Laura McMullen Cross

is honored with a Entrance Paver from Virginia and George Ablah, James and Velma Albright, Noah and Patricia Allen, Mickey and Pete Armstrong, Marjorie Arnold, Mary Ellen and R.S. Avery, Ruth and Howard Babcock, Shirley and Allan E. Baker, Cecelia and Wayne Barrington, Brad and Lisa Beets, Richard Quentin and Boon-Nam Blackwell, Mary J. Blood, Betty Bond, Nellie and John Boyle, Mary and Harold Brammer, Marjorie Brugger, Betty and Edward Burns, Dorothy T. Buser, Lucille Campion, Beverly and Norman Cash, William and Patricia Chamberlain, Margie and Stephen Coberley, Clyde Crosswhite, Bertha and Ernest Crow, Betty and Howard Cutforth, Margie and Lahcen Dersi, Thomas DiZerega, Peggy J. Doran, Walter and Patricia Duerksen, Donice Evans, Joseph Fox, Margaret Glades, Myron J. Grahm, Ina M. Grimes, Mary and Harry Hadler, Mardi and Martin Hammond, Terence Hanna, Margaret Hayes, Neal Hoelting, Myrabel and Robert Hollowell, Gail Homich, Patricia and Paul Houser, Thelma Huffmon, Joyce and Myron Hultgren, Kaki Jackson, Herb James, Judith C. Johnson, Anita and Larry Jones, Beth and Don King, Mary Eleanor and Tom Kinkaid, Mary Jean Kinsey, Kirpatrick Sprecker and Co., LLP, Lee Ann and Harold Kochenderfer, Jean Koelker, Dorothy Langenwalter, Annette Lemert, Stephanie and Kevin Lindgren, Sara and Edwin Lomax, Fred L. Marrs, Norman and Shirley Martin, Doris A. Mayhew, Marian and Bill McCarty, Dorothy McConnell, David and Barbara McFarland, Betty McInstosh, Barbara McKinney and Wilmer Goering, Jean McLean, Buddie Lou Miles, Edwin Miller, Jr., Paula and K.R. Miller, Constance and Edward Moore, John "Jack" Morgan, Kay and John Morse, Jeanette Munger, Deane Myer, Bernie E. Nichols, Wanda and Vince Norman, Nancy T. Nyberg, Margaret Ochs, John and Barbara Osborne, Steven L. Overstreet, Nadine and William Park, Joan and Gregory Pease, Val and Larry Peck, Bob and Rulon Perry, Dick Price, Martin Rabalais, Ginny L. Reid, Duane Ross, Shirley and Charles Sailor, Mary and Robert Schmidt, Lela Mae Schooler, Amelia W. Scott, Delores and Linwood Sexton, Russel and Ann Shaffer, Don Shawver, Cathleen "Kay" and Melvin Snyder, Alice and James Sours, Toodie and Warren Southard, Barbara and John Stites, Betty and John Stivers, Scott and Jean Stucky, Betty and Lyle Sturdy, Cathy Waters Sullivan, Coralyn and Ronald Summers, Tae Takahashi, Charlie Talbott, Dorothy and George Taylor, Ernest E. Tippin, Dorothy Totten, Barbara Uehling, Beverly Vink, Linda Watson, Elaine and Myron Webster, Connie Kachel White, Pat and Bill Wilhelm, Wallace Wilkins, Marge and Vernon Williams, Maxine V. Williams, David Willis, Judy and Bill Wynne, and Wichita State University Alumni Association.

The Grande Dame of Fairmount Hill:

Laura McMullen Cross (1903-98) threw the force of her irrepressible personality behind the mission of higher education with more than 70 years of service to Wichita State University. During her long tenure, she personally knew nine of the school's 11 presidents, and she recruited thousands of students. She is WSU's matriarch, the individual who, more than any other, lived the history and was the spirit of Wichita State. Her dedication to lifelong learning stands as her legacy to the university she loved.

Laura McMullen's love affair with her alma mater began on an early fall day in 1921, when, as a college freshman setting out to study the grand complexities of the English language and its literature, she clambered aboard the streetcar that ran from the center of Wichita out to the campus on Fairmount Hill. To 18-year-old Laura's eye, the landscape that stretched away from the streetcar stop near the top of the hill was semirural, crisscrossed with dirt roads and dotted with farm houses and fields. The Arkansas River shimmered in the distance, and the broad sweep of prairie horizon was interrupted by only a handful of campus buildings, all dominated by stately Fairmount Hall with its great tower.

Like the campus, the student body was close-knit, and Laura found herself busy with more than classroom and textbook education. Fairmount College being a Congregational school, chapel was an all student activity, even more than athletics, since chapel attendance was compulsory. As a formal gathering of the entire school, it served not only as a center for religious devotion but also as the communication hub for the dissemination of campus news and, from time to time, as the place for collegiate pranks.

Laura, being mindful to refer to the pranksters in only the most general of terms, once recalled that "they" nabbed the tower bell from across-town rival Friends University and brought it, triumphantly, to one of Fairmount's chapel convocations.

Life for Fairmount freshmen was fraught with minor humiliations, most notable the wearing of green caps or "beanies," as Laura called them, and, for girls, green hair ribbons. The big event for them, then, was burning their beanies in the football field after Thanksgiving.

In 1921, Fairmount sported three fraternities and three sororities. Laura pledged Alpha Tau Sigma. She also wrote for The Sunflower, became a founding member of another sorority, Pi Kappa Psi, and worked for Frank A. Neff, who served simultaneously as vice president, registrar, director of teacher placement and economics department head.

