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Patricia J. O’Brien was born on April 1, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois to John P. O’Brien and Edna M. Massow. She attended Nicholas Senn High School, graduating in 1953, and then worked at the Illinois Bell Telephone Company as a plant engineering clerk from 1953 to 1960. Concurrently, Pat attended Wright Junior College and graduated in 1960 with an associate’s degree in art. She then attended the University of Illinois, graduating with a bachelor’s of art in anthropology in 1962 and a Ph.D. in the same subject in 1969. Her dissertation was, “A Formal Analysis of Cahokia Ceramics: Powell Tract”. O’Brien was an interim anthropology instructor at Florida Atlantic University in 1966-1967, and became an assistant professor of archeology and sociology at Kansas State University (KSU) in September 1967.
O’Brien worked at KSU for 31 years, retiring as a professor emerita in 1998. She has published seven books and over forty articles, and has presented regularly while at KSU. She has been involved professionally, including in the American Anthropological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi. In 1989-1990, O’Brien was an Honor Lecturer at the Mid-American State Universities Association, and the following year she received the Conoco Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award and Sigma Xi deemed her a Distinguished Research Lecturer. She was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in 1994-1995 at Würzburg, Germany, and was a guest professor in 1996 at Munich, Germany. In 2009, the Plains Anthropological Society recognized her lifetime achievement of Plains-related research, teaching, scholarship, and service by awarding O'Brien with the Distinguished Service Award.
The North American Alfalfa Improvement Conference is now headed by the Natioanl Alfalfa & Forage Alliance. Formed in 2006, the alliance is dedicated to education, research, promotion and advocacy.
Alice C. Nichols was a K-State graduate, journalist, and writer. Nichols graduated from K-State in 1927 after which she moved to New York and worked for Farm and Fireside. In 1934, she became the assistant editor of Country Home, later becoming Country Home’s farm programs editor in 1937. In 1940, Nichols became the editor of Men’s Wear, working there until 1953. Nichols’ most famous work, Bleeding Kansas, was released in 1954. Nichols died in 1969.
1969 The National Consumer Law Center is founded at the Boston College School of Law 1969-Present Advocated for fairness in the Uniform Consumer Credit code 1969-Present Advocated on behalf of the Truth-in-Lending Act and subsequent revisions as applied to the poor and middle-income families in several states
1972 Participated in the trial of Fuentes v Shevin, asserting unconstitutionality of the Uniform Commercial Code 1972 Participated in the trial of Swarb v Lennox, arguing that Philadelphia business actions violated the right to "due process"1974 Shaped the implementation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
1974 Lobbied for the creation of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program
1976 Lobbied the Federal Trade Commission to retract a statement on Enforcement Policy, which opened consumers to lender exploitation
1978 Aided in the passage of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 1980s Advised on the application of the Unfair and Deceptive Practices Acts (UDPA), including the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (1978, 1986) 1984 March Robert Erwin Offered testimony before the United States Congress Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee on Bill S.2181
1987 Actively opposed the "Depository Institution Deregulation and Monetary Control Act"
1989 Queried the Federal Home Loan Bank Board on regulations concerning time shares
1990 Lobbied for the creation of the Low Income Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP)
1990 NCLC presented the Vern Countryman Consumer Law Award to Henry J. Sommers for "leadership in promoting the field of consumer law." The annual award was given to a legal service or public interest attorney who provided a special contribution to the practice of consumer law on behalf of the rights of low-income Americans.
1994 Advised the Federal Trade Commission on the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act 1996-Present Participated in the enforcement of Federal Reserve System Regulation Z of the Truth-in-Lending Act
1996 Shaped the implementation of an electronic payment of funds system by employers
1996 Argued on behalf of Dorothy McFarland in McFarland v. Southern Division Credit Union, regarding alleged improper loan/debt disclosure.
1997 Offered testimony before the United States Congress on behalf of the Regulatory Relief and Economic Efficiency Act
1999 Began Sustainable Homeownership Group Projects to combat high rate lending abuses
2000 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference, Broomfield, CO
2000 Organized an ongoing initiative focusing on the providing of affordable low-income access to private energy and public utilities services
2001 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference, Baltimore, MD
2002 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference, Atlanta, Georgia
2003 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference Oakland, CA
2004 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference Boston, MA
2005 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference Minneapolis, MN
2006 Organized the Consumer rights and Litigation Conference Miami
2007 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference, Washington, D.C
2008 After raising $5.5 million over a three year Building for Marketplace Justice Campaign NCLC moves into an 1870s apartment building on the corner of Summer Street and Otis Street in Boston's financial district
2009 Organized the Consumer Rights Litigation Conference and Consumer Class Action Symposium 2009 Organized the Fair Debt Collection Training Conference in San Diego, CA
Lynn Murphy was the proprietor of three retail shops in Kansas: Youth Fashion in Herington (1965-1972), Lynn’s Youth Fashion in Salina (1969-1986), and Lynn’s Downstairs at Van’s in McPherson (1972-1975).
