Category: Archive

Richard F. Hazel, former president of the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of Salisbury, made the largest private gift on record to one of Maryland’s historically Black institutions, establishing a $3 million endowment in 2004 to benefit the teacher education program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.  In recognition of his contribution and his lifelong commitment…Read more Richard F. Hazel

For much of its history, the university’s grounds were neglected by lawmakers in Annapolis.  Today, however, alumni marvel at the beauty of the UMES campus.  In a contest judged by a national landscapers’ organization at the turn of the 21st century, the Princess Anne campus was rated second only to Duke one year and the University…Read more Richard A. Henson

On Sep. 10, 1951, Maryland State College joined 187 other colleges and universities across the United States when it formed a Reserve Officers’ Training Corp detachment as an academic option for undergraduates. The goal of the new Air Force ROTC program was to recruit, educate and commission officer-candidates through course work that met U.S. Air…Read more ROTC

Students, faculty and visitors who enter the lobby of the Center for Food Science and Technology building are greeted with six magnificent oil paintings by the late Alice West Jackson, a former UMES fine arts student. Each of the 42” X 51” paintings depicts Black female farm laborer from a bygone era when a dominant…Read more Alice West Jackson

Fred Engh and Bob Taylor were an improbable pair of student-athletes at Maryland State College in the early 1960s. Taylor grew up in Columbia, S.C., where a Confederate flag flew prominently in a place of honor on the grounds of the state capitol from 1961 until 2015.  He was a tall, strapping athlete who matriculated to…Read more Fred Engh

People come from far and wide to play on golf courses across the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  At the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the sport has provided much pride and strength, and is enjoying a renaissance. Maryland State College experimented briefly with intercollegiate golf during the (President) John T. Williams era by fielding a…Read more Golf

Ask Jessie Cottman Smith about venerable Frederick Douglass Library on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus and she responds, proudly, “It’s my baby!” A native of the crossroads community of Tindley’s Chapel in southern Somerset County, Smith is a 1950 graduate of what was then Maryland State College. She earned a master’s degree in…Read more Jessie Cottman Smith

Genevieve Wendell Williams A modest brass marker bearing an unpretentious but heartfelt tribute sits beneath a magnolia tree adjacent to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s administration building. It reads: During the 75th anniversary year of its founding, the institution and its popular president suffered the loss of First Lady Jennie V. Williams. Born Genevieve Wendell on Oct. 4,…Read more ‘Jennie V.’