After her graduation in 1925, Laura taught for a year in Adams, KS, but returned to the university in 1926, the year Fairmount became the University of Wichita. As recorder, she picked up where she had left off as Neff's Girl Friday, documenting grades and honing her genius for matching names with faces and academic performances. She seemed to know everyone on campus, and everyone knew her.

Three years later, she witnessed another milestone in university history, the 1929 fire that reduced Fairmount Hall to rubble. Told of the blase in the middle of a warm, September night, she ran the block and a half from her home to campus. "I stood and cried and cried and cried," Laura once said. "I cried because Fairmount was that building."

Laura, who had wed Earl Cross but was later divorced, became assistant registrar in 1940. She carried out her duties with her trademark thoroughness and sense of purpose as the university rode out World War II. Through the relative peace and prosperity of the 1950s, she watched WU continue to grow. And she was there in the early 1960s to see the fifth university president of her acquaintance, Harry Corbin, spearhead the school's fight to enter the state system and become Wichita State.

In 1965, Laura was promoted to associate director of admissions. Logging some 6,000 miles annually, she traveled the state as Kansas' first female college representative. She also was the first woman to serve two terms on the executive committee of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Laura served as associate director of admissions until being catapulted into the acting dean's position by the death of Carl Fahrback, then dean of admissions, who had accompanied the WSU football team on its fatal plane trip in 1970. She retired in 1973 as dean emeritus of admissions and records.

After "retiring," she tallied another quarter-century of service to WSU, working in admissions until 1975, then with the Endowment Association and, beginning in 1983, with the Alumni Association, updating alumni records, writing "Look Back" columns for Alumni News and serving as greeter and speaker for scores of events. It was Laura's wont to remind her audience that "when you've been on a campus since 1921, you don't need tenure. You have discovered blackmail, which is much better!"

She amassed professional awards and honors, two of which are having WSU's Admissions Center and the Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Award named for her.

James Rhatigan, WSU senior vice president and former vice president for student affairs and dean of students, recalled attending a recruiting event at which Laura spoke. "Laura said to the group of young people," Dr. Rhatigan said, "that the most important thing they had to achieve in college - if they had not already done so - was, as she put it, to learn to have fun with your mind." She told them that this would dictate the kind of life they would lead, more so as they got older.

Laura died March 1, 1998. She led her life with intellectual vigor, idealistic realism, professional dedication and her own brand of wit and humor.

Submitted by: Virginia and George Ablah, James and Velma Albright, Noah and Patricia Allen, Mickey and Pete Armstrong, Marjorie Arnold, Mary Ellen and R.S. Avery, Ruth and Howard Babcock, Shirley and Allan E. Baker, Cecelia and Wayne Barrington, Brad and Lisa Beets, Richard Quentin and Boon-Nam Blackwell, Mary J. Blood, Betty Bond, Nellie and John Boyle, Mary and Harold Brammer, Marjorie Brugger, Betty and Edward Burns, Dorothy T. Buser, Lucille Campion, Beverly and Norman Cash, William and Patricia Chamberlain, Margie and Stephen Coberley, Clyde Crosswhite, Bertha and Ernest Crow, Betty and Howard Cutforth, Margie and Lahcen Dersi, Thomas DiZerega, Peggy J. Doran, Walter and Patricia Duerksen, Joseph Fox, Margaret Glades, Myron J. Grahm, Ina M. Grimes, Mary and Harry Hadler, Mardi and Martin Hammond, Terence Hanna, Margaret Hayes, Neal Hoelting, Myrabel and Robert Hollowell, Gail Homich, Patricia and Paul Houser, Thelma Huffmon, Joyce and Myron Hultgren, Kaki Jackson, Herb James, Judith C. Johnson, Anita and Larry Jones, Beth and Don King, Mary Eleanor and Tom Kinkaid, Mary Jean Kinsey, Kirpatrick Sprecker and Co. LLP, Lee Ann and Harold Kochenderfer, Jean Koelker, Dorothy Langenwalter, Annette Lemert, Stephanie and Kevin Lindgren, Sara and Edwin Lomax, Fred L. Marrs, Norman and Shirley Martin, Doris A. Mayhew, Marian and Bill McCarty, Dorothy McConnell, David and Barbara McFarland, Betty McInstosh, Barbara McKinney and Wilmer Goering, Jean McLean, Buddie Lou Miles, Edwin Miller Jr., Paula and K.R. Miller, Constance and Edward Moore, John "Jack" Morgan, Kay and John Morse, Jeanette Munger, Deane Myer, Bernie E. Nichols, Wanda and Vince Norman, Nancy T. Nyberg, Margaret Ochs, John and Barbara Osborne, Steven L. Overstreet, Nadine and William Park, Joan and Gregory Pease, Val and Larry Peck, Bob and Rulon Perry, Dick Price, Martin Rabalais, Ginny L. Reid, Duane Ross, Shirley and Charles Sailor, Mary and Robert Schmidt, Lela Mae Schooler, Amelia W. Scott, Delores and Linwood Sexton, Russel and Ann Shaffer, Don Shawver, Cathleen "Kay" and Melvin Snyder, Alice and James Sours, Toodie and Warren Southard, Barbara and John Stites, Betty and John Stivers, Scott and Jean Stucky, Betty and Lyle Sturdy, Cathy Waters Sullivan, Coralyn and Ronald Summers, Tae Takahashi, Charlie Talbott, Dorothy and George Taylor, Ernest E. Tippin, Dorothy Totten, Barbara Uehling, Beverly Vink, Linda Watson, Elaine and Myron Webster, Connie Kachel White, Pat and Bill Wilhelm, Wallace Wilkins, Marge and Vernon Williams, Maxine V. Williams, David Willis, Judy and Bill Wynne, and the Wichita State University Alumni Association. September 17, 1998