George Merrick Munger Sr. was born on January 17, 1839 in Bergen, Genesee County, New York, the son of Lyman and Martha Munger. In 1865, George Munger started a laundry business with two of his brothers in Chicago. On May 2, 1865, George married Susan Bingham Owens, daughter of John and Martha Owens. They had seven children (four of whom died in infancy). Alice Owens, Agnes Stoddard, Anna Pearce, Gaius M., Martha Louise, George Merrick, Jr., and Belinda Torrence; the latter three lived. George served as a Regent of Kansas State Agricultural College from 1897-1901. In 1887, George and his family moved to Greenwood County, Kansas seven miles north of Eureka. George named the property Catalpa Knob, an area of 2000 acres where he raised fruit trees as well as Catalpas. On August 9, 1908, George and Susan moved to Los Angeles where George died on October 29, 1919. Susan died six years later on May 23.
Martha Louise Munger, their oldest child, was born February 24, 1866 in Chicago, Illinois. She was the first white woman to cross the Chilkoot Pass, near Skagway, Alaska, and have a child in the Yukon Territory. Later she became the second woman in the Canadian Parliament and was a member of the House of Commons. She wrote My Seventy Years, published in 1938. Another book, My Ninety Years, detailing the latter years of her life and career, was published in 1976. She married her first husband, Will Amon Purdy, in August or September of 1887, and together they had three children, Lyman, Donald, and Warren. On August, 1904, Martha married her second husband, George Black. He was a lawyer, who served as a captain during WWI, before being elected speaker to the Yukon Council three times and appointed seventh Commissioner of Yukon. Martha died October 31, 1957 in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. At the funeral, her casket had both the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack flags laid across the top. George remarried after Martha's death and died on August 23, 1965 in Shaughnessy Hospital, Vancouver, Canada.
George Merrick Munger, Jr., the middle of the three children, was born June 8, 1872 in Chicago, Illinois. He helped run his father's laundry business in St. Louis, Missouri. During the Gold Rush of 1897, he, along with his sister Martha, crossed the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon Territory where they both lived fairly comfortably. George died February 1, [1938?] in State Tuberculosis Hospital, Salem Oregon.
Belinda (Belle) Torrence Munger, the youngest, was born April 3, 1883, in Chicago, Illinois. While in college she attempted a degree in engineering but found that women were not allowed in this field. On October 7, 1903, Belle married her first husband, Edward Palmer Riggle, son of John and Mary Riggle. Together they had two children, George Merrick Munger Riggle and Ed Palmer Riggle, Jr. When Belle's father and mother moved to California, she and Ed took over Catalpa Knob, Greenwood County, Kansas. Belle married her second husband, Irvin Hays Rice, after Ed's death on June 10, 1915. Mr. And Mrs. Rice were divorced on January 9, 1929. Belle died October 22, 1966 in Glendale, California.
Additional information about the Munger family is included in the three appendices at the end of this register: 1) biographical sketch of Martha Louise Munger Black, 2) Munger family chronology, 3) Munger generational line.
William (Bill) L. Muir III was born in Norton, KS in 1948. He attended Kansas State University from 1966-1970 and in 1977 when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. While attending KSU he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and later he was the chapter advisor for more than 35 years.
Prior to his work at KSU, Muir worked for the State of Kansas as a Deputy Reading Clerk and Assistant Doorkeeper of the Kansas House of Representatives (1971), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Matters (1971-1972), Financial Administrator and Special Assistant to the Attorney General of Kansas (1972-1979), and Assistant to the Governor of Kansas (1979-1987). While working as the Assistant to the Governor he served in appointed positions such as Comptroller of the Governor of Kansas, Statewide Emergency Coordinator of Kansas, Secretary of the Cabinet of the State of Kansas, and Assistant Secretary of Administration of the State of Kansas.
In 1987 Bill Muir took the position of Director of Economic Development with the Kansas State University Foundation. In 1990 he became the Assistant to the Vice President for Institutional Advancement. In 1991 he became the Assistant to the Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Director of Community Relations. He was promoted in 2002 to the Assistant Vice President for Community Relations at Kansas State University. While serving at Kansas State University he was a member of the Union Governing Board, Campus Planning and Development Committee, Parking Council, and as the administrative representative to the student senate for 18 years.
Bill Muir retired in 2011.
Richard Morse was born in Grinell, Iowa, on December 27, 1916. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin (1938), conducted graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Iowa State and Columbia University and received a Ph.D. from Iowa State University (1942). Following distinguished service with the U.S. Navy in World War II, Morse held teaching positions at Iowa State (1945-47), Florida State University (1947-55), and Kansas State University (1955-87), where he served as professor and head of the Department of Family Economics.
