used as an administrative
offices, business office, registrar's office, president's office. And then
the basement also had had
Poppy H I know it was down there mrs krause and personnel was down there
and a few others. But there was a back door to Matthews which came by the
business office and out through a fairly good sized hallway. Oh I suppose
it was 12 ft wide.
The college switchboard was there and my office was there, they closed off
the door and that was my office gradually we moved, we moved to the lyceum
building I think was the first place we moved to while we were building.
What was general stores in physical plant. And my office was in that. We
moved all around
right
on Matthews hall. Matthews hall was a girls dormitory. Matthews what is
Matthews library in the administrative area was where the main switchboard
was in my office, in the back, what what was the switchboard? What did the
campus switchboard do? Well, it was a plug in type, you know, it had an
operator and so if you call the university you got the operator and then
they plug you into whichever department you wanted and that was, it had
one, whatever you call it. One bank of plugs, you know? And uh that was
there for quite some time quite a while. That was the only communication
system that we had in those days then there was one phone number to call.
Right. That's exactly right.
Oh, I wouldn't have any idea really. But I doubt if there were more than
100 to most. I have no idea how many phones, phones. There were one
switchboard. One switchboard operator. Mm hmm. Okay. When we moved from
there over to the building, it was called General Stores and physical
Plant. They moved the switchboard at that time and put in a much larger
switchboard. But it was still manually operated. And I guess now the
switchboard, if you want to call it, that communications is in the
basement of old main and takes up the whole takes up the whole basement.
That's mostly of course it's mostly automated. So yeah. Yeah. Nobody. No
switchboard operators to talk to, you know, Not anymore. Well, do you do
have an operator and we do have an operator? Yeah, you can call an
operator and get information.
You mentioned that you were debating whether to stay in the Air Force when
you were offered this job. You remember what the salary was. Yes, I
certainly do. I came back at a contract of $2400 a year. I thought that
was pretty good to be honest with you. And uh it gradually went up from
there. But it didn't grow up very fast and mm hmm. And that was year round.
You work around here around $2400 a year. Well I think you know what
would would help if you tell that story and tell how much you made as a
pilot. Because I know the Air Force pay was not, you know, Well I was
getting about the same as a pilot because pilots got flight pay. Uh if I
if I I came out as a really came out as a major so I had a little bit more
than than the ordinary pilot, you know? But I probably was making about
$2400.
Yes, as a pilot in the Air Force. So I thought well if I can get a
civilian job at the same. Well that wasn't too bad. I know it sounds like
a very very small amount but we lived on it, you know, it's amazing how
the fact we've got my first house that I that I bought Cost Me $80 $200.
My payments were something like $38 a month. You know, I had it and bought
it on the G. I. Bill of course. And I think my payments were about $38 a
month. It was on Orange Street about two blocks east of the university,
which is now a parking lot. Also parking garage
when my wife and I and Our two kids moved From that house to the one we
live in now, which is, we've lived in for 40 some years. Our payments went
up to 120 some dollars a month. And we were really worried as to whether
or not we could even afford that, you know. But we managed, we managed I
bet if the house is worth a lot more than that. Yes it is, yeah.
Ah
You know when you start talking about salaries and things it's kind of
amazing. Well everybody was doing that. I don't think the professors were
doing any better because they of course they only had a nine month a year
salary in those days. You know, they didn't get paid in the summertime
unless they taught summer school and then they got an extra stipend for
summer school. But um I'm sure that their salaries weren't any larger than
that. Mhm. It was it was really budgets were pretty slim in those days.
The legislature was not, the legislature did not treat A. S. U. Arizona
State College at that time as well as they treated at the University of
Arizona. Not by alongside,
well I don't really know too much about that. The University of Arizona
was the university of, of the state. You know the land grant college,
although it wasn't any older than Arizona State was, but it was a land
grant college and it was the university and it was Probably the most
prestigious one around, you know and we were just a little small normal
school to start with and then became a teacher's college. So our budgets
were much much smaller than the University of Arizona. They were doing
research and research at A. S. U. Was practically non existent in those
days. So I bet you were much much smaller.
