SUGAR BOWL 1951

 

1951 Sugar Bowl Victory Dinner
Standing L-R: Charles Genrod, former UK football coach Ab Kirwan, Betty Kirwan, former Kentucky Governor, U.S. Senator, and Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler, UK Athletics Director Bernie Shively, Mildred Chandler, UK President Herman Lee Donovan, unidentified, Governor Lawrence Wetherby, Helen Wetherby, remainder unidentified.
Photographer: Leon Price Picture Service

The Kentucky Wildcats entered the 1951 Sugar Bowl with a 10-1 record and as champions of the Southeastern Conference.  Nevertheless, they were underdogs to the undefeated Big-7 champions, Oklahoma, who had won 31 straight games.

Played at Tulane Stadium before over 80,000 fans, the Wildcats, coached by Bear Bryant, took an early lead over the Sooners and their outstanding coach, Bud Wilkinson.  UK held on to win 13-7.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Dr. Katherine Roberts

Among the Kentuckians in Hawaii the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor was 1925 University of Kentucky graduate Dr. Katherine Roberts.  Her father, Professor George Roberts, was an agronomist with the UK College of Agriculture.

While at UK Roberts studied Romance Languages but her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa were in Child Psychology.  In 1941 Dr. Roberts had taken a leave of absence from the Merrill-Palmer School in Detroit, Michigan for a one year special assignment in Hawaii.  She worked with the University of Hawaii to prepare teachers in Hawaii to improve their skills in working with students of the many nationalities enrolled in Hawaii's public schools.

Roberts recalled that following the attack all schools on the islands were closed until the following February 2.  Also, everyone on the islands were required to be fingerprinted and inoculated for smallpox and typhoid.  All nonessential civilian employees were asked to leave the islands and gas masks were issued to those who remained.  Roberts returned to Detroit the following September.

LESSONS FROM UK HISTORY

Dr. Frank L. McVey served UK as president from 1918 to 1940.  An economist by training, he and his spouse, Frances Jewell McVey, promoted international activities on the UK campus.

Speaking to a convocation at UK in October, 1943, in the midst of World War II, McVey said that "The people of South America must be received by us on a basis of equality" adding that "we must accept these people with their differences and without condescension if we hope to be good neighbors."

McVey had recently returned from a three month stay in Venezuela during which he represented the United States government in planning for a national university.  He noted that "people of the United States must first learn to understand the peoples and problems of South America" where better hospitals, roads, schools, sanitation, and public health are needed.  He acknowledged that the challenge was great with "75 percent of the population illiterate and with prevalence of tuberculosis, syphilis, and malaria."

But Frank McVey knew if the United States would not help, who would?

Kentucky Kernel, October 8, 1943