Green, Don W. - The University of Kansas

enough volunteers that we stood as a ring around the edge of the football field. We were
supposed to be the moral restraining force.
Q: Did it work?
A: Well, no. We got there early and as time developed there were a group of people who
came to the stands and it was looking kind of ugly. Some people even had sticks and
things. When the ROTC came marching in with a band and such, these people erupted
over the seats and out onto the field and the moral restraining force did not restrain them.
So they had to cancel the ceremony.
Q: I think that was the year before we came.
A: Yes, that would have been in 1968. Then, as you know, one of the things that came out
of all that is that because of some of the things that had happened at KU, ending the
semester early and various disruptions, generally throughout the state of Kansas, people
were not very happy with KU. The legislators were not happy. Our chancellor wanted to
have projects that would relate to people and industry in the state of Kansas. That gave
the entree to form the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project, as you know. We had some friends
in the oil industry and Paul Willhite and also Floyd Preston helped us get this started. We
put together a proposal to form this oil recovery project that would be the research arm of
the industry in the state of Kansas, researching new and better oil recovery techniques.
With some help from friends in the petroleum industry, that got into the governor’s
budget message in 1973, and so that was funded beginning in the summer of 1974. It
continues today. TORP has continued to be funded by the State, and through external
funding from the Department of Energy and industry. Paul and I were co-directors until I
retired two years ago as a director. So, yes, we had that for a long time.
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