The Board of Regents was formed. Now, I'm not exactly sure of the year on
this, but the border regions was formed sometime after the war as a full
border regions for all three universities, each one used to have their own
board and our board didn't fare as well at the university, I mean at the
legislature as the University of Arizona's did and that kept on going for
years and years and years. I think they're pretty equal right now. But mhm.
For a long, long time, they weren't, we really scratched for a long time
after the war, especially with the influx of students. You know, we're
taking on double enrollments every year for three or four years was quite
a, quite a chore. We lived on surplus. I didn't tell you about this. Right
after the war, the federal government allowed educational institutions to
get surplus property and they were giving away a lot of stuff and it was
all the war equipment and so forth was going, you know, they had to get
rid of it. So they allowed educational institutions to acquire surplus
property for nothing. They had a surplus property administrator in Arizona
and they had a warehouse and so forth. And for a long time, we practically
lived on surplus property. We built our motor pool from surplus trucks,
cars, a few cars, not many, but mostly trucks, pickups. We had a big
flatbed trailer that we got from surplus. And we used that all over the
campus. We've got a great big ah record, I guess you would call it. It was
kind of a crane and we used that around the campus to move trees and do
all this. So we did, our motor pool was practically all government surplus.
We got desks, we got office machines, we got typewriters, we got lab
equipment. I had one person working for me that did nothing but go around
to two air bases and various places to see what was available. And we got
, we've got an awful lot of that fact is if it hadn't been for the surplus
property program, I don't think we would have survived for the first three
or four years a week right after the war. Well, I think we're still using
some of the desks that we got.
We got an awful lot of desks from them. one of the funny things that
happened, tell you a little story about this. We had a man who was in
charge of janitors and all of the cleaning and so forth of the university
and by the name of Bill Henry. Bill Henry. Actually, it looked like the
president of the university was a tall, very dignified, gray haired man
with glasses. He had when he when he would dress up, he would have a stick
pin with a diamond in his in his tie and so forth. Anyway, he was in
charge of
all of the moving and so forth. And so when we'd get a load of something
coming in purpose property, why his group would have to unload it and try
to store it and try to find a place for it. Well we needed mattresses.
This is very early in the year in the in the days and we had had all these
students coming in, we had no place to put them. We put cots in the
basement of the lyceum, we put cuts all over the place and we even had
them in the gymnasium for a while. But we had no mattresses. So I I don't
remember exactly when, but we had a flyer that showed that we could get
mattresses from surplus. So I put in an order for 1000 mattresses about
three or four days later, here they came truckload mattresses and Bill
Henry unloaded them and we stored them in the what was then the old
gymnasium. It's gone now it's been torn down, but that was the old
gymnasium. We, well a couple of days later, here comes another truckload
of mattresses and he unloaded those and stored pretty soon, we had
mattresses all over the place. In fact we had more mattresses and we could
handle? They kept coming in by the carloads. And what had happened was
when the order got into wherever it goes to surplus property. They had
added unintentionally. It added a zero to it. And we got 10,000 mattresses
before we could shut them off the gymnasium. I'm not kidding about this.
The gymnasium was absolutely packed with mattresses as high as you can see
, you can just barely make little lyle's through them. You know we used
those mattresses for a year or so. We they were kind of thin so we put
about three on every bed, you know, so it would be more comfortable. We
used them in the in the physical education classes from maps, we use them
in ROTC for them to lay down and do there. We had a little rifle range in
the basement of the one of the dorms. I mean one of the stadiums, we used
them for everything and I'm sure there were probably a lot of them
disappeared around town too and all that sort of thing. But that was a
funny thing. Poor old Bill. He just couldn't get him stopped. You know, it
was one of those things where you couldn't put the cork in it at all. And
but we've had some great times and that was a great story. Yeah,
that's exactly right. Somebody else said the same thing, the same thing
couldn't get it stopped.
