Tag: 1923

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Trice, John “Jack” G. (B.S., Animal Husbandry, 2023; d. 1923)

John “Jack” G. Trice was born 12 May 1902 in Hiram, Ohio, to Green Trice, a farmer, and Anna W. Trice. When Jack entered Iowa State College in January 1922, he was enrolled in a two-year non-collegiate Agricultural program so that he could obtain the necessary credits in missing preparatory classwork to enter the Animal Husbandry degree program. He attained that goal in Summer 1923 after a strong performance in his preparatory courses. Trice was active in the the Alpha-Nu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha in 1923, belonging alongside Iowa State brothers A.C. Aldridge, J. R. Otis, F. D. Patterson, L. A. Potts, J. L. Lockett, J. W. Fraser, and R. B. Atwood (Aldridge, 1923).

In Fall 1923, Trice’s transcript notes that he “Dropped” his 15 1/3 credits of coursework on 9 October 1923. What that transcript note doesn’t say is that Trice’s credits were dropped because Jack, an athletic standout and the first African American member of the Iowa State football squad, had died on 8 October 1923 after injuries sustained in the October 6th Iowa State-University of Minnesota football match-up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Iowa State College Department of Hygiene issued a statement concerning Trice’s official cause of death, attributing it to “Traumatic Peritonitis, following injury to abdomen in football game” (quoted in Schwieder, 2010, p.39). The tragedy of this event is compounded by the aspirations and pride expressed by Trice’s fraternity brothers. Brother A. C. Aldridge, writing for the fraternity’s journal, The Sphinx, in June of 1923, only months before Trice’s death, praised Trice’s abilities as an all-around athlete and his potential to be one of the athletic greats:

Among the new brothers that have filled the ranks of Alpha Nu is brother John Trice, who is destined to reach great heights in the athletic world. Winning his numerals in football last fall, did not satisfy Brother Trice. This spring, his work on the “Prep” track squad was a revelation to the most keen fans of that sport. He has frequently thrown the discuss (sic) one hundred and thirty-five feet and passing the forty foot mark with the shot, seems to be an easy matter with him. Trice has not only shown ability on the track and gridiron, but his aquatic habits have obtained for him membership to the Iowa State College Lifesaving Corps. (Aldridge, 1923).

Indeed, Jack had won the shot put event in the Missouri Valley Conference meet as a freshman in 1922 . He’d also been a solid academic performer, with average grades of 93 (Tutt, 1923b).

Jack Trice’s memorial service on central campus at ISC, on 9 October 1923, was attended by several thousand people, according to news reports, no small number for a school with slightly over 3,000 students (Schwieder, 2010). The African American community of Ames held its own memorial service, organized by Jack’s fraternity brothers, on Sunday, October 21, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Gater (“Tribute Is Paid,” 1923). Money was collected at each event to help cover funeral expenses and to transport Jack’s body to Ohio. On the trip back to Hiram, Trice’s wife, Cora; his mother, Anna; and others from ISC, were accompanied by Trice’s fraternity brother Harold L. Tutt (Schwieder, 2010). John G. “Jack” Trice is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Hiram, Ohio.

Following Trice’s death, his teammates on the 1923 ISC football squad installed a bronze plaque in the Iowa State College gymnasium bearing the words of Jack’s last letter, found in his coat pocket after he passed (Tutt, 1924). The December 1923 edition of the fraternity’s national magazine, The Sphinx, was dedicated to Brother Trice’s memory (The Sphinx, 1923).

In October 2023, a posthumous Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Animal Husbandry was conferred upon John “Jack” Trice by Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen. This degree conferral occurred as part of the culmination of the year-long Jack Trice 100 Commemoration, a series of events intended to honor Jack’s brief life and his enduring legacy. The Jack Trice 100 kicked off in October 2022 with a ceremony, the dedication of Jack Trice Way (the section of S. 4th Street between University Boulevard and Beach Avenue, adjacent to the entry to the Jack Trice Stadium complex), and the installation of the sculpture “Breaking Barriers” (sculptor Ivan Toth Depeña, American, b. 1972) in the Albaugh Family Plaza north of Jack Trice Stadium. Throughout the year, lectures, art installations, and historical exhibits, among other events, marked the centennial of Jack’s death.

