These Roots Run Deep

If history reveals nothing else, it shows that a hallmark of Cameron University has been its willingness to adapt to meet the needs of southwest Oklahoma. That ability, along with the “Cameron” brand and its roots in agriculture, are the three things that directly tie today’s university to its first day as an educational institution.

When Oklahoma became a state, its western region was devoted largely to farming. High schools were scarce, which meant youngsters living on farms had no access to education beyond elementary grades. The Oklahoma legislature responded in 1908 by establishing six agricultural high schools – one in each of the state’s judicial districts. To compete for one of the schools, a community had to guarantee a proper location.

In Lawton, a group of creative businessmen organized the “University Improvement Association” to raise funds to

purchase the required acreage. They did so by acquiring and developing land west of Lawton, then selling it as town lots. With profits from the sale, they then purchased 160 acres two miles west of the city, which satisfied legislative requirements.

The new Cameron State School of Agriculture fell under the authority of the State Commission of Agriculture and Industrial Education. Boys took classes in farm dairying and crops, agriculture botany and physics, soils and fertilizers, carpentry, blacksmithing, roadmaking and farm machinery. Girls studied cooking, domestic chemistry, home nursing, laundering and sewing.

By March 1911, the school had moved from a temporary location in Lawton to its current site. For a time, all school activities took place in the property’s sole building, a three-story brick structure. President J.A. Liner created a demonstration farm that provided students with practical experience. He purchased a wagon and a team of Percherons – a breed of draft horses known for their strength and ability to pull heavy loads – along with hogs, poultry, and Jersey and Holstein cattle to start a dairy herd.

Since Lawton had no market for milk and cream, Liner obtained permission to establish a commercial creamery. A large DeLaval cream separator and 8-foot churn were installed in the northwest corner of the basement. Students were paid 10 cents an hour to operate the equipment. The venture was the only commercial operation in the area, and Cameron’s butter was sold as far away as Chicago and New York. A building was constructed for the operation in 1913, but unpredictable markets created for an unstable financial flow and the venture was shut down in May 1916.

One of the first buildings on the Cameron campus was a barn, erected in 1913 using student labor. From 1911-1916, CSSA operated a commercial creamery operation. The butter it produced drew national recognition.

While courses for boys focused on farming, female CSSA students learned homemaking skills.

In 1912, CSSA graduated its first high school class of four students. Rev. E.D. Cameron – Oklahoma’s first superintendent of public instruction and the man for whom Cameron was named – traveled to Lawton for the ceremony and praised the work of CSSA and the other agricultural high schools and their importance to Oklahoma’s farming industry.

This is the earliest known aerial photo of the Cameron campus, taken around 1924 looking westward. The expanse of pastureland that extended all the way to Wolf Creek would eventually become part of the school’s campus. Note the row crops and fledgling orchard under development in the lower left portion of the photo. (For reference, the CU Library is now located where the main building on campus once stood.)

But almost as quickly as the agricultural high school system was established, some legislators began working to dismantle it and redirect the funds to the state’s colleges. Rural families who wanted a farming education for their children were frustrated at the lack of legislative support. A succession of Cameron presidents – the majority of whom had rural backgrounds themselves – fought the attempts to abolish the agricultural high schools outright or force their demise by cutting funds. The attack on the system was partially successful when, in 1917, the legislature closed the institutions at Broken Arrow and Helena.

Financial conditions were critical by 1921, when legislators adjourned without appropriating funds for the agriculture schools. Farm families began to realize that they had been “getting the crumbs instead of the whole loaves in the state provision for their education,” noted a Lawton Constitution editorial of the day.

Ironically, CSSA had enrolled its largest class at that point – more than 100 students. Lacking adequate housing, cots were set up in every available building, including the barn loft, and a chicken coop was temporarily converted into a makeshift boys’ dormitory. New president A.E. Wickizer devised a plan to keep costs under control by using the farm to produce as much of the school’s food as possible.

He enlarged the dairy herd with 20 registered Holsteins and added shorthorn cattle to the stock. Poland China and Duroc Jersey hogs were purchased, along with 60 registered Mammoth Bronze turkeys and more than 100 White Wyandotte and Barred Rock chickens. The farm raised the forage necessary to feed the livestock, which, in turn, fed students.

A lack of student housing in the early 1920s required creative solutions, such as converting a poultry barn into a boys’ dorm.

To the extent that meager appropriations allowed, Cameron expanded its physical plant, which now included several farm buildings and feedlots. The school farm flourished as students planted a seven-acre apple and peach orchard, a half-acre vineyard, and flower and vegetable gardens, which added opportunities for hands-on learning.