So you said you were the assistant business editor. How how big was the
business department? Well, when I started I had myself and one person,
the business office itself probably had. Mr Katie was the business manager
um
Cashier Tillman Krantz, who was the Major clerk at that time. I mean the
accountant, maybe three or 4 others business office was probably sick
people with the most.
And we had, as I told you, we ran everything that was Physical Plant
bookstore. Mhm purchasing, memory, graph, motor pool, everything that was
part of the operation University gradually over the years, of course, as
it expanded why those were moved out into separate. That's the way I might
have got into purchasing. Mr. You would ask me at one time which one of
these departments I would rather have. And at the time I thought well I've
been interested in searching for a long time and it's interesting to me.
So I'll do that. And that's when I moved over into strictly purchasing and
nothing else. Well, I shouldn't say nothing else purchasing and
demographic and motor pool and those things, I had those for a long time
under my jurisdiction. Motor pool is huge. Now
actually uh it was it was pretty good size in those days because we had an
awful lot of surplus trucks and those kind of things that we used at the
university to. We even had busses. We even had busses that we used not
very not very dependable. In fact is a lot of them broke down on field
trips and that sort of thing. But they were they were used
any other special stories like that that you remember, Not that I can
recall right off hand.
The
University in those days was more of a family type thing. You know, I'm
talking about in the early 50s, late 40s and early 50s. I was gone again
in two years. I was gone again in 50 and 51. I was recalled for the Korean
War. And so I particularly of absence. They came back in 51, but in the
late 40s and the early 50s it was, it's kind of like a family as far as
the faculty and the staff and so were the concern. We knew each other. We
knew we went to the, I can't remember what they call the room, but we had
a, we had a room in the union building that was used for faculty and staff
coffee room more than anything else. It was a lunch room, that's where
they had lunch. But we also use it as a coffee break. And and in those
days you could meet for coffee and talk to the dean's or talk to the heads
of the departments or talk to anybody. You know, you had, you had a
relationship that they don't have nowadays,
You've known a lot of the different presidents. Two. Why don't you tell me
about some of the different presidents I served under six I think. Dr
Gamage of course was the first one and he was I thought dr Gamble was
great, Doctor Gammage was a great man.
He he was a foundation of this university really um
very well liked, very well respected in the community. He let most of the
physical operation of the university over into Gilbert Katie's hands
really. And between the two of them they kind of operated the university.
But but dr which of course was was the president.
None of the academic work was done by by Mr Katie. All of that was was on
the other side of the academia.
Um He passed away In about 1958. AM I right? Something in that time. And
then of course Homer Durham came after that and Homer Durham was a very,
very effective president and very, very well liked.
He got around the campus a lot more than most of the presidents did he
would you you would be working in your office and first thing you look up
and there's Homer Durham standing in the doorway, just come by to say
hello, you know, something like that happened to be passing by and thought
I'd just drop in and say hello, he do. He did that quite often. He was
quite a popular man and during Dr. Durham's 10ure we had probably the
largest building era of all in those years. There were, from my memory
serves me right, where there were either 24 or 26 major buildings built
during drums time.
Um That was when the university was really expanding, you know, and we
became, we became a university, we became a university just before Durham
came, but then he really build it up to different colleges and so forth.
In fact, I think, I think we only had three colleges to start with.
Four. Was your office involved with all that construction and yes,
definitely, we did all the contracting for it and did all the bidding for
whatever is necessary. Um The major building of course was Gammage
Auditorium, which was built in those days. The Image Auditorium was built
With including the stage lighting, the staging, the seating and so forth,
worked for $2,800,000.
