Vance DeBar "Pinto" Colvig studied art at Oregon Agricultural College from 1911-1913. Colvig illustrated cartoons for the 1913 Beaver Yearbook and worked with silent films. Colvig was known for his performances as Bozo the Clown and Disney character voices, including Goofy, Grumpy and Sleeping from Snow White, and the munchkins of Wizard of Oz.
Hawkins was the Pacific Coast middleweight champion in 1942. Boxing began as a minor intercollegiate sport at Oregon State in 1937 and ended in 1942 with the outbreak of World War II.
Margaret Comstock Snell, M.D., was appointed the first professor of Household Economy and Hygiene at Corvallis College in 1889. Snell came to begin the college's program in household economy and hygiene -- the first in the western U.S. She trained as a medical doctor at Boston University, graduating in 1886. At OAC she incorporated aspects of her medical training into the curriculum, teaching "people how to stay well, rather than treat them once they are sick." Snell retired in 1907 and died in 1923. Three buildings at OSU have been named for her.
Portrait of George Wilcox Peavy signed "to Paul M. Dunn, a very worthy successor." George Wilcox Peavy was the first Dean of Forestry from 1913-1940 and president of Oregon State College from 1932-1940. Peavy founded an arboretum that would act as a laboratory for forestry students.
Born in Portland, Oregon, in August of 1887, Samuel H. Graf entered the Oregon Agricultural College in 1903 to study engineering. He received five engineering degrees from the college - B.S., Electrical Engineering (1907); E.E., Electrical Engineering (1908); B.S., Mechanical Engineering (1908); M.E., Mechanical Engineering (1909); and M.S., Electrical Engineering (1909). Between 1909 and 1954 Graf held several faculty positions in engineering at Oregon State. From 1909-1912 he was an instructor in mechanical engineering; from 1912-1920 he was the head of experimental engineering; head of the Department of Mechanics and Materials (1920-1934) and of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (1934-1954); director of engineering research (1928-1944); and director of the Engineering Experiment Station (1944-1954).
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.
Dickey won the pole vault at the NCAA Championships, clearing 13 feet, 9 inches. He won the PCC Northern Division title in 1951 and was the PCC co-champ in 1952.
Richard Jeffrey Nichols was the librarian at Oregon Agricultural College from 1902 to 1908. A native Oregonian, Nichols was the first librarian not educated at OAC, earning his degree from Willamette University.
John Witte was Oregon State's first All-American wrestler, finishing second in the heavyweight division at the 1952 NCAA Championships as a freshman. He also played football, garnering All-American honors twice, and led the Beavers to the 1957 Rose Bowl game.
Jessup earned a BFA in graphic design at OSU in 1976. After receiving an MFA from Stanford in 1978, he worked for Korty Films, Lucasfilm, and Industrial Light and Magic. While at ILM, he received an Academy Award for special effects work on the film Innerspace and a nomination for Hook. In 1996 he joined Pixar, where he worked on many of successful films including Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. and Ratatouille. For the latter he received an ANNIE award for Production Design in an Animated Feature.
Esther Taskerud became the Assistant State 4-H Club Leader in November of 1947. Taskerud later served as the head of Home Economics from 1963-1969, retiring in 1970.
Russell O. Sinnhuber was a founder in 1965 of a successful research program at OSU and retired as emeritus professor of Food Science and Technology in 1981. Professor Sinnhuber was among one of the first scientists anywhere to recognize the potential of the rainbow trout as a sensitive, low-cost non-mammalian model for cancer research.
Ava B. Milam came to OAC in 1911 and was appointed the Dean of the School of Home Economics in 1917, serving for 33 years. She was primarily interested in the study of home economics within Asian cultures. During WWI she was appointed as the Home Economics director for Oregon.
Alice L. Edwards was an instructor in Zoology and Entomology at Oregon Agricultural College from 1909 to 1915. She later bacame the the Dean of Home Economics at Mary Washington College at the University of Virginia in Fredericksburg, a position she held until her retirement from academic life in 1951.
Charles Buren Mitchell (1886-1955) joined the faculty of Oregon Agricultural College in 1920 to head the new Department of Speech. As department head, he established and developed the dramatics and forensics programs at Oregon State. More than 200 plays were produced under his administration. Mitchell retired in 1952; the College Playhouse was renamed in his honor as the Mitchell Playhouse in 1961.
William Arthur Jensen (1881 -1945) served as executive secretary for presidents Kerr and Peavy and was a member of the college's administrative council. He came to OAC in 1907. After President Kerr was in an auto accident and needed nearly a year to recover, Jensen served as the de facto president of OAC during Kerr's hiatus. The campus gates were dedicated to Jensen for his strong support of WPA art projects on campus during the 1930s.
Mahlon Ellwood Smith was an English Professor, Dean of Basic Arts and Sciences, and Dean of the Lower Division for Oregon Agricultural College from 1919 until his retirement in 1949. He was an authority on the English fable and published extensively in philological and educational journals.
Greer succeeded Margaret Snell as head of the Department of Domestic Science and Art in 1908, and was named the first dean as a result of President Kerr’s academic reorganization of the college. She served until spring 1911. Greer was a graduate of Vassar College and spent ten years as an instructor at New York’s Pratt Institute prior to coming to OAC.
Kate M. Jameson, Dean of Women from 1924-1941, added many programs to the purview of the office, including the Associated Women Students, Mortar Board, and other honorary societies.
Terry Baker (b. 1941) is among the most accomplished and celebrated athletes in Oregon State history. Winner of the 1962 Heisman Trophy as the nation's most outstanding college football player, Baker's Oregon State basketball team also reached the Final Four of the 1963 NCAA tournament. That same year, Baker was named "Sportsman of the Year" by Sports Illustrated magazine. Baker graduated from OSU in 1963 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Following a brief stint in professional football, Baker earned a law degree and enjoyed a successful career practicing in the Portland area
Marian Field was an art instructor at Oregon State College from 1942 to 1951. Field was born in 1885, in Oakes, North Dakota. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Art from the University of Oregon in 1930 and did graduate work from 1931-1933. From 1929 to 1933, Field was also an assistant in the university's art and architecture library. Before coming to OSC, she was head of the art department at the University of North Dakota from 1905-1909. She also owned and managed an art shop for several years. She published “Oregon Trees and Shrubs in Winter” in 1937 and “Outdoor Living and Learning” in 1938. She was brought on to work at Oregon State at an annual salary of $1,750. In 1946, Field was promoted to assistant professor and an annual salary of $3,000. She retired in 1951.
Bruns, an alum with the Class of 1939, poses at the corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive at Walt Disney Studios, where he was music director for twenty-five years. One of his best known compositions for Disney was "The Ballad of Davy Crockett."
Lui, who was from Hong Kong, was the first woman to receive a PhD at Oregon State, earning a doctorate in physics in 1941. She also received an MS from OSC in 1937.
Arthur Burton Cordley joined the faculty of Oregon Agricultural College in 1895 as a Professor of Zoology and Entomology. He became the first Dean of the School of Agriculture in 1908, a position he held until his retirement in 1931. Cordley worked as an entomologist at Michigan Agricultural College, the Vermont Experiment Station, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture before moving to Oregon.
Hoover, an OAC graduate in the Class of 1901, married Jay Bowerman, a future governor of Oregon, and was the mother of University of Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. While at OAC, she played on the women’s basketball team. She returned to OAC to earn a second degree in home economics in 1916, and taught school for a number of years.