Celebrating 100 years as a public institution

On the first day of class in October 1887, one student appeared in a small, rented cottage where the Adron Doran University Center now stands. Tens of thousands of students have come from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and beyond to seek the means to a better life. Dr. Frank C. Button, a minister and educator, and his mother, Phebe, an experienced educator and administrator, devoted their lives to bringing “a light to the mountains” by founding a school to train teachers. The University began as Morehead Normal School in 1887.

The Kentucky General Assembly approved MSU’s status as a public university, resulting in closing the private school in 1922 and becoming Morehead State Normal School. The state institution accepted its first students in the fall of 1923 with Frank Button as the first president and graduated its first class in 1927. Name changes occurred in 1926 when “and Teachers College” was added, in 1930 when it was shortened to Morehead State Teachers College, again in 1948 as “Morehead State College” and, finally, to university status in 1966.

Today, MSU continues this tradition with excellent academic programs. This includes training teachers, just as we began. The University is home to one of only a few space systems engineering programs in the U.S. and has strong professional program preparations, including pre-med and legal studies. Our graduates in social work, nursing, imaging sciences and other areas continue to find career success through serving others. We offer 145 undergraduate and 67 graduate degree programs, including a Doctor of Education.

MSU has more than 70,000 alumni and an endowment of more than $43 million, providing scholarships and support for students and academic programs.

We are honored to count you as a part of our rich history. Countless loyal donors and friends have partnered with us over the last 100 years – and we hope we can still count on you as we look ahead to the next.

History Keepers

To help highlight MSU’s Centennial Celebration through events, social media, and other publications, David Ace and Christian Wright worked together to complete the most ambitious history project of their college career.

Ace, a senior history major from Morehead, and Wright, a senior double majoring in history and psychology from Ripley, Ohio, were already acquainted with each other from their history classes and working over the summer together on campus. A poster project they produced as a timeline on MSU’s history for a 2021 Appalachian History course got the attention of Dieter Ullrich, head of collections and archives at the Camden-Carroll Library.

Using Professor of History Emeritus Dr. Donald E. Flatt’s 1997 book “A Light to the Mountains: Morehead State University, 1887-1997” as a guide, they conducted exploratory research (Wright tackling the first half-century while Ace took on the latter half.) They looked at microfilm editions of every MSU Trail Blazer newspaper from 1927 through 2013, along with various MSU recaps of Board of Regents and faculty meetings, and newspaper articles from newspapers in surrounding counties. They compiled a timeline and collection of photographs used for centennial projects throughout the year.

Pictured above: MSU Campus, circa 1947