I can remember signing the contract for the building of Gambits auditorium
the first time I had ever signed a contract for over $1 million dollars in
the building itself Was a million something, just, just, just under $2
million. I thought that was a huge, huge contract in those days. Who did
you sign the contract with? Well, William Wesley Peters was the architect
for the
building, the building, you know, it's a frank Lloyd wright concept, they
call it a frank Lloyd wright building, but it was never designed exactly
by frank Lloyd wright. The concept was done by frank Lloyd wright. The
building itself.
The idea of the building itself was for Iran, you know, for the Shah of
Iran but that was just sort of a sketch more than anything else. And so
when frank Lloyd Wright's foundation was hired to do the the building of
this, they used that and frank Lloyd Wright himself did the concept, in
other words, he was alive at that time, the concept of the auditorium
which was to have two round buildings at that time. One of them the music
building which is built and the other one was to be the fine arts building
on the other side. In other words the wings going out and so forth, had to
round buildings. Well we never did build the fine arts building, we never
did have the money at that time to do it. And in fact we didn't have money
to do the music all the music building at that time we did one part of it
, but he passed away dr Gammage passed away and the building in was taken
over by the frank Lloyd Wright foundation and William Wesley Peters was
the chief architect of that building and he was the one that we dealt with
of course at that time.
Yes, yes. And did you ever know frank Lloyd Wright? I didn't know him
personally, although I have met him, I used to see him walking with dr
damage. They used to go out and kind of walk the area on the where the
curve is just to see at that time we had hoped that he was going to build
a building for us but the legislature was not too happy to have frank
Lloyd wright build our buildings. They had turned down one as you know, he
had a concept for the capitol building at one time and they thought that
was Disneyland and they didn't want to build that. But anyway a second
secondly frank Lloyd wright would not Do business with the university for
the six fee that the university was allowed to pay. In other words that
was a state Law that you couldn't pay more than six to the architect. Well
dr gamble was a personal friend of frank Lloyd wright's and used to come
over every once in a while and you'd see him walking with his cape and his
flat top hat walking around and they were pointing out you know this and
then something else I suppose they were figuring out where the building
should go but of course he passed away before anything was really done.
We got frank Lloyd wright group
at 6% but we also had to pay on this side for the seating and for the
sound consultant and for quite a few other things because He wouldn't pay
for that in other words it wasn't going to come out of his 6%. So we did
manage to get a frank Lloyd Wright building on the campus. So, did you
personally meet him? I met him, but that's, you know, just to say hello,
that's about it. Were there other other buildings on the building boom on
campus?
Well, the library, of course, we've had an extension to the library since
then, the underground part of it, but the library was was one of the major
buildings and a good building too.
I can't even remember the architect on that, I can't remember who the
architect was on that, but that was a major building, to it was something
like $2 million dollars or something in that nature and that really did
that really. It was a great building because it was just where it needed
to be at that time. I mean it was right in the very center of the campus
and of course we only had one library. Uh we've now got more than one
library, but we only had that and that was a, that was sort of a focal
point that brought the, the campus together. The thing that really brought
the campus together though, where the malls no doubt about it. When
College Avenue went all the way through and Orange Street went all the way
through, clear the forest, it was broken up because traffic went through
there. It wasn't, it wasn't restricted or anything. You know, even the
townspeople drove back and forth through their times all the time. And
when those were closed and the malls were built. Katie mall and Orange
Mall. And all those sort of things that really brought the campus together
as a campus you know and not just scattered out in a whole bunch of
different places.
Um
um For Gilbert Gilbert, Katie the malls were Gilbert's ideas actually and
he was the concept of having the campus closed was his idea. I suppose
that's why the name actually Dr Durham named campus small. Even though the
region's didn't I think I think the region's finally did make it official
at one time or another. But at the very beginning Dr Durham just called it
campus called it Katie Mall and was known as Katie mall from then on of
course who was Gilbert Katie. Well cooper Katie was was the business
manager for Arizona State Teachers College in Arizona state College and
Arizona State University for I don't know how many years from the time
that he graduated from a issue. And about the same time that Jimmy
Crissman did something something like 1935.