Still, state funding failed to match the school’s needs and facilities were in grave disrepair. Despite its financial woes, Cameron won high praise in the Daily Oklahoman, which noted Cameron “is not a school for the city-bred child.” Although any youngster – regardless of background – could attend CSSA, “Cameron specializes only in subjects which

During the Great Depression, Cameron obtained funds to build dairy barns. These structures still stand and are now part of CU’s Physical Facilities operation.

will be of practical use to the children of the farm.” Girls learn to cook “the kinds of meals a farmer’s wife must prepare for a hardworking husband” and boys “learned the latest in agriculture and mechanical science. … A majority of the children attending Cameron return to the farm after graduation … in nearly every instance the training they received helped them to prosperity in agriculture.”

Again, CSSA found an ally in the people of Lawton. Just as they had done 15 years earlier in working to establish Cameron in Lawton, they rallied to provide funding for repairs and renovations and pressed the legislature to consider appropriation requests – even to the extent of sending citizens to legislative sessions to rally support.

Lawton’s support for CSSA was partly responsible for Senate Bill 187, which elevated Cameron to a junior college in 1927. While this change effectively eliminated Cameron’s status as a state agricultural school, it had little or no impact on curriculum. Most girls took courses in domestic science, while boys took subjects designed to help them become successful farmers. The school farm, which consisted of 80 acres of bottomland along Wolf Creek and 70 acres of upland, served as a laboratory for a wide range of farming experiences. Students were allowed to bring cows to school and exchange milk for room and board.

Oklahoma remained predominantly rural, as it would for many years to come. Farm families continued to support Cameron’s commitment to ag education, asserting that their children deserved the same opportunities as their urban counterparts.

By 1936, a majority of CSAC’s students still came from the farm. Cameron offered associate degrees in science and agriculture, and expanded its agriculture and home economics curriculum. The State Board of Agriculture advocated changing the school’s name to Western Oklahoma Agricultural College, but ultimately, the school was given the title of Cameron State Agricultural College for its new mission as a junior college. Leading Cameron through the junior college transition was John Coffey, who earned praise for making the school a driving force for southwest Oklahoma’s development. While the college’s primary focus remained agriculture, it saw its mission expand as Lawton became increasingly urbanized. Unfortunately, Coffey’s inability to get along with Oklahoma Governor “Alfalfa Bill” Murray eventually led to his removal. Ironically, Coffey would become the head of the State Board of Agriculture in 1937, a move that would benefit Cameron.

By the depth of the Great Depression, Cameron had tripled its enrollment and become the third largest junior college in the U.S. Thanks to the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the college secured funding to build new dairy barns – structures that still stand and are among the oldest buildings on campus.

Farm improvements continued with Charles Conwill, Coffey’s successor. The Federal Emergency Relief Organization supported several campus projects, including maintenance of the orchard. A National Youth Administration program established an extensive irrigation program, which allowed students to plant more than 200 acres of beans, peas, onions, okra, lettuce and spinach.

World War II signaled a permanent change in Cameron’s makeup and mission. The student body became predominantly female and a pilot training school was established. The orchard was neglected and the irrigation program discontinued. Although the male-to-female ratio returned to normal after the war and enrollment climbed steeply as soldiers returned home, there was a new emphasis on technical trades and non-ag-related courses.

In 1947, Vernon Howell arrived at Cameron and had an aggressive vision that included making the school’s ag program one of the largest in the state. CSAC purchased land west of campus to use for crops and livestock grazing and added eight farm buildings. A rodeo club was initiated in the 1950s and Cameron hosted its first Southwest Oklahoma FFA Annual Aggie Field Day – an event that eventually transitioned into today’s Ag Interscholastics.

Under Clarence Davis, Howell’s successor, Cameron continued to expand agricultural education with the addition of a pasteurization plant, homogenizing equipment, holding tanks and milking system. But even as the program grew, some students grumbled that CSAC’s mission had changed and the school was more cosmopolitan. They felt that “agriculture” should be stricken from Cameron’s name, since it gave prospective students as sense that the school was mired in the “horse and buggy era.” While no action was taken, the issue would repeatedly resurface in the years ahead.

Vietnam and the resulting growth of Fort Sill, along with growing pressure to make Cameron a four-year institution, sped change in its culture during the 1960s. Marketing brochures scarcely mentioned the ag program. When Cameron finally made the transition to a university in the late 1960s, President Richard Burch attempted to reinvent the school, replacing the team name “Aggies” with “Cardinals” and changing school colors to red and white. This did not sit well with most of the student body, which successfully lobbied for a return to tradition. No longer a junior college, discussion resurfaced over Cameron’s name. Among those suggested was University of the Great Plains, but in the end, the name was simply shortened to Cameron College.

