Cycle - University of Minnesota, Crookston

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22Changing times -changing needs (1960-1968)Northwest School alumni were recognized for theirleadership abilities again in 1960, when two graduates andthree past students were recipients of the Valley Farmer andHomemaker Awards at the Winter Shows. GraduatesLawrence O. Peterson of Lockhart, '31, and Robert W.Larson of Crookston, '30, were honored, as were paststudents Laurence Ward, St. Vincent; Oscar Oswald,Newfolden; and Alfred Hallstrom.Past school faculty member Retta Bede was honored in1961, when the home economics bUilding was named forher. Also that year, assistant professor and animalhusbandman A.M. Pilkey retired after teaching at the schoolfor 39 years. Past superintendent and professor emeritusT.M. McCall was busy in 1961 writing 'The CentennialHistory of Polk County."A new building housed the Red River Valley WinterShows in 1962. Visitors during the week of the Showstotaled 29,733, breaking all previous attendance records.That year, too, the Experiment Station's annual Crops Dayfeatured a Land-Grant Centennial program, rememberingthe act of 1862 that established Land Grant colleges,including the University of Minnesota.Nine graduates out of a class of 20 attended the class of1913 alumni reunion in 1963. Mrs. Nils Pederson (TecklaErlandson) of Bejou was the only female in the class, andshe was present 50 years later with her husband, also a1913 grad.Northwest alums continued to make news. LeonardYutrzenka of Argyle, '42, was honored as King Agassiz IVduring Winter Shows in 1964. Of the 11 county KingAgassiz nominees, four were Northwest School graduates.But times were changing. At one time, 118 schoolssimilar to the Northwest School operated in the U.S.,attaining peak influence during the 1920's. By the 1960's,only a handful were still in operation.The trend away from county agricultural schools beganafter the initiation of the Smith-Hughes Act, which providedfederal assistance for the teaching of agricultural extensionand vocational agricultural classes in regular high schools.At the Northwest School, enrollment had lessened since School days, c. 1960.transportation was no longer a big problem. It wasunnecessary to board at schools after the development of recommended that the Northwest Experiment Station bethe automobile and the improvement of roads.strengthened and expanded appropriately "to meet theStation-School superintendent B.E. Youngquist did an needs of the evolving agricultural economy." The study alsoin-depth study of agricultural schools during the early recommended that continuing education in the form of1950's, and concluded that schools of this type were adult short courses for farmers and for persons who servicedoutmoded. His study was published as a thesis, and it farmers be expanded. Finally, the study urged considerationtriggered subsequent studies by the University of Minnesota, of the phasing out of the Northwest School and theand several governmental and private groups.launching of a college-level technical institute.During the early spring and summer of 1963, the University President O. Meredith Wilson appointed anUniversity of Minnesota Bureau of Field Studies made a ad hoc committee to recommend plans for phasing out thestudy of the role of the Northwest School of Agriculture. high school and to recommend as specifically as possible theThree principal reco"mmendations were made. It was staff and facilities needed to open a technical institute.
Committee chairman was Stanley J. Wenberg, vicepresident of Educational Relationships and Development.The committee included several University of Minnesotafaculty members and Northwest SuperintendentYoungquist.A meeting was held with the liaison committee on highereducation, a coordinating body created by the StateLegislature. The planning committee for the technicalinstitute was charged to propose a curriculum for the collegethat would be considered by the University Board ofRegents at their June meeting. The Regents would study theproposals and make their recommendations to the 1965legislature.The charge wasn't taken lightly. The Technical InstitutePlanning Committee visited other states to study schoolswith programs similar to what the institute would probablyoffer. The committee originally concentrated on two orthree possible offerings, including agricultural productiontechnology, agri-business management and sales, andhealth-related technologies, with supporting courses ingeneral education."The