And I knew him personally because he was a very very good friend of mine.
He went into the Sea Sea Sea Organization
right after graduation and was a member of the C. C. C. And that's where
he found Tilman Krantz. I don't know if you know that or not but Tillman
Krantz was also in the C. C. C. And Tim was a little older than the norm.
But then the regular college student when he came to college because he
had been working in there with the C. C. C. S. And when Gilbert left and
came to work as a business manager and I I'm not sure who hired him or
anything, I don't know that history well enough, I'm sure Dr Matthews was
probably the one that hired him. I mean Dr Gammage was the one that hired
him. But anyway he brought Tillman with him. Tillman Krantz with our chief
accountant at the university for a number of years. Did all the budgets,
did all of the you know and did all that sort of thing and it was a
student worker for Gilbert for quite some time. But that's kind of beside
the point. Anyway he was he was in the C. C. C. And also a member of the
Army Reserve. So when the war came along he was called up right away, he
was called up before any of the rest of us were in the reserves and he he
spent his time mostly over in the Middle East, he was in Iran and in that
area he was in the Quartermaster Corps which was a supply outfits, you
know that sort of thing. Anyway he came back before I got out of the
service, he came back probably and
December November 19
45 I guess. But it was a war over 1945
And I didn't get out of the service until February 1946. But anyway, he
was the business manager and he was a close friend of Dr Gammage and the
two of them worked very well together. And Gilbert really, I kind of ran
the university for a long, long time. There was a story in the one time
about the state press saying,
let me see if I can remember all this. But anyway, the state press came
out with the story, there's a windstorm came along and blew off a corner
of of the old, which is now the anthropology building, blew off a corner
that and the story written up in the state press was told about it blowing
off and said mr Katie was in phoenix at the time, inferring that if he'd
have been here they wouldn't have, it wouldn't have happened, you know?
But
but anyway, he kind of ran the university physically and I'm not talking
about anything in uh on the academic side, but physically, he practically
ran the university. What was, what was he like? What was his personality
like? Well he was a pretty nice guy, he was he was a lot different than a
lot of people think he had a very, he was a very kind person, he was our
first student loan officer. The reason I say that is because there are
many times when students would come to Gilbert Katie hoping to get a job
or a loan or something, he'd pull 20 bucks out of his own pocket and
handed to him, you know, pay me back if you can, if you can't. That's
perfectly alright. Do that happened? Lots and lots of times he gave me a
job, he gave he gave a lot of people jobs that he knew needed them, you
know, needed jobs. Uh he and mrs Krauss worked together. Gilbert would
give the job, but Mrs Kraus of course had to Okay it the crosses were were
a pair. Has anybody talked about the crosses at all? Well, they were
really a great pair. Mr Krause ran the dining hall. Mrs Krause ran, I
should say, Mr Crouse ran the kitchen. Mrs Krouse ran the dining hall.
They were a pair that they were here Way before I ever even came to school
, way before 37. I'm not this guy for sure when they got here, but they
ran the eating facility on the campus. Mrs Cross was as strict as anything.
If you didn't get there in time for your meal and the door was closed.
You just didn't get anything unless you went around to the back and mr
Cross would give you a sandwich or something that always happened and
never failed. He would always slip you something, you know, but he was the
chef and the and the man that ran the kitchen.
In addition to that Mrs Krouse was in charge of student employment.
