Memorial Union Memories

With the demolition of the Memorial Union to make way for a student-funded replacement, staff and alumni share memories of the “heart of campus.”

By Brenda Haugen /// Photographs courtesy of Elywn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections

The Memorial Union has always been the place to see and be seen. Whether it was students touring the University with parents, alumni stopping in the bookstore to pick up a new sweatshirt during Homecoming weekend, or just every day for students, staff, faculty and community members.

“There was always a lot of student traffic in the Union,” said Chuck Flemmer, who attended UND in the 1980s.

Back then, the Union was still home to the bookstore, one of the biggest drivers of foot traffic in the building. Gordon Henry, who started at the university as a student in 1965 and worked his way up to vice president for Student Affairs, said a study at the time found 12,000 people entered the Union in one day. Many stopped in the bookstore simply to buy gum, a greeting card, or a Blue Book for a test.

“It was busy,” he said. “There were always people in there browsing around.”

The Union served as the heart of the campus. In fact, according to the building’s former Associate Director Bonnie Solberg, that was actually the Union’s slogan.

“In the ’80s, I can remember that on the main floor at noon when everybody was in there during the winter, you couldn’t walk from one end of the Union to the other,” she said. “It was the place to be. It was packed and buzzing.”

Honoring Sacrifices

Dedicated May 18, 1951, the $350,000 Memorial Student Union was named to honor UND students who had died in World War II. In 1964, in keeping with trends across the country, the building was renamed the University Center. It became the UND Memorial Union in 1978, bringing it back to the theme of honoring those who had served their country, as many UND students had done. Pictures of former students who lost their lives while serving in the military hang in the second floor’s Memorial Room. The second floor hall also is home to another special memorial.

“To me, one of the most powerful spots in the Union is the memorial to Elton Ringsak on the second floor,” said Denny Elbert, a UND graduate and former professor and dean.

Those who see it can’t help but be touched at the sight of Ringsak’s helmet, which shows a clear hole through it. Originally from Grafton, North Dakota, Ringsak graduated from UND’s Army ROTC program in 1937 and went on to become North Dakota’s most highly decorated World War II veteran. He was wounded in action several times. The last wound was inflicted by a shell that exploded near him, which damaged his brain and left him paralyzed on his right side. Yet, Elbert said, Ringsak completed law school at UND by correspondence after the war.

“The Memorial Union aspect was always a powerful influence to me,” said Elbert, a member of UND’s Army ROTC. “That’s where we were commissioned. So when we graduated and were commissioned officers in the military, all of the commissioning ceremonies were done in the ballroom. And the tradition is, as an officer, when you render your first salute to a noncommissioned officer, you do the salute and then you hand them a silver dollar. So then that was part of the Memorial Union memory for all of us who went through that back in the day.”

Meeting Space

When the Memorial Union was first built, the ballroom was twice the size of the space in the Armory, which had proved too small for the many events UND held there, including dances and athletic activities. The new Union also included meeting rooms, a store, lounges, dining rooms, snack bars and an eight-lane bowling alley. The flood of 1997 destroyed the bowling alley, and though it wasn’t used as much as it had been in previous years, its loss was felt.

“I fought very hard to save that bowling alley, but it’s a battle I lost,” said Henry, an avid bowler. “It got faculty involved with students. There were a lot of faculty teams that included students. A department would have two or three faculty and two or three students on its team.”

Just outside the bowling area, a game room including well-used pool tables was found. Nearby, students could grab a quick bite at the deli, which served a variety of sandwiches, including an incredible, albeit unusual one, with tuna and green olives, as well as sweet treats, such as its legendary Special K bars. They could also join their friends for what was mustsee TV at noon.

“The TV lounges all over campus would fill up with people watching ‘Days of Our Lives’ and other soap operas in between classes,” Flemmer said.

Those who wanted a nice sit-down meal at a reasonable price opted for lunch in the Centennial Dining Room. Though open to anyone, it tended to be a little oasis during busy days for UND faculty and staff.

“People talked about it for years after it closed,” Solberg said.

“A lot of faculty liked to go down there. Staff liked to go down there. Certainly students were welcome to go down there, but they never felt like it was their space,” said Marsha Nelson, who worked in the Union for 47 years, lastly as director for facility operations. “And the other side of that then was the Terrace Cafeteria.”

Students definitely felt at home in the Terrace, but those who only wanted a light snack could grab a bag of popcorn, which initially cost just a quarter. “The popcorn machine—or the smell of popcorn—is one of the things people think of when they think of the Union,” Solberg said.

