Founders Day speech written and presented by Lowell Harrison with letter from Kelly Thompson.  Original found in President Kelly Thompson\u27s papers

Harrison, Lowell

Thompson, Kelly

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Western Kentucky UniversityTopSCHOLAR®WKU Archives Records WKU Archives11-15-1967UA3/3/1 Founders Day Nov. 15, 1967Lowell HarrisonKelly ThompsonFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_recordsThis Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in WKU Archives Records by anauthorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact connie.foster@wku.edu.Recommended CitationHarrison, Lowell and Thompson, Kelly, "UA3/3/1 Founders Day Nov. 15, 1967" (1967). WKU Archives Records. Paper 183.http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_records/1838 w o 8 re v. 7 • ear ~ No vember 20, 1967 t founde Dr. Lowell H. Harrison Department of History Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky 4Z101 Dear Lowell: • exi e t • f " t I regretted that attendance at the annual conference of the Association of State Colleges and Universities prevented me from being prescnt at the Founders Day program on Wednesday morning. Continued reports on the excellence of your tribute have been highly 1 g:atifr,ing • ·As YO,"" know, Western places great value upon our rich heritage and upon the "ideals which have sustained the University throughrl:he yea,rs . .,Ali; lwe grow larger and the temPe? accelerates, preservation of traditions becomes increasingly difficult. It also becomes more difficult to impart cherished ideals to students and faculty. For this reason Founders Day is an important event in the life of the University. l b. Please accept my i>e!'sonal thanks and the appreciation of Weste~n for"this cQotribution to a most worthwhile endeavor. Sincerely yours , u ", Kelly Thompson Pres ident 1<T/mch r, • 1e • Sf c B • ., --o~ e nam • r • of rr It , an ar, T ~ a b l1d • ~ • • • 1 By : Dr. Lowell H. Harrison FOtmDERS DAY ---Nov-, 15, 1967 Each year near mid- November we pause briefly at Western to honor the founders of this institution . It is fitting that we do so , for we live so much in the present that we sometimes forget that our institution did not always exist , that it had to be f ounded . vlestern ' s histor y can be traced directly to a private school , the Glasgow Normal Institute, which was founded.in that town in 1875. I t was moved in 1884 to Bowling Green whe r e it was know as t he Southern Nor mal School. In 1906 the state leg islature provided for the establishment and support of two state normal schools, one a t Richmond and the other at Bowling Green . Western Kentuc ky State Normal School was created by converting the privately owned schoo l into the newl y authorized state i nstitution . Henry Hand~m Cherry , the president of the private Bc hool, became the firs t president of We stern, a position which he occupied with honor and distinction until hi s untimely death in 1937 . In 1909 the Hill was purchased; and two years late~ the s chool moved up College Street t o its new locat i oh, students and fac ul ty assisting the exodus by carrying loads of books , scientific apparatus and furniture t o their new academia home . Cherry, Mutchl er, Alexander; Cl agett , Craig , Stickl es; Mc Lean , Woods , Scott; Wilson , Grise , Ford----few of you will recognize t he names of s ome of the prominent members of the Western staf f during the early gays on the Hill . If an occasional name seems familiar , you pr obably associate it with the name of a building , or a departmental club, or, perhaps , with a statue whicn stands near the edge of the campus and gazes endlessly across Bowling Green to the hills which Henry Hardin Che r ry loved . Few of these founders remain , and each year the ranks of those who knew them ar e somewhat t hinner than they were the ye ar before . Surely , t hese founde rs are entitled to an hoUr of remembrance once a year . ~ we pause to honor them~ try to think ~., --..J. ......... ~ ....... .. v;) of them as " not as dim, shadowy figures f r om the almos t legendary era of Western's history. For they were peop l e - -they lived , they worked , they loved~ they di ed - -and they established the foundations of a great educational institution . The y c ontended with many of the problems that beset colleges today : heavy c lass loads, end l ess sets of ex ami nation pape r s , e ndless student problems , appropriations that never match needs, the construction and maintenance of an adequate physical plan t . (The parking problem was somewhat less acute in thei~ day . ) Me asured by current standards , they had all too l i ttle with which t o work , but they bu i l t well. For these found er s possessed a vision whi ch helped them transcend many of the difficulties und e r which the y labored. Nothing less than a vision can account for the achievements of H. H: Cherry who s tarted his advanced education at Southern Normal in Bowling Green 1n 1886 wh~n he was a lready 21 years of age and possessed a total cap ital of $72 which' he had earned over a period of six months by making ax handles . He ereca11ed his start in these words : li On the seventeenth day of January , 1886, when the snow was more than fourtee n inche s deep , I packed all of my earthly belongings into a twenty-five cents pasteboard valise and walked to Bowling Green to enter school . I rented a room at fifty cents per week and did self-boarding which cost me on an average of $4.72 per month . I remained until the last dollar was gone . " Six years after entering Southern Normal , He nry Hardin Cherry and his brother T. C. Cherry acquired the school. Then in 1906 when Western was founded as a state institution , H. H. Cherr y became its first president . But not even a President Cherry could have founded Western by himself. He needed---and he received --- the support of a dedicated faculty and staff . He needed----and he received--- the support of a ded icated student body . When a fire swept through the old building on Col lege Street in 1899 classes were resumed the following day in make - shift quarters, and only two students went home . Townspeop l e , citizens of the region , s t ate officials ---many of them shared in the vision that became Western . They wene also founde r s of t he school. But when we pay homage to the founder s of Wes t e r n we must not stop with these people, important as their contributions wer e . Western would not be flourishing as it is today if it had not been founded and re -founded many times in its histor y . An institut ion finds it almost impos sible to stand still j unless it progresses , it is almost certain to decline . Our Western is far different from the one that President Cherry moved to t he Hill. It has prosper ed because it has bee n re s haped and refounded by second and third generation Westerners into an institution capable of mee t ing the challenges and problems of today . Nor are we at the end or this pr ocess of renewing and refounding t he school . 4 Great changes have swept across this campus in rece nt ye ars; the pace of change has accelerated far beyond what was known during the first half-c entury i n the life of the institution . The dhanges in the next decade are almost c erta i n to be greater, more challeng ing , than those which confront us today . If Wester n is to respond successfully to t he challenges of the fut ure, she must be refounded---again and again. This can be done through the united efforts of all of us ---students , fac ulty, administrators. t he friends of Wester n---all of us who love the school and want to see it become an even greater institution . Therefore , as we pause today to honor the foun~ of Western, we honor those who labored yeaterday , we honor ourse lves for what we are doing now, and we honor t he found ers who will come after us, both tomorrow and in the distant days~ which we shall never see. Our predecessors built for us a firm foundation; we have erected upon it a great institution . It is now our responsibility to provide for an even greater \'/estern t omorrow . Founders Day is a day on wh i c h we pay homage t o the pas t; it is also a day of dedication to the future . This c omb ination constitutes a portion of what generations of Westerners have call ed lithe spirit of the Hill." 

UA3/3/1 Founders Day Nov. 15, 1967

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UA3/3/1 Founders Day Nov. 15, 1967

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