In 1969, Don Owen succeeded Burch as president. Under Owen, Cameron’s dairy herd and milk processing equipment were sold – a decision that was highly symbolic of the school’s future. Publicly, Owen noted that the cattle and equipment were no longer used for instruction and, therefore, not cost effective; privately he indicated that he wanted the matter to be handled quietly to limit discussion that Cameron was deemphasizing agriculture. Owen’s concerns were well-founded as every action taken with regard to the university’s agriculture program in the 50 years since has sparked rumors of its elimination. By 1976, more CU students were majoring in business than anything else – with ag majors fading to a distant fourth.

When Don Davis became president in 1980, he found new ways to keep the school involved in agriculture, adding a degree program that supplied the region with high school ag teachers into the early 1990s. It was during Davis’ administration that the current Plant/Animal Science Complex was constructed on the west side of 38th Street and improvements were made to the school farm. But one tie to agriculture was severed during his administration. In 1992, the legislature transferred governance of CU to the University of Oklahoma’s governing board. For the first time in its 84-year existence, Cameron was not governed by an entity whose primary function involved agriculture. agricultural legacy. With CU’s reassignment to the OU governing board a decade earlier, keeping cowboy mascot Ole Kim was problematic. Student surveys indicated that one-third of students wanted a change, one-third wanted to keep Ole Kim, and the remaining third didn’t care … they just wanted a mascot to help maintain school spirit. The dilemma was resolved at a donor event when one longtime alumnus commented to a CU staffer, “It doesn’t matter what you call us, we’ll always be Aggies.” Ross decided to keep Ole Kim – although he became a prospector – and athletic teams remained Aggies.

As Cameron moved into the 21st century, Oklahoma’s rollercoaster economy put higher education funding at risk. By 2015, appropriations were the lowest in two decades, forcing the university to make a tough decision about its offerings. Once again, rumors ran rampant that CU would eliminate agriculture. The number of ag majors had decreased in recent years, averaging around 75, and only two percent of bachelor’s degrees were awarded in agriculture. Rather than eliminate the program, the university combined it with biology, and later with health sciences, to create new opportunities for education and research.

Members of the Aggie Club hang a welcome banner on campus in preparation for the Ag Interscholastics during the 1970s.

As it has done repeatedly over the past century, Cameron has found ways to remain relevant as an agricultural institution. Current president John McArthur established articulation agreements with Redlands Community College and Western Oklahoma State College that enable their graduates to continue toward 4-year agriculture degrees at CU. Cameron’s degree has options in agronomy, agribusiness management, animal science and general agriculture – worlds away from the early days of blacksmithing, carpentry and dairy production, but they demonstrate that the university continues to adapt to meet the needs of Oklahoma’s evolving ag industry.

Aiding that process is an advisory board comprised of producers and operators in the field of agriculture. Organized in 2019, the board – which includes a number of Aggie alumni – provides insight into current trends in the agriculture industry and is making a significant impact on the department’s courses, facilities and operations.

Thanks to a grant from the McMahon Foundation, two new greenhouses are currently under construction on the main campus and are due for completion in late summer. These will not only serve as classrooms, but will also enable agriculture faculty to study treatments on crop growth in a controlled setting. Farm Credit of Western Oklahoma has gifted the department with a drone, enabling Cameron to expand its involvement into “precision agriculture.” Using drone technology it’s now possible to economically survey entire fields or pastures from the air to determine specific locations needing pest control, fertilizer, additional irrigation, erosion control or intervention against some other abnormality that cannot easily be observed at ground level.

Two new greenhouses currently under construction will be ready for use in time for the start of the Fall 2021 semester.

That, in itself, shows how deeply Cameron’s agricultural roots run.

– By Keith Mitchell, relying heavily on the historical research of Hugh Corwin, Sarah Eppler Janda and Sally Bradstreet Soelle

CU assistant professor Alimamy Fornah prepares to test fly a new drone that will be used in precision agriculture and other crop production research.

Technology has enabled the agriculture industry to grow food more affordably, economically and with less toil, and CU is preparing its graduates to effectively use that technology to become successful ag producers.

In retrospect, every Cameron president since World War II had an opportunity to eliminate agriculture from the school’s curriculum as the makeup of southwest Oklahoma became less rural. Yet none did. Instead, the school adapted programs to fit the region’s needs by producing high school ag teachers, increasingly engaging in research, or adapting educational coursework to better address the changes affecting today’s farmers. Those presidents, whether they were named Howell, Burch, Davis, Ross or McArthur, understood agriculture’s importance to Cameron’s history, growth and traditions, and found ways to promote the program when eliminating it might have been far simpler.