Sources

Photo Credit: Photo of Alpha-Nu chapter State College of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. (1923, June). The Sphinx, 9(3), p. 17. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300903

Aldridge, A. C. (1923, June). Alpha Nu chapter State College of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. The Sphinx, 9(3), p. 17. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300903

Greene, Cora Mae Starland Trice. (1988). Cora Mae Trice Greene letter to David Lendt, August 3, 1988, p. 3. Iowa State University Library Digital Collections. Retrieved from http://n2t.net/ark:/87292/w9n872z9b

In memoriam. (1923, Dec.). The Sphinx, 9(5), p. 2. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300905

Schwieder, D. (2010). The life and legacy of Jack Trice. The Annals of Iowa 69(4), p. 379-417. doi:  https://doi.org/10.17077/0003-4827.1474

Tribute is paid to late football star: Negroes honor dead in fitting memorial service. (1923, Oct. 22). The Ames Daily Tribune and Ames Evening Times, p. 1. Newspaper Archive. Retrieved from https://newspaperarchive.com/ames-daily-tribune-and-ames-evening-times-oct-22-1923-p-1/

Tutt, Harold L. (1923a, Oct.). Alpha Nu chapter, Des Moines, Iowa. The Sphinx, 9(4), p. 3. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300904

Tutt, Harold L. (1923b, Dec.). Alpha Nu chapter, Des Moines, Iowa. The Sphinx, 9(5), p. 28. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192300905

Tutt, Harold L. (1924, June). Alpha-Nu chapter, Des Moines, Iowa. The Sphinx, 10(3), p. 17. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192401003

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Patterson, Frederick D. (“Pat”) (D.V.M., 1923; M.S., Agriculture, 1927)

Headshot of Frederick D Patterson

By Brad Kuennen, Iowa State University Vet Med and Animal Science Librarian

Born October 10, 1901, in Washington, D.C., Patterson was the youngest of six children born to William Ross and Mamie Brooks Patterson. Tragically, both of his parents would die from illness before Patterson turned two years old.

When his oldest sister, Wilhelmina, graduated from the Washington Conservatory of Music sometime around 1908, she moved to Texas to start her career in music education taking young Frederick Patterson with her. She worked at several different schools in Texas and Oklahoma, and used any extra money she had to pay for her brother’s education. Eventually she landed a job teaching music at Prairie View State Normal School and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University) and Patterson, who had been staying with relatives up to this point, moved in with her and enrolled at the school.

It was at Prairie View that Patterson first became interested in veterinary medicine. During his junior and senior years, Patterson spent many hours with the young school veterinarian, Edward B. Evans, who had just earned his DVM from Iowa State College (now University). He encouraged Patterson to pursue a career in veterinary medicine and recommended Iowa State to him. 

Patterson arrived in Ames, Iowa, during the late summer of 1919 and enrolled at Iowa State. Four years later, in the spring of 1923, he had earned his DVM. He accepted a position teaching agriculture at Virginia State College and worked there for nearly five years. While at Virginia State, Patterson received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation General Education Board to pursue an advanced degree. He was granted leave from his teaching position and returned to Iowa State where he completed his M.S. in veterinary pathology in 1927. He returned to Virginia to take up his teaching role again, but was soon contacted by Tuskegee Institute (now University) about a teaching position there.

Patterson accepted the position to teach agriculture and animal science courses and also to act as the school’s veterinarian. He was again offered a fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation General Education Board to pursue an advanced degree and this time chose Cornell University, where he completed his Ph.D. in bacteriology in 1932. Shortly after returning to Tuskegee, the Director of the Agriculture Division was murdered, and Patterson was put in charge of the agriculture program. When President Robert Moton announced his retirement, the Tuskegee Board of Trustees tapped Patterson to serve as the third president of the school. At his inauguration ceremony that fall, Patterson had just turned 34.