Barber Shop

Need a haircut? You could accomplish that at the Union as well. The building’s longest lasting tenant—more than 50 years—was Tom & Jerry’s Campus Barbershop. At its height of popularity, the barbershop—complete with a pillar outside its door painted like a barber pole and a real moving barber pole inside—boasted five barber chairs.

“The barbershop was a central location and a hub of information,” Elbert said. “In the military, you have a division level G2, that’s your intelligence gathering units. [The barbershop] had the G2 on campus. They knew all the secrets. They knew what was going on whether it was academics or athletics or whatever.”

According to Tom Dryburgh, the “Tom” of Tom & Jerry’s, he and his business partner, Jerry Pokrzywinski, mainly just heard a lot of sports talk in the barbershop. But he does have a picture of him and Jerry holding the Nickel Trophy just after it disappeared from Fargo. The ROTC Ranger group brought it for them to see, Dryburgh recalled.

By its nature, the barbershop drew members of the community to campus. “We had a lot of downtown business—attorneys, doctors—and a lot of professors and students,” Dryburgh said. “In the ’60s and ’70s, ROTC, athletes— we got to know just about all of them. It was a good job.”

UND’s presidents also patronized the establishment. Dryburgh said he particularly remembers George Starcher and Tom Clifford, who had very different personalities.

“Dr. Starcher was a different kind of person,” Dryburgh said. “He’d come in, and he’d be wearing his top hat and his coat, and there could be 10 guys waiting for haircuts, and he’d say, ‘I’m next in the chair.’ He wouldn’t call for an appointment or anything. He’d just get in. Tom Clifford was just the opposite. He’d call for an appointment, and then when he’d show up, he would tell the people there that he’d called for an appointment. He’d hate to cut in front of them.”

The hours at the barbershop were often long, but Dryburgh obviously enjoyed his work. The barbershop’s official hours were 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., but it wasn’t unusual for the staff to be there after 7 p.m.

“As long as people would be in the shop waiting at 5:30 when we closed, we’d say, ‘As long as you’re in here, you can get a cut,’” he said.

Info Center

Ask graduates who went to school before the Internet existed and one of the most valuable services many will remember is the Info Center.

“The Info Center was a huge thing in the Union,” Flemmer said. “It would answer any question about any topic—a big task before smart phones!”

Back before email and texting, a public address system was used to spread announcements in the Union. “My friend Chris Reali was the ‘voice of the union,’ always making announcements over the PA system,” Flemmer said.

Students, faculty, and staff also could cash personal checks at the Union’s Service Desk on the first floor. “There really were no ATMs,” Flemmer recalled.

The Memorial Union has served as the heart of Student Government as well. Along with housing the Student Government offices, the Union also was home to the group’s meetings.

Grant Hauschild earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UND in 2011 and served as student body vice president.

“My favorite place is the Student Government office because it was the place where I learned leadership skills, hung out with my closest friends, and worked to make a difference at the university I cared about,” he said. “Our office was located on the main floor right in the middle of the Memorial Union. It’s a great space where the president and vice president can hold private meetings, an office space for group meetings, and workspace for other officers, committee chairs, and student senators.”

Flemmer was student body vice president in the mid-1980s. He recalled many good debates on topics current at the time.

“The Senate and the Board of Student Publications were always butting heads over the autonomy of the Dakota Student,” he recalled. “And there was always controversy on if the Honors Program should have a Senate seat since they were the only academic senator that didn't represent a college.”

The Student Government held its meetings in the River Valley Room on the second floor of the Union.

“The best meetings happened when a large number of guests would come to watch because something important was being debated and voted on,” Hauschild said. “For instance, during my time in Student

Government, we created the Student Organization Funding Agency—SOFA— to help distribute funds to student organizations that needed it. I had the opportunity to chair the committee that recommended the creation of the committee while I was a junior, and we approved the creation of the committee in the Student Senate when I was vice president. It was really rewarding to see that project come full circle.”

It wasn’t unheard of for Student Government meetings to go until the wee hours of the morning.

“There was one meeting that went until 2 a.m. because we were debating the budget. One senator, I won’t name names, was a real stickler for the details and requested that we go through the budget line-by-line,” Hauschild remembered. “By the end of it, everyone was a little hysterical and having a lot of fun. I think we all learned a whole lot about the importance of taking budgeting seriously!”

Memorial Union Wedding

The second floor of the Memorial Union included a number of meeting rooms, but one holds a particularly special place in the hearts of two UND graduates because they got married there.

