Molstad rendered the sentimental lyrics most impressively. It's a song that might make you misty if you're an alum. I have suggested it's ideal for performing in front of donors and potential donors. Molstad is set for graduation in 2019. He's recipient of the Edna Murphy Morrison Scholarship.
Salute to the Morrison family
Friday was a day for the Morrison name to shine at its apex. We associate this name with the town's newspaper. They were in charge when the paper was substantially larger than today and came out twice a week. Today under Fargo-based ownership, it's a chain paper with all the recognizable spots of that. Has the Forum made a financial contribution to our campus? I know the company has done a lot for Minnesota State University-Moorhead. If someone can make me aware of something the Forum has done for UMM, I'd be happy to acknowledge it.
The Morrisons were in the traditional template of local ownership for the local press. The paper was actually printed here when our family first came to town. I know because my Cub Scout or Boy Scout troop visited there. If you thought the Sun Tribune building of my era had a less than sparkling clean atmosphere, consider it once had a printing function. The building appears to be for sale now.The Forum has the paper office on the west side of the tracks.
My father chose to build our house east of the tracks. Same with our family's choice of church: First Lutheran. No worry about being caught waiting for a train to pass.
My father's spirit was present I'm sure for the Friday ceremony at Edson auditorium. It was Friday of UMM Homecoming weekend. Dignitaries in "cocktail attire" - the officially recommended dress - gathered for "a model for living and learning celebration." Signs pointing to parking made it clear that you could park at UMM on that afternoon with no worry about getting a ticket for parking sans permit. I have heard the theory that UMM's stringent policy re. permits is due to wanting to discourage students from driving at all. There is a lot to be said for being a student without driving.
The parking policy becomes an inconvenience for people who may have 1-2 special reasons a year for visiting campus on a weekday. It is an inconvenience for donors who may have only occasional reasons to visit. My family has made financial gestures in connection with the passing of my parents. If you visit Summit Cemetery you will see a memorial bench that identifies my father Ralph E. Williams as "founder of UMM music." Musical notes adorn the engraving. Feel free to use our bench as a bench! That reminds me: I need to remove the silk flowers there soon in preparation for winter.
Music to mark the start
My father wrote the UMM Hymn. He wrote that song along with a fight song on directions from UMM's first leader, Rodney Briggs. I remember getting bashful and a little scared when I was first introduced to him. Mom expressed displeasure about that when we got home, but it probably wasn't as bad as the time a classmate of mine in Sunday school totally gave me the giggles for a performance in church.
I spent time at Edson while the orchestra rehearsed. One evening when feeling a little restless, I ran down an aisle. My father abruptly stopped what he was doing, turned and looked at me, disapprovingly I'm sure. I stopped running and plopped into a chair, feeling stupid. Many of the orchestra members made an "ohhh" sound as if they felt sorry for me. Many years later when we as a family visited an orchestra alum in Alexandria, this person said she felt sorry for me because I seemed "bored."
Edson was the site for all UMM music events in the institution's early days. My father was the only music faculty at the start. I saw no issues with Edson, acoustic or otherwise, in those days. More recently, Edson became best-known as site for the spectacular annual jazz festival whose creator and guiding spirit was Jim Carlson. It's too bad Carlson couldn't be back for the Friday event. He's retired to Florida, right? His wife Kay has an important background with UMM too.
The Morrisons have made possible some improvements at the old place. Is it accurate to say "facelift?" There is a new layer of a name there: while the auditorium itself retains the Edson name which is a connection to the campus' WCSA past, the Morrison name now adorns the place too.
I was reminded Friday of how well Helen Jane Morrison has aged. She is 97 and I was pleased to personally congratulate her. The late Ed's spirit was certainly there. Son Jim succeeded Ed in running the Morris paper. Jim departed from the paper subsequent to the Forum's acquisition, when it was still in reasonably good shape. Today we see the Elbow Lake newspaper as big as 30 pages - and the pages are larger than here - and we're puzzled at the severe shrinkage of the Morris product.
I covered many events at UMM when there was no UMM website. Today the website is such a high priority. I can assure you that UMM was a very robust place through all the years when there was no website, and not even a student center for a long time! No soccer program. Amenities get added and we take them for granted.
