Pugh was the son of a Chester County (Pennsylvania) Welsh-Quaker farmer-blacksmith, who died when the boy was 12. He learned blacksmithing, conducted an academy and used his inheritance to go to Europe at the age of 25. At Leipzig, where he studied chemistry, mineralogy, crystallography and physical geography, he began a lifelong friendship with Samuel W. Johnson, who shared his interest in experimenting with scientific agricultural education in the United States after seeing it in successful operation in Europe. Pugh went on to Goettingen, earning his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1856; studied at Bunsen's Heidelberg laboratory and in France; and then began research at the Rothamsted Experiment Station of Sir John Lawes in England. His work on the assimilation of nitrogen by plants won him international recognition and membership in the London Chemical Society. Johnson had returned to an agricultural chemistry professorship at Yale and later became the leader in the establishment of American agricultural experiment stations. Through him the trustees of the Farmers' High School approached Pugh about the presidency, which he accepted in 1859. The trustees authorized him to purchase laboratory equipment in Europe worth $1,500 of which he contributed $500 from his salary for the chemistry laboratory he designed and conducted in Old Main. He assumed his duties October 26, 1859, at the age of 31.

"Allen, a graduate of Bowdoin College, had served for 10 years as a professor of chemistry and natural history at Dickinson College, and for one year as president of that institution. In 1850 he became president of Girard College...served [there] for 12 years...retiring to his country home in 1863...[from whence he came to Penn State]. In 1852, Union College [gave him an] LL.D. degree.... [When he left Penn State in 1866] he was reelected president of Girard...which position he retained until his death in 1882.... In 1872, he was chosen president of the American Bible Society, which office he held for 8 years.... Allen was a man of character and culture...popular with [Penn State's] faculty and students [but] he could not adjust to the primitive campus conditions...[throughout his short tenure] he appears to have been an interested spectator rather than a leader."

Fraser, a native of Scotland, had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, "being especially versed in mathematics, Latin and Greek. After teaching some years in Bermuda and in New York, he became professor of mathematics in Jefferson College (Pennsylvania).... He served three years (1862-65) in the Union army, retiring at the close of the war as a brevet brigadier-general." President Allen appointed him a professor of mathematics in July 1865, and "he promptly became an outstanding member of the faculty bent upon promoting a vigorous campaign of reform." (After he left Penn State, Fraser became chancellor of the University of Kansas, then superintendent of public instruction in that state. Then he became professor at the Western University of Pennsylvania, where he died in 1878.)

"Burrowes was well known throughout Pennsylvania, especially in educational circles. Though not a college graduate, he had a good academic education [including a year of law at Yale] and had been admitted to the Lancaster bar, but never practiced law extensively. He became active in state politics...member of House of Representatives 1831-32; chairman of the Anti-Masonic Party; secretary of the Commonwealth and ex officio head of the common school system, 1835-39. Thereafter, he farmed in Lancaster County; founded and published the Pennsylvania School Journal; served as state superintendent of common schools, 1860-63; and as superintendent of the soldiers orphan schools, 1863-68. He had had no experience in higher education as teacher or administrator before coming to Penn State at the age of 63 [but had led the movement and framed the law, passed in 1857, for the establishment of Pennsylvania's normal schools, which later became the state teachers' colleges and are now the state colleges and university (Indiana)].... He was noted for his genial disposition, ready wit and conversational powers."

The Reverend James Calder, D.D., was a native of Harrisburg, a graduate of Wesleyan College, a Methodist missionary in China, then a Methodist minister in the United States until he became president of Hillsdale College (Michigan) in 1859. It was from Hillsdale that he came to Penn State as Burrowes's successor in 1871 at the age of 54. (It is interesting that when he resigned as President in 1880, Calder became a lecturer of the State Grange and editor of The Farmers' Friend. He died in 1893.)

"Except for his brief adventure of some nine months at Penn State, Shortlidge spent his entire life in secondary education. He had studied a year or two at Yale, but did not graduate. He was principal of Maplewood Institute in Delaware County (Pennsylvania) when he became President of the College...in recognition of which, Yale gave him an honorary master of arts degree in 1880...."

The 24-year administration of President Atherton vindicated the trustees for the time and care they used in selecting him to be the seventh President of the University. He was born in Massachusetts, and when he was 12 his father died. Through work in a cotton mill and on a farm he earned enough to help support his widowed mother and to pay his way at Philips Exeter. He entered Yale, but withdrew for Union service in the Civil War, and had risen to the rank of captain when his health failed. Returning to Yale, he was graduated in 1863 and taught for several years at Albany Boys' Academy in New York and at St. John's College in Maryland. He was a member of the first faculty of the University of Illinois, which he left to become professor of political science at Rutgers. In New Jersey, he also took a law degree and ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He was at Rutgers when he accepted the Penn State presidency at the age of 45.