What's her first name? Martha Martha Crouch. Martha and bob Martha and bob
Crouch and uh she was she was she was as different from mr Krause as she
could be, she was very strict and you know, not a kind of grouchy all the
time, you know, and he was just as kind as he could be. Now, the dining
room in those days was a cafeteria style And it opened it, I don't know,
let's just say 1130 and close at 12:30. And if you didn't weren't there by
that time you just didn't get anything to eat unless you unless you knew
Mr Cross. But the menu was always the same on monday and Tuesday, I mean
it wasn't the same on consecutive days, but whatever you had this monday,
you were going to have the next monday, Whatever you had, this Tuesday,
we're gonna have the next Tuesday. They usually had only one entree out of
the thing if you had braised beef and mashed potatoes on monday you're
going to get the next monday to the food was good, I couldn't you can't
complain about that, but it had no imagination to it whatsoever, you know
, it was just good, solid food and most of the the dining room staff or
students, both the servers and in fact, I'd like to say I washed dishes
there for a couple of years and everything, but the cooks and the main,
even the cashier was a student, I can remember that too. Um
But they were they were quite a pair and they lasted for a long, long time
until until the dining room, the cross hall dining room moved over to the
union building.
But they were they were a long time pair at the university. You were
talking about Gilbert Katie, how how long did he stay when he retired? He
retired I'm guessing now, but it's somewhere about 1980.
No,
In the 70s sometime actually Gilbert Katie passed away and I think he was
still working at the time. Now there's where my memory sir doesn't serve
me. I'm not sure whether he had just retired or whether he was still
working at the time. He passed away of a heart attack in about
The late 70s sometime.
So you worked for him. I worked for him. I worked for him, He was my boss
for a number of years. Uh Even when I went into strictly purchasing it
still I still reported he was vice president for business affairs at that
time. He became first off he was business manager and then he became
comfortable and then he was made business vice president for business
affairs. And uh he handled of course business affairs, handled the
accounting of the business office and the purchasing and the physical
plant and all that sort of thing. He didn't marry until he was well into
his years. I don't know exactly but he married Dorothy pain. That's right.
You would know that wouldn't you married a girl by the name of Dorothy
pain. She had she had been a nurse in the in the university or the college
infirmary. That's where he got acquainted with her. Uh And they married
and had two kids back. Dorothy is still living, she lives in Tucson now
and
I didn't know she was in place. Yeah she's she's in a rest home in Tucson
now. Yeah. We're talking about some of the different presidents. I think
we've got sidetracked. Well yeah I guess we got as far as Homer Durham. Uh
The next president of course was Harry New Bern I guess for a short period
of time. Um Am I right harry newborn before Suada. And during the time he
was sort of an interim president. Although he was not called an interim
president, he was the president but a short period of time between Homer
Durham and john Suara john's water came came from Missouri.
I brought some good people with him. Al Metcalf I think brought troy
crowder.
Very good.
You shouldn't have asked me that because that's where my memory fails me
but
probably
70s somewhere in the 70s. He was a little bit he was quite a bit different
than Durham I thought he was. He was a good man but he didn't get around
the campus very much. He stayed pretty much up in the Towers, you know, up
in in the in his own office. He, he didn't really circulate as much as, as
a president I think should have and he really didn't do as good a job with
the Legislature as Gammage and Durham and some of those have done before.
Forget how many years he was here, maybe seven or 8, something like that.
Was that a big part of the president's job was dealing with the
legislation
then we had um, let me see after slaughter came nelson, nelson. What was
he like? Well, I never really got to know president nelson very well. He
was he was a good president. I would not say he was outstanding in any
particular way, but he was a good president. He certainly got around a lot
more than Suada did. He wasn't terrifically effective with the legislature
,
but
they did a reasonably good job. I didn't really know him personally that
well.
And of course then after that laddie core, of course I was retired by that
time. But I know laddie, I've known his family for a long, long time. So,
you know, I think from my perspective, I think he did a very good job,
laddie corded excellent job. When did you retire? When did I retired? And
actually retired in 1986. But I worked part time until 1988.