open-dorm lifestyle of today was unthoughtof then. Of course, the students were younger, andfor many this was the first time they were awayfrom home. They went home for Thanksgivingand for Christmas, and for the rest of the time thecampus was really the only world they knew."High school instruction continued amid the flurry ofactivity surrounding the proposed college. In keeping withthe more technical farming methods, a course in aeronauticswas offered for senior students. Bo Magnus Nordenswan ofFinland arrived as a foreign exchange student at theNorthwest School.Links to the past were present, however. PastSuperintendent T. M. McCall died on March 21, 1965 atthe age of 77. His funeral was held at Kiehle auditorium oncampus. A. M. Foker also died that year. He had beendepartment head of agricultural engineering and supervisorof buildings and grounds, and had been with the schoolfrom 1917 to 1954. Austin A. Dowell, Station-Schoolsuperintendent from 1927 to 1937, was named to the RedRiver Valley Winter Shows Hall of Fame in 1965.In March 1965, 90 students graduated. That samemonth, action by the Board of Regents discontinued anymore freshman classes at the School, and the ninth gradeclass of 1964-65 was determined to be the final high schoolclass that would graduate.Youngquist wrote in the Northwest School News that"The decision to close out the ninth grade is consistent withrecommendations made by two 1959 Legislative interimcommissions and with results of constant study of the role ofthe University's agricultural schools." Being phased out atthe same time was the North Central School of Agricultureat Grand Rapids. Only the Southwest School of Agricultureat Waseca remained as a high school.Although it was generally agreed that with the rapidlyexpanding agricultural economy a college better fit theneeds of the Valley, the merits of the high school did not gounrecognized. Youngquist said, "Every major agriculturalpractice in the Valley was either pioneered or fested by theschool. The school brought the fruits of technology to thearea despite the early skepticism of Valley farmers." Henoted that the first sugar beets grown in the Valley wereharvested from the school's test plots in 1910, and theschool raised the first locally grownalfalfa.Time of change-Superintendent Youngquist (left) poseswith S.D. Sahlstrom, new director ofthe Technical Institute.Stanley D. Sahlstrom was appointed director of the newinstitute in the fall of 1965. Sahlstrom had been director offield services at St. Cloud State College, and in his newposition he was given the responsibility of directing thedevelopment of curriculum at Crookston, and ofadministering activities that would lead to the opening of theUniversity of Minnesota Technical Institute in the fall of1966.Most important, Sahlstrom had the enthusiasm andenergy necessary for forming a technical-collegiate schoolfrom the ground up. He and those working with him had thetask of telling people what kind of education this new schoolwould offer. He was busy recruiting faculty members toteach at the new school, and he was involved in working onthe curriculum to be offered at the two-year college.Initial courses would be offered in agriculturaltechnology, agricultural operations, agri-business,accounting, marketing and merchandising, and smallbusiness management, plus an advanced secretarialprogram. Added to that would be a strong core of generaleducation courses.The technical-collegiate concept of education inMinnesota was a fledgling, with few guidelines to follow. Bythe time Northwest students arrived that fall, the transitionfrom high school to college had begun. The many hopes ofwhat the college would eventually become were beingimplemented. Target-date for the beginning of classes wasone year away, and much had to be accomplished duringthat year to make people, and prospective students, awarethat a college was beginning in northwest Minnesota.23
Page 1 and 2: __CIc_le_by Ruth Anne StymiestA chr
Page 6: 4The first years (1895-1905)Crookst
Page 10 and 11: 8The first war years (1917-1919)On
Page 12 and 13: 10In 1921, basketball was a favorit
Page 15 and 16: Although in 1935 "the darkest hours
Page 17 and 18: By 1940, the shadow of impending wa
Page 19 and 20: Time of hope (1946-1949)17IA ~©IL[
Page 21 and 22: 19Toward a new era (1950-1959)Schoo
Page 23: 21T.M. McCall and wife, Mr. and Mrs
Page 28 and 29: 26A livestock parade at annual Visi

Cycle - University of Minnesota, Crookston

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