Truly challenging early phases
We were reminded Friday that getting UMM established was no waltz in the park. A regional group was formed to advocate for the campus interests, as it became clear that the state's agricultural high schools would close. This group was the West Central Educational Association. They envisioned what would become UMM.
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| UMM's original faculty. Dad is the one seated at left. |
Would you believe, community members went door-to-door selling light bulbs? Boy Scouts sold holiday wreaths. Radio owner Cliff Hedberg rang a cow bell on the air when a new pledge was received! Ah, memories.
Step by grudging step, the new vision was being transformed to reality.
The date was September 26, 1960, when 238 students went to their classrooms for Day 1. Nearly all students had just graduated from high school. The female students greatly outnumbered the men, but this didn't stand in the way of my father establishing the men's chorus which spread the word of UMM's presence far and wide. The chorus recorded a vinyl record and traveled much. We saw the trademark maroon blazers and heard the UMM Hymn enough to memorize the lyrics. There were times when Dad had the audience join in. Yes, "misty" potential!
The vast majority of students at the start came from within 35 miles of here. Many commuted. The campus continued serving the last batch of WCSA kids.
We got an immediate reputation for having high academic standards. That's fine in theory but it scares the heck out of me personally. I grew up knowing that UMM would not be practical for me. I may have even been lucky to get my high school diploma. I think I got some breaks from the public school staff in terms of being spared some of the normal science and math. I "wrote" my way through high school. Was that a good thing? Maybe not. I'm sure I seemed as bored as when I was that little kid hanging around Edson.
Following the Morrisons' example
Today I can keep my family's background relevant and even celebrate it lustily, by ensuring that our assets are applied in the same way the Morrisons are doing. Am I trying to "keep up with the Morrisons?" Hmmm. I think Helen Jane has a soft spot in her heart for me, because her son Jim is a male only child, same situation as my family! We have taken steps already to buttress UMM music. So I greatly appreciate Gunnar Molstad with his talent performing the UMM Hymn Friday. I personally thanked him. A good song will make a good impression even if performed by a single person or a single person with merely a piano or guitar accompaniment. Molstad's singing showed the wisdom of that assertion. I'm impressed with how he launched into the tune knowing the right pitch on which to start.
Helen Jane said in her formal remarks that UMM's early existence was not without existential threat. There was politics, she said, as advocates for Southwest Minnesota strongly wanted a University branch. Southwest Minnesota eventually got Southwest State University - State University system - what my father always called "little Marshall."
There was the specter of possible junior college classification for the Morris campus. Finally in April of 1963, we got approval to offer a four-year program. I was present for the first commencement in spring of 1964. The U of M president was here for that. Weather cooperated and the event was outside on the mall.
Our campus eventually came to be called "the jewel in the crown" of the U. My father with the other founders showed enthusiasm, initiative and inventiveness to overcome the sometimes-inadequate resources. There's an old legend about special measures being taken to get access to Cold Spring beer here. It was a time when social drinking was far more approved than now. My parents didn't bother imbibing.
The last WCSA graduation was held on March 28, 1963. Our neighbors on Northridge Drive, the Lindors, had a rich background with the WCSA. Prior to 1960, my father taught at the U of M St. Paul School of Agriculture. I'm glad that in the late 1980s, my parents and I attended a reunion in St. Paul mainly because I was running the Get In Gear 10K in Minneapolis that morning. I could have just skipped the run but we had a good time. We sat at the head table and I remember that when my name was announced, there was a rather loud murmur all throughout the room. To this day I wonder about that. The only theory I have now, is that my health may have been imperiled when I was first born.
UMM is a totally bloomed flower today, a realization most evident at Friday's festivities at Edson.
Would you believe we had a homecoming game in that first fall, 1960? Of course there were no alumni to come "home." The students played the faculty and Briggs himself scored a touchdown. Legend has it that the scoring play was drawn up with Jack Imholte as the intended scorer. Imholte, the "silver fox," would go on to be a successor to Briggs as top person at the campus, a position now called "chancellor." Michelle Behr holds that post now. She joined in the festive spirit Friday. Briggs stole the name "Louie's Lower Level" from the University of Arizona-Tucson.