No, So you really saw the growth of the university? Yes. From about 1200
students up to 50,000
And I don't know how many buildings are on campus now, but we had probably
about 10 or 12 when I first started here. Major buildings, I'm talking
about you were talking about during those growth years, you were kind of
overseeing a lot of the contracts for those buildings. People complain at
that time, like, like they do now about the disruption caused by the
construction and that's all. No, not at all. Then we were glad to be doing
it, you know, I don't think that there was any complaints in that respect
at all. Um, of course we had, we had more room then. I mean, it's not, it
wasn't as congested as it is now. You didn't have to close off streets and
all that sort of thing. We were, we were able to do the construction
without any, without any real problems. But we were building pretty fast
in those years. We're going, we build dormitories, were built, classroom
buildings were built
part of the union, attention to the union,
the stadium, the Sun Devils, Big stadium now, yes, we contracted for that
too. That was kind of an interesting thing. You know, Kemper Goodwin was
supposed to do the stadium, be the architect for the stadium to start with
, but uh, he didn't particularly care for the site that was chosen the
site between the two buttes. His main concern actually, there was a time
that people wanted it out in Papago park, you know, that was the idea,
we're gonna build a new stadium, we're gonna put it out in Papago park
because it's more accessible to the general public and so forth. Well,
that idea never did go over, they decided to build it between the two
buttes and kemper's problem at that time was he was just sure that the
blasting and so forth was going to cause problems in the city of Tempe,
with buildings in the city of Tempe. And as a result, he would not, he
would not take the contract, which is sort of the way kemper worked. You
know, Kemper was a, an individual and if he thought that wasn't gonna be
the right place to put it, he wasn't going to be a part of it. Actually
turned out it was okay. The blasting did not hurt anything else. And it
was probably a pretty darn good site for the, for the stadium and would be
a good site for the stadium now too, as far as I'm concerned.
So there was controversy even back then about where to put the,
Did you ever think when you first came here in 1937, that would be kind of
campus? Not a clue. No way. Did we ever think it would be the size that it
is now? I suppose so,
maybe because we were close to it, you know, it's just like they say, whoa
, I bet you made a lot of money because, you know, the price of land in
phoenix and all that sort of thing. Well, the people that were here
couldn't see it as well as the people from outside, we just thought it was
a desert, you know, and we never could get water to all this land and so
forth around. Kind of the same with the university, It was a small
university when we started and we didn't have any idea that it was going
to grow up to be one of the major universities of the country, you know?
But of course, you can't you can't expect anything else with the
population increase of phoenix, you know, in the valley and so forth, You
know, that's just exploded too. So the university just kept pace with that.
It's getting too big now, as far as I'm concerned, I really liked the
university when it was about 25,000 students better than when it got to be
a major, huge university. It was more personal. You knew people, I knew
all of the deans department chairman and so forth. And later on in the
years, you got to the point where you didn't even, you didn't even know
people, you you'd see them and you wouldn't even know who they were. They
might have been on the campus for three or four years and you've never
seen him, you know, it got to be too impersonal, as far as I'm concerned,
and that's not because of the universities because that's the way it is,
It's too big, you know, it is a small city now and it's growing and
growing and growing. I'll be back at some of the other kind of landmark
events. You remember when the name was changed, I remember when the name
was changed. That was a real, real experience to go through because we
were so
anxious to get this. It was already a university, but we have never gotten
the name changed. You know, we were so anxious to do it and the University
of Arizona was so much against it that we didn't know whether we were
actually going to win that fight or not. But with the help of people like
Chrisman and Mrs Gammage and others that tom lily kuo and people that went
around the state talking to rotary clubs and lions clubs and Chambers of
Commerce and all that sort of thing. The vote really was overwhelming in
favor of of making the university funny thing though, there was a report
now, I'm not exactly sure about how this happened, but there was a report
on the radio right after the right after the counting started or something
on a balance that we were losing. We were losing heavily, which was an air
, but everybody was so downhearted when they heard that report, you know,
we were losing heavily. Well actually it was it was a mistake very shortly
after that. It was corrected and we won overwhelmingly. I can remember
seeing dr Gammage out there on the we have a picture of him, you know,
standing on the balcony with his arms raised like this students down below
and they when they found out that it had passed,
what difference did it make?