During Patterson’s tenure as president, Tuskegee would face severe budget problems due to the Depression and then a World War. However, he managed to grow the academic programs at the school, oversaw the transition of Tuskegee from a technical institute to an academically diverse university, and established a different approach to fundraising which positively impacted nearly all historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the country. 

With the assistance of his mentor, Edward B. Evans, and a team of dedicated instructors, Patterson established Tuskegee’s School of Veterinary Medicine in 1945. It remains the only school of veterinary medicine at an HBCU and is estimated to have trained 70 percent of African American veterinarians in the United States. In addition, Patterson established a commercial aviation program in 1939, giving students the opportunity to earn a commercial pilots license. The school would also be home to a military aviation training program during the war whose pilots, the famed Tuskegee Airmen, would earn a stellar record and reputation. During his tenure, Patterson also oversaw the creation of the school of engineering and the program in commercial dietetics.

Sources

Biography available at  HBCU Connections at Iowa State University :  Frederick D. Patterson ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Frederick_D._Patterson

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Lockett, John Leon (B.S., Agronomy, 1923; M.S., Agronomy, 1928)

Headshot of John Leon Lockett

In 1926, Lockett, a Professor of Farm Crops and Soils, was one of five Iowa State graduates among the seven professors in the Agriculture Department at Prairie View. The others were Iowa State graduates E. B. Evans, R. B. Atwood, L. A. Potts, and J. M. Alexander. After receiving his Ph.D. from Rutgers, Dr. Lockett went on to become a professor of Agronomy at Virginia State College for Negroes, where he later became Director of the School of Agriculture until1963, when he gave up the position (“John L. Lockett,” 2018)

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Some chemical and bacteriological relations of organic matter in the soil to crop yield, 1928 

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21221825150002756

Sources

Photo Credit: Prairie View A&M University(1926)

1926 The Prairie(p.32)

 https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=yearbooks 

Biography available at  HBCU Connections at Iowa State University :  John L. Lockett  ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/John_L._Lockett )

John L. Lockett. (2018, May 17). HBCU Connections | Iowa State University, . Retrieved 5 February 2022. from  http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/index.php?title=John_L._Lockett&oldid=3

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Atwood, Rufus Ballard (B.S., Agricultural Education, 1923)

Headshot of Rufus Ballard Atwood

Rufus Ballard Atwood was born 15 March 1897, in Hickman, Kentucky, one of seven children of Rufus “Pomp” Atwood, day laborer, and Annie Parker Atwood, who took in washing.

Atwood started his academic career at Fisk University in Nashville and, while still a student there, enlisted in the army to serve in France during WWI. He received a Bronze Star for bravery before returning to Fisk to complete his A.B. degree. In order to pursue more advanced education than Fisk was able to provide at that time, Atwood enrolled at Iowa State and graduated with his B.S. in Agricultural Education in 1923. During his time at Iowa State, he was active in the Ag Club and Vocational Education Club, as well as the Alpha-Nu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, belonging alongside Iowa State brothers John “Jack” Trice, Jesse Otis, Frederick Patterson, Lawrence Potts, John Lockett, James Fraser, and Aubrey Aldridge. He married Mabel Edith Campbell on 28 June 1921 in Petersburg, Virginia, while he was still a student at Iowa State.

Following his graduation from ISC, Atwood embarked on a distinguished career as a leader at two HBCUs. In 1923, he was hired as a Professor of Agriculture at Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University), in Prairie View, Texas. By 1926, he was Director of the Agricultural Department, and one of four Iowa State graduates among the department’s seven professors. His colleagues included Edward Evans, Lawrence Potts, and John Lockett, with Joseph Alexander soon to acquire his M.S. and become the fifth ISC graduate on the faculty. 

He later became Acting President of the institution. In 1929, Atwood moved from Prairie View to become the ninth and longest-serving president of Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons (now Kentucky State University), holding the office from 1929 to 1962. While there, Atwood was recognized for his dedication to quality education and his inspirational leadership, which transformed the school into an accredited four-year college. For his work, he received the Sullivan Medallion in 1962, the first African American to receive the University of Kentucky’s highest honor.

Rufus Atwood died, aged 83, on 18 March 1983 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is buried in Frankfort Cemetery, Frankfort, Kentucky.

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