Winona State University professor Peter Henderson hosted an athenaeum for his book “Her Star Shall Not Dim” on Wednesday Mar. 19. The book, marking the fifth official history about Winona State. Other histories were written on the fiftieth, seventy-fifth, hundredth, and hundred thirty-fifth anniversaries of Winona State’s founding.
Henderson presented information from his book to an audience of roughly fifty people. He particularly focused on the workings of Winona State in the 1920s and 30s.
Henderson decided to write his history in a different way than the way most university histories are done.
“Normally institutional histories are a different genre; they focus on the very formal aspects of the university, such as presidential administration, curricular changes, and external events that affect university,” said Henderson. “I set out to do something different, focusing more on the faculty, students, and community.”
The information that Henderson used for his history came primarily from old yearbooks and editions of the Winonan dating back from 1910 to the present.
The facts and tidbits that Henderson presented showed that attending Winona State in the 20s and 30s was very different from now.
“The university was dedicated almost exclusively to teacher training,” said Henderson. “Very few people went here for anything other than teaching.”
In 1928, Winona State had to prepare for the enrollment of 200 freshmen. Two days were given to assist students with registering for their classes.
“So, registration headaches existed even in the 1920s,” said Henderson.
During this time the gender ratio at Winona State was about the same as it is today, with women outnumbering men by a large margin. One freshman class had only one male. “Obviously this caused problems at dances and proms,” said Henderson.
One of Henderson’s best stories was about how Winona State chose The Warriors as its mascot.
For many years there was no official name for Winona State’s sports teams, each team had its own name.
In 1936 the student association allowed the students to vote on the official name.
Some possibilities were the Windians, the Eagles, the Pedawins, the Warriors, the Werewolves and the Wizards.
After three rounds of highly contested voting, the Winona State Warriors came out on top of the close second, the Winona State Werewolves.
Henderson also displayed photographs from the 1933 Winona State yearbook.
Despite having far more women than men, men’s athletics was more popular and more represented in this time period. In some yearbooks, women’s sports were not even present.
Up until the 1950s, Winona State used to have routine gatherings in Somsen Auditorium called Chapel Talks.
These talks didn’t necessarily have religious ties; their purpose was to have a speaker talk to students about important issues and to impart wisdom on them.
One of the most well known and well received chapel talks was made by a reformed convict that told students that crime doesn’t pay.
Instead of blaming crime on mental defects, this man blamed pool halls and dance halls, where “the scum of the cities congest.”
Winona State was a completely different place several decades ago, and especially during the Sesquicentennial year it is fitting to look back on our past and remember those who came before us.

Contact Greg at GLEichte1670@winona.edu