After a distinguished career with the Oregon State College Extension Service, Frank Llewellyn Ballard was appointed as the college's eighth president in 1940. He served less than a year because of illness and returned to the Extension Service administration. Ballard was the first OSC alumnus to serve as president.
Reginald Heber Robinson was born in Michigan in 1886 and earned an A. B. degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon in 1909. He completed an MS in Chemistry at the University of California in 1912 and did post-graduate work in chemistry at Columbia University in the summer of 1914. R. H. Robinson joined the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station in 1911 as Assistant Chemist and served as a researcher with the Experiment Station until his retirement in 1951. According to an article in the November 2, 1951 issue of the Barometer campus newspaper, he was considered the nation's foremost authority on agricultural spray residue problems. He published extensively and produced more than 75 scientific publications and bulletins during his career.
Steward attended Oregon Agricultural College in 1917-1918 and 1919-1920 and earned a BS in Agriculture in 1921. In 1921, he became a faculty member in botany at the University of Nanking in Nanking, China. He and his wife, Celia Belle Speak Steward, were appointed as educational missionaries by the Methodist Board of Missions. He returned to the United States for several years in the late 1920s to complete AM and PhD degrees in biology at Harvard University. Steward spent most of the 1930s and 1940s in China and was interned at Chapei Camp in Shanghai from 1943 to 1945. He returned to the United States permanently in 1950. Albert N. Steward was appointed by Oregon State College as Associate Professor of Botany, Herbarium Curator, and Associate Botanist for the Agricultural Experiment Station in 1951. He held these positions until his death in 1959.
Born in Pendleton, Oregon, Milne earned an A.B. degree in Mathematics from Whitman College in 1912 and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1913 and 1915. He served on the faculty of Bowdoin College from 1915 until 1918 and then spent one year working with a group of mathematicians at Aberdeen Proving Ground. In 1919, he returned to Oregon as a faculty member in mathematics at the University of Oregon. In 1932, he became head of the Mathematics Department at Oregon State College, a position he held until his retirement in 1955. Milne was a pioneer in numerical analysis and computer mathematics and was known around the world for the "Milne method" of solving differential equations and for his three textbooks and many technical papers. He continued his research after retirement and was awarded the OSU Distinguished Service Award posthumously in June 1971. The Milne Computer Center was dedicated in his name in April 1972.
Helen Julia Cowgill was born 1 December 1881 in Springfield, Illinois. Cowgill came to Oregon in 1890 and graduated in 1913 from Oregon Agricultural College with a BS degree in Domestic Science and Art. After teaching Domestic Science and Art at Harney County (Oregon) High School at Burns for one year, she began her career at OAC in 1914 as Assistant State 4-H Club Leader with the Extension Service. In 1916, she earned a second BS degree in Home Economics from OAC. In charge of the girls' 4-H work, Cowgill wrote many of the 4-H Circulars used by girls in their 4-H Projects. She became known as the "Mother of Oregon 4-H." Cowgill took a year's leave of absence to complete her Masters Degree, which she received from the University of Washington in 1931. She was a member of Phi Kappa Chi and the Epsilon Sigma Phi, serving as treasurer of the latter organization in 1943. Cowgill retired from Oregon State College in 1947 and was awarded emeritus status. In 1954 Cowgill was selected as a "Woman of Achievement" by Theta Sigma Phi, and the 1957 4-H Summer School publication 4-H Absolutely was dedicated to her. Cowgill died in Corvallis on 15 May 1959. In 1965 a tree and bench on the university campus were dedicated to her memory.