With a background in family and home economics, Morse served as a lifelong advocate for families and consumers and, eventually, became nationally and internationally known as a giant in the field of protecting consumer rights. Many of Morse’s most notable accomplishments involved his tireless efforts to have legislation passed on the federal and state levels to benefit citizens in the areas of truth-in-savings and truth-in-lending, including serving as a consumer and banking counselor for the United States Congress and Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. A "crusader" for the consumer, Morse held numerous important positions on the local, regional, and national levels including, President of Consumer Education and Protection Association for Kansans, twenty years of service on the Board of Directors of Consumers Union, appointee to Presidents John Kennedy’s and Lyndon Johnson’s U.S. Consumer Advisory Council, a founding member of the Kansas Citizens Council on Aging, member of the Governor's Advisory Council on Aging, and Commissioner of the Manhattan Urban Renewal Agency. In 1987, Richard Morse donated his personal papers to the Special Collections Department of K-State's Libraries and collaborated with the staff to establish the [url=https://www.lib.k-state.edu/cma]Consumer Movement Archives[/url] as a repository for the collections of consumer leaders and organizations.
Following Richard Morse's retirement from K-State in 1987, he and wife, Marjorie, dedicated their time and energy to improving the K-State Libraries through their service as co-chairs of the Essential Edge fund-raising campaign (1988-1993), leaders in the Friends of the K-State Libraries organization, and by enhancing the collections and programs of the Special Collections Department. In recognition of their financial support of Special Collections and involvement with the Consumer Movement Archives, the Richard L.D and Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections was named in their honor in 1997. During K-State's commencement activities in 2000, the College of Human Ecology bestowed its initial Public Policy Award upon Richard Morse, and a [url=https://www.lib.k-state.edu/morse-scholarship]Marjorie J. and Richard L. D. Morse Family and Community Public Policy Scholarhip[/url] was established jointly by the Libraries, College of Human Ecology, College of Business Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, and Leadership Studies. <extref href='http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/20453'>Reports</extref> written by scholarship recipients may be viewed on the Kansas State Research Exchange (K-REx).
Richard Morse passed away on June 3, 2000. Marjorie Morse followed a few years later, dying on March 4, 2003.
John W. Minor, a Kansas State University alumnus, worked in both local and regional cooperatives, taught Vocational Agriculture, and provided educational programs for regional cooperatives as an employee of FAR-MAR-CO and Farmland Industries. He grew up on a farm a mile west of Bloom, Kansas in Ford County, and his grandfather was a board member of the Bloom Cooperative Exchange (which later merged with the Mineola Cooperative Exchange). He taught Vocational Agriculture in Abilene and Scott City, Kansas, the latter for four years. At Scott City, he so impressed Roderic Simpson, a FAR-MAR-CO fieldman, that he was recruited at the end of his tenure by FAR-MAR-CO. FAR-MAR-CO arranged a subsidized internship at the Scott City Cooperative, during which he moved across departments for training. At the end of ten months, he became the coordinator for the new Careers in Cooperatives education program for FAR-MAR-CO in Hutchinson, Kansas. Following the 1977 FAR-MAR-CO merger with Farmland Industries, he moved to Kansas City and the Farmland Educational department. In 1983, he returned to general management at a local cooperative, the Producers Cooperative of Girard, Kansas, for a span of four and a half years, after which he returned to Farmland. In 1998 he joined new special projects group called One System Group for Farmland Industries, in order to re-design all of their business enterprises and departments and create a new business model built into a Y2K initiative compliant software package. In 2001, One System Group became an equal partnership between Farmland Industries and Ernst & Young, an accounting firm. Later in the new millennium, One System Group became an independent company when Farmland’s share was bought out, and subsequently changed hands several times before John W. Minor’s retirement in 2005.
Harold Craig Miner was born October 12, 1944, in Wichita. He attended Minneha school and Southeast High School. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wichita State University. He received his doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1970. He married Susan in August 1967. They had two sons.
Dr. Miner became known as Kansas' premier historian. He was the Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History and past chairman of the department of history at Wichita State University where he served for 40 years. He was also the author of 40 books on local, regional, and national topics.
Miner served on the Kansas Historical Foundation Board of Directors and as [url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-historical-foundation-presidents/17673]president[/url] from 1993 to 1994. He conducted countless hours of research at the Historical Society archives while compiling his numerous books on Kansas history. He was serving on the advisory board of <emph render='italic'>Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains</emph> at the time of his death.
His avocational passions included observing the night sky, bicycling, classical music, book collecting, and classic cars.
He died September 12, 2010, in Wichita.