Well, I think it made a big difference in the fact that it was, it was
called the university, a university and a college or difference. You know
, college only has 111 function. One college university has a number of
functions, a number of colleges and it just made it able to become a
larger research university and not stay as a teacher's college.
And and as long as we were, as long as we were all were university as such
, we might as well have the name of the university. And the only thing
that kept it from being named a long time ago was the University of
Arizona. He didn't want another institution to be called a university and
Flagstaff road in on the coattails of everything else. They just walked in
and became university. So one of the things that we had to change all that.
Well, yes, you had to change a lot. That was kind of your department. It
wasn't a bad deal though. Nobody, nobody worried about that. What about
when they changed from being the bulldogs?
Well, but that happened, I can't tell you the year that that happened, but
that happened Way back in the mid 40s. Yeah. And uh, there was, there was
a little controversy on that because a lot of the alumni didn't want it to
change, you know, I didn't want to lose the name of the bulldogs, but I
don't know, I think there was more people that were in favor of a newer,
newer name and the fact that they Disney people drew a character, you know
, of a sun devil and that's the way the names came in. And then of course
that was at the time when the scent angels became came into being to the
story about how the Sun devil image came up. I don't really know that the
real story, except that uh, somebody contacted the Disney people and uh,
that was, they were the ones that drew all of the, all the animation, you
know, for the sun devil sparky, of course it wasn't called sparky at that
time, but, but that's what it was, it was the same little devil, you know
? And then the Sun angels came into being right shortly after that too,
and they took their name from,
from the Sun Devils that just decided it would be the other way around.
You know, they would be the son angel and they sent angels where there
we're the ones that really brought the university into prominence as far
as athletics were concerned, we would never have done it without them?
Well, if you look back over your long career, here, is there anything that
stands out that you're proudest of that you were involved with? I suppose
the fact that we put the university on a a computer basis while I was
there. You know it's completely different now but at the time we were
really we were really way ahead of our time. We computerized the
purchasing department and and that was quite a function. That was quite a
feat of course the university was going into a computerized accounting
system and so all of it fell together. That was one of the things that I
think that happened during my time that we were kind of proud of of course
that's all gone now and they do they've got a completely different
accounting system but in the accounting system they have now will be
obsolete pretty soon. They'll have another one. You know because those
things do happen fast.
But I don't know I guess just the fact that it just kind of grew with the
university. We first started out, my purchasing department was myself and
mrs May Civil May. She typed all the purchase orders by hand. We get a
requisition in from the department and she typed the purchase order and
she always type with four fingers And she could type with four fingers as
fast as anybody else could. And she typed the purchase orders. And that
was that was a total purchasing department at that time. Of course it
gradually grew until we finally got some buyers and we got purchasing
clerks and so forth and so on. By the time I retired, I think I had that
15 in the in the department, something like that, plus of course people in
stores and all that sort of thing that I'm talking about. Just the
purchasing department itself.
What do you see as sort of the legacy that you leave from the university?
I don't know that I leave any really. When I'm gone, I'll be gone. And you
know, the only thing that they'll be able to say is that I was the first
and only purchasing agent from For the 1st 45 years of the university.
And that's about it. That's pretty remarkable.
What advice do you give young people today that are looking to decide on
the career what to do with their lives? Well, it's kind of like I told my
daughters, you know, you want to find something that you enjoy more than
anything else. I mean you just take a job, sometimes you might have to
take a job because you can't find anything else. But the main thing is to
find something that you enjoy doing. And I felt that way all through my
career, I enjoyed going to work. I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the
institution, I enjoyed the work we were doing. I didn't have to get up in
the morning and say, damn, I have to go to work again. It was, it was an
enjoyable career all the way through. And that's what I would say is more
important than how much money you're going to make. It's whether or not
you're going to enjoy what you're doing.