Thomas was a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont; and of Union Theological Seminary. He served 14 years as pastor of the East Orange, N.J., Presbyterian Church, then became president of Middlebury College, whence he came to Penn State as President in 1921, at the age of 51.

Hetzel, a native of Wisconsin, earned his A.B. and LL.B. degrees at the University of Wisconsin. He then spent 12 years with Oregon State College, first as a teacher of English and political science, later as director of its extension division. In 1916 he became president of the University of New Hampshire, and is credited with converting it from an A and M college into a state university. He left New Hampshire to become Penn State's tenth President in December 1926 at the age of 44.

Eisenhower was born in Kansas, worked his way through Kansas State College and, upon graduation, served for several years as American vice consul in Edinburgh, Scotland. He then accepted an administrative appointment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture where for 16 years he was to be an important influence in the reorganization of that rapidly growing agency. During World War II he was made head of the War Relocation Authority, then set up the Office of War Information. He was with the O.W.I. when in 1943, he became president of his alma mater Kansas State, whence he came to Penn State seven years later at the age of 51. He left Penn State in 1956 to become president of Johns Hopkins University.

A native of England, President Walker moved to Canada with his parents at an early age and lived with an aunt in Wrightsville, York County, Pennsylvania, during his high school years. At Harvard University, where he made his own way via scholarship and part-time work, he earned a B.S. in electrical engineering, an M.A. in business administration and an Sc.D. in general science and engineering. Before World War II, he was a professor and head of electrical engineering at Tufts College and the University of Connecticut. He was appointed associate director of the Underwater Sound Laboratory at Harvard early in World War II, where development of the homing torpedo was a principal mission. When a portion of the laboratory was moved to Penn State in 1945 as the Ordnance Research Laboratory, he became laboratory director and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering. He became dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture (1951), vice president for research (1956), then President of the University. He served on many professional, educational and governmental boards and agencies concerned with improving American higher education and applying its resources in the national interest. Upon his retirement from the University in 1970, Dr. Walker served for five years as vice president for science and technology of the Aluminum Company of America.

President Oswald, a native of Minnesota, did his undergraduate work in botany at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. A Phi Beta Kappa scholar, he received his Ph.D. from the University of California in 1942. Following graduation, Dr. Oswald attended Navy Officer Training school at Notre Dame and Northwestern Universities. He served as a PT boat captain in the Mediterranean theater and later as executive officer of the Motor Torpedo Boat Ferrying Command in New Orleans.

In 1946, Dr. Oswald returned to the Davis Campus of the University of California as assistant professor of plant pathology. He became chairman of the department of plant pathology at the Berkeley Campus in 1954 and began concurrent service as an administrative officer in the office of the chancellor in 1958. In 1962 he was named vice president for administration in the statewide system for the University of California.

Dr. Oswald was named president of the University of Kentucky in 1963 where he led the establishment of fifteen branch campuses.

In 1968, Dr. Oswald returned to the University of California as executive vice president of the nine campus system. He became president of Penn State in 1970. Upon his retirement in 1983, Dr. Oswald established a home in Philadelphia and was provided with an office at the University's Ogontz Campus.

Bryce Jordan was born in Clovis, New Mexico and raised in Abilene, Texas. After one year at Hardin-Simmons University, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1946. After earning both his bachelor's and master's degrees in music from the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Jordan taught at Hardin-Simmons from 1949 to 1951. He received his Ph.D. in historical musicology, with a minor in comparative literature, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1956.

In 1954, Dr. Jordan joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor of music. He advanced to full professorship by 1962, serving as director of graduate studies in music from 1960-63 and as acting department head in 1962. Upon leaving Maryland in 1963, Dr. Jordan became professor and chairman of the Department of Music at the University of Kentucky.

He left Kentucky in 1965 to become chairman of the Department of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. He served as vice president for student affairs at Austin from 1968 to 1970, when he was named president ad interim of the campus. A year later, Dr. Jordan assumed the post of president at the University of Texas at Dallas. During his tenure there, U.T. Dallas expanded its faculty from 50 to 215 and increased student enrollment from 40 to more than 7,000. In July of 1981, he became executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer for academic affairs of The University of Texas System. In that role, he had responsibility for the seven general academic units of the System, reporting directly to the Board of Regents. While with the U.T. System, Dr. Jordan served on several national organizations including the Association of the Upper Level Colleges and Universities (of which he was president), the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (as a member of the Executive Committee), and the National Commission on Higher Education Issues.

He took office as president of Penn State on July 1, 1983.

Robert was a young, up and coming lineman for Packing Ice, he was killed to death and brought back to play some more.