President Otis Singletary Birthday

On this date in 1921 Otis A. Singletary was born in Gulfport, Mississippi.  Today would have been his 96th birthday.  He served as the 8th president of the University of Kentucky from 1969 to 1987.

President Singletary enjoyed having his birthday on Halloween.  During his presidency, UK students would sometimes show up on campus wearing "Singletary masks" celebrating both the president's birthday and Halloween.

In 1981 students serenaded President Singletary in his office for his 60th birthday.

For his 80th birthday, President Singletary, Gloria Singletary, and granddaughter Addie gathered for a birthday celebration in UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center along with friends, family, and the UK Singletary Scholars.

UK's First Mascot

UK tradition tells us that the nickname Wildcats became popular soon after UK defeated Illinois in football on October 9, 1909.  Supposedly, Commandant Philip Carbusie, Head of the Military Department, told a group of students in a chapel service following a victory over Illinois that the Kentucky football team had "fought like Wildcats."  The name wildcats soon became synonymous with UK sports teams.

But young Dulaney Lee O'Roark roamed the football field sidelines as the team's mascot before any wildcats!

Dulaney O'Roark, the son of UK engineering graduate student, Lauren Snyder O'Roark and Anna McCormick O'Roark lived across Rose Street from the football field in a house torn down to make way for the King Alumni House.  

Lauren O'Roark served as the university's yearbook editor in 1908 and 1909.  Young Dulaney became the football team's mascot after his father began taking him to football games where Lauren reported on the games and took photographs for the yearbook.  The photo above appeared in the 1910 yearbook.

Dulaney graduated from UK in 1931 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  He went on to have a very successful military career serving as a Military Governor of the rural district of Kemnath in Bavaria after World War II and serving in Korea.  He retired from military service as a full colonel.

Dulaney Lee O'Roark, "The Little Wildcat"

Name That Stadium

At a time when sports arenas and stadiums change names often in order to capture corporate sponsorship, there was a time when names of stadiums lasted far longer.  Still, a look back shows that even in the early 20th century some confusion surrounded UK's iconic Stoll Field located on the current site of the Otis A. Singletary Center for the Arts.  On either side of Stoll Field rose two concrete grandstands that comprised McLean Stadium, home to the football Wildcats until 1972.

Commonwealth Stadium opened in 1973 on the site of the former UK agriculture farm next to Cooper Drive.  In 2000 UK named the playing surface at the stadium C.M. Newton Field.  Commonwealth Stadium became Kroger Field in 2017 with C.M. Newton Field becoming C.M. Newton Grounds.

Stoll Field Plaque, October 14, 1916

In 1936 the Kentucky Kernel reviewed the then short history of its football field and stadium to highlight the confusion about what to call the home of the football Wildcats.

Stoll Field - McLean Stadium

Text of the UK historical marker placed at the site of Stoll Field/McLean Stadium in 2007:

In 1880 the first college football game ever played in the South was held here at what was eventually named Stoll Field. It was dedicated in 1916 at the Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt game and was named in honor of alumnus and long-term Board of Trustees member Judge Richard C. Stoll. The field was the setting of early football games and an integral part of student life. Class of 2007. 

(Reverse) McLean Stadium- This field, which once pastured President Patterson’s cows, was used for military training during WWI and in 1924 it held McLean Stadium. It was named for Price McLean, an engineering student who was fatally injured in a football game in 1923. McLean Stadium was the site of Kentucky football games until they were moved to Commonwealth Stadium in 1972. Class of 2007.

UK Students, Please Take a Bath!

Water has always been important to UK and sometimes a scarce commodity. 

October 7-13 is University of Kentucky Water Week, "a week of films, panel discussions, invited speakers and service activities examining climate change impacts on water quality" sponsored by the Colleges of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Arts and Sciences, and Engineering, and the Kentucky Geological Survey, all of which are members of the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment’s water systems working group. Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute is also a collaborator.

The focus on water reminded me that in 1930, in addition to economic woes brought on by the Great Depression, Lexington and the University of Kentucky faced a severe drought that put the region's water supply in jeopardy.

During a gathering in Memorial Hall for the first convocation of the 1930 school year, President Frank McVey advised the students that if they had been in the habit of taking a daily bath that they should consider taking one "every other night."  If they had been "taking one every other night, take two baths a week."  But if any student had been taking only one bath a week, McVey encouraged those students "for goodness sake keep that up!"