Reflecting unrest of the 1960s
Once UMM got past its initial growing pains, the whole nation got caught up with the pain of dealing with the Vietnam war. Heavens, I remember as I personally attended a moratorium session or two at Edson where emotions were vented. I arrived at Edson by accident as I was actually on campus for band rehearsal, not knowing it was called off due to the moratorium. I was a "ringer" with the UMM band when I was about 14 years old. The band needed an extra French horn player. I later took up trumpet to play in the high school marching band. I wish I had learned guitar instead.
October of 1969 saw 300 people march from campus to Willie's (Red Owl back then) on a national day of protest against the war. Volunteers read the names of the nearly 36,000 Americans already killed in the conflict. Imagine if your sons and daughters of today had to deal with something like that. Never once did I sympathize with the war effort. We had a friend of the family from Brainerd, a Marine, killed by friendly fire in Vietnam in 1966. We attended his funeral. His body was not ideally preserved in the casket. The experience had a haunting effect for me.
A UMM campus assembly was called in May of 1970 in response to the Kent State incident: four student protesters killed by the National Guard. The American involvement in Cambodia stoked the protest fire. Roland Guyotte recalled that he was totally opposed to the war but made sure his classroom lectures weren't "slanted." I would say that would be a very difficult thing to do.
Spike those aces, OK?
It's hard to imagine a UMM campus without women's sports but that was the reality of the school's whole first decade. I have suggested that my father's original UMM fight song be tweaked so that the second line would be "spike, spike, spike an ace or two" (from women's volleyball). The first line is "fight, fight, fight for Morris U." Maybe the students of the '60s became alienated by the belligerent-sounding first line, in light of the war issue. Did you know that Rod Steiger turned down the role of "Patton" because he didn't want to glorify war? That kind of thinking was common in the turbulent '60s. Who wants to "fight?" My father intended the words in an innocuous way, naturally.
Dad was a product of a different era, from the Depression and World War II. He was a lieutenant in the Navy in the Pacific theater of the war. He was a gunnery officer. That was "the good war," of course, although that term might easily be rejected as dubious.
Very often I'd pick Mom up at the end of her work day on campus. One day my father did, and brought our family dog of the time, "Heidi, " a Lhasa Apso. The post office was at the present day Welcome Center. Heidi bounded inside ahead of my father. Mom was initially unaware of the arrival but became most aware when Heidi started "licking my leg," as she recalled with a smile.
Jazz was certainly a different approach from the more formal and traditional that my dad was accustomed to. Did my dad have trouble becoming "hip?" Frankly I think there was a challenge there.
A new chapter of campus history unfolded when Jim Carlson, an alum of my father's men's chorus, began the jazz fest and developed a thriving jazz program in the curriculum. We always see vagaries in music tastes. Maybe the more formal approach is coming back now.
We hope that weather cooperates for the next UMM commencement so it might be held outside just like in '64 during those exciting, heady early times for our "jewel in the crown." So many memories came flowing back Friday. Let's discard the one about me running down the aisle.
Click on the link below to read a post I wrote about the UMM men's chorus trip to Seattle in 1962 for the World's Fair. The trip was right during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Click on the link below to hear the sounds of the original UMM men's chorus, from YouTube. This post starts with Dad's "UMM Hymn." Thanks for listening.
Click on this link to read my post written at the time of the 50th anniversary of the New York World's Fair, a Fair that saw the participation of our men's chorus. The year: 1964.
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| Area native and 1977 UMM grad Dr. Marilyn Strand was back for Homecoming. She received the 2018 UMM Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Award. She's pictured with Del Sarlette of Sarlettes Music, at the store. Marilyn and Del were bandmates at Morris High School. Marilyn, called "Hazel" by Del, is a 1972 MHS grad while Del graduated in '71. Your blog host is a '73 grad. We played under band director John Woell at MHS. Marilyn confronted Woell in a rehearsal once by asserting "that's no way to teach." It was a sign our generation was feeling its oats with thinking for ourselves. Woell immediately ended rehearsal. If there was a backstory behind that incident, I'm not aware of it. |
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