“We didn’t really know where else to do it, and you could reserve the rooms [for free], so it seemed logical,” said Sashaa Murphy.

Sashaa and her husband, Colonel Jason Murphy, graduated from high school in Monticello, Minnesota, in 1991. Jason proposed to Sashaa while they were seniors in high school, and Sashaa accepted. They both came to UND as students that fall.

“We didn’t like dorm living apart,” said Jason, who now serves as a professor of Military Science for the Army ROTC at UND. “Family was a little concerned about us moving out the dorms and not being married, so we said, ‘Well, we’re going to get married eventually, so why not now?”

Knowing churches are usually booked months in advance, the 18-year-olds reserved a meeting room on the Union’s second floor for December 14, 1991—during finals week—and got a justice of the peace to perform the ceremony.

“It was the ultimate final test,” Jason said with a laugh.

The ceremony was simple. Sashaa wore a white skirt and blazer, and Jason wore a suit. “I think my mother or somebody brought flowers, so I had a small bouquet,” Sashaa recalled.

The couple’s guests included their best man, maid of honor, and a handful of family who traveled from Monticello for the ceremony the couple had planned just two weeks in advance.

“It was also the weekend there was a blizzard,” Jason recalled.

“They closed the highway right behind our maid of honor and best man,” Sashaa added. “They barely made it here.”

The Murphys held a big church wedding the following summer, but they still recall their union in the Union fondly. In fact, they recently entered the building’s front door and climbed the stairs to the second floor, turned right, and slipped inside the first room on the left.

“The room looks exactly the same,” Sashaa said. “When we did the college visit with our son, I made him look.”

Multi-Use

But the second floor wasn’t just for meetings, studying—and weddings. For a time, the lecture bowl hosted free movies and a myriad of speakers. For bigger crowds, the ballroom was used. It housed everything from student registration—before the advent of computers— to blood drives, dances, and even the annual showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” an audience-participation event that left quite a mess for Union staff to clean up each year.

The ballroom also hosted the Writers Conference, which drew large crowds and some world-renowned authors.

“That was the big thing in March,” Nelson said. “Truman Capote was here. James Earl Ray was here. There were some huge names. John Little [of the English Department] started the Writers Conference. He was a hoot. He came from Mississippi, and he still had the Southern drawl after being here 25 years. But he did a good job and brought in these writers.”

The Nursing School’s pinning, Feast of Nations, and the Madrigal Dinner were all held at the Union as well. The latter included a five-course meal and performances by the Concert Choir and Varsity Bards. It served as a fundraiser for the Choral Department, Solberg explained.

Founders Day also ranked among the biggest annual events held at the Memorial Union. Honoring faculty and staff who had retired or who had served the university at least 25 years as well as annual UND award winners, the yearly festivities drew large crowds. The spacious ballroom was transformed each year into a celebratory space by a group that came to be known as the Design on a Dime team.

“Design on a Dime evolved because we had a very minimal decorating budget for Founders Day,” explained Dawn Botsford, a retired member of the team and of the Office of Ceremonies and Special Events. “We found a group of people who had ideas, dreams, resources, and all liked to try things no one had tried before. Our mission was to develop a theme or idea for each Founders Day event that showcased the history of UND.”

Some of the those themes included U.S. presidential visits to UND; Theatre Arts; monuments and sculptures around campus; the old buildings and architecture on campus; UND’s 125th birthday; and the 50th Anniversary of the Chester Fritz Library— complete with a tree built out of books.

Through the years, the Union changed with the times. Business and organizations would come and go. The Union also underwent several physical changes. Since its original construction in 1951, more space was needed and two major additions became reality—the east addition in 1964 and the west addition in 1983. Many less major renovations and improvements occurred as well. But through it all, the Union remained the heart of campus, as it was originally intended.

“That’s a constant theme—a place to gather,” Solberg said. “That’s what it was then, that’s what it is now, and that’s what it will be in the future.” ///

A NEW UNION

Rendering of interior of future Union

WTW Architects

Replacement to be heart of campus life

A new, 158,000 square-foot, three-story Memorial Union was approved by students in a November 2018 vote. When it opens spring of 2021, it will include:

• Expanded study and meeting space, including a large ballroom with lecture space for 1,000 and banquet seating for 650. There will also be a multipurpose room with retractable seating for 300.

• Improved dining and cafe options, multiple retail spaces and entertainment areas.

• Indoor/outdoor gathering spaces.

• New affinity zones for the International Center, Multicultural Center and Pride Center as well as resource and collaboration space for student organizations.

• Improved drop-off area and accessible entrances.