The Slowing Seventies
1970-1971

This year began with 476 cadets from the usual spread of states and foreign countries. This was the first year of a fairly steady decline in enrollment as the prospects of the ending of the draft and the institution of the lottery made an ROTC commission less of a desirable alternative. Many other colleges with ROTC programs suffered the same decline in enrollment in those programs.

The school year’s events progressed in a completely normal fashion. In one issue of The Trumpeter, from January, the editor published a biography and tribute to Major Clyde Etter who had retired the previous June after teaching biology at Wentworth for thirty-three years.

The end of this school year brought news that Col. Wikoff would retire on 31 July after fifty-six years at Wentworth. He had held the reins as superintendent for eleven years. Age began to tell on him and he believed it was time to lay down his duties.

The board of trustees appointed Col. Leon Ungles to take over as superintendent and Col. W. Lowell Stagner to assist him as associate administrator. Ungles came to Wentworth in 1935 and Stagner came in 1940.

Capt. Lawrence Yingling, professor of math and physics, retired that year as well. He had been at WMA for twelve years and had served a total of forty-seven years in the teaching profession.

These changes in leadership mark the end of an era and of a generation at the school. Major changes in society brought fewer and different students and different challenges to the campus.

That year they graduated 152 students, sixty-four from the junior college and eighty-eight from the high school. In January, William Norles, Jr., became the first African American junior college graduate, followed by Eric R. Potts, who graduated in May of 1970.

1971-1972

The academy opened in the fall with 386 students. Two hundred twenty-eight came from the United States outside of the Kansas City and Lexington areas and thirty-three came from foreign countries, Venezuela sent the largest contingent. Forty students came from the Lexington area and were considered day students, and eighty-five were from the Kansas City metropolitan area.

The drop of approximately ninety cadets can be seen to be a reflection of the phase-out of the student deferment system and institution of the draft lottery. The draft legislation that was passed in the fall of 1971 came in response to the draw-down in military manpower needs in the wake of the diminishing Vietnam War. It led to the creation of an all-volunteer armed force. College ROTC programs, such as that at Wentworth, would have to compete for students through scholarship programs and employment opportunities. This reason will account for much of the falling enrollments at WMA that characterized the 1970s and led to difficult financial decisions in the future. Other factors include the expansion of many two-year community colleges and consolidated high schools that offered many more subjects than small local schools.

Word was received in the summer that MAJ. Bill Adams,’60, had been killed in Vietnam on the 25th of May, 1971. He will later be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on this mission. See below.

Wentworth named its first director of admissions in January of 1972. This former faculty member, William Titus, had been a representative in the field during his summers and wanted to try his hand at improving the recruiting program for the school. It was quite obvious that WMA was going to have to compete with other colleges for students and with nearly forty other military schools in existence at that time. A full-time admissions department has been part of the academy staff ever since that time.

Previous to this, recruiting efforts consisted of advertising, word-of mouth, contacts with the superintendents, notably Cols. Wikoff and Sellers, and field visits by a staff of faculty members who worked in the summers in assigned territories and who kept in contact and worked with students from these territories during the school years. Many times these teacher-salespersons acted as mentors for a large number of students over many years. One of the most respected of these salespersons was Anna P. Gibbons who worked up to the end of the 1960s. They worked on a commission basis and used a well-developed sales script that had been put together by Col. Wikoff. This was not enough in the post-Vietnam era.

It was announced in February that Wentworth would have a yearbook in academic year 1972-73. Previous to 1973 the viewbook, which was used for sales and recruiting, had an annual section consisting of faculty, staff, each year’s class photo and individual photographs of seniors and college sophomores.

The change came about because yearbook publishers began to specialize in taking the campus-produced material and publishing it and the administration found out the advertising agencies could produce better sales literature specialized for recruiting. This was one of those changes dictated by new methods in the rest of educational institutions.

Two Wentworth students from Iowa and Nebraska and the father of one were killed in a light-plane crash at the start of spring break. They were William S. Arnold and Kurt Warnstaff and the plane’s pilot, Charles L. Warnstaff of Hamburg, IA. The aircraft crashed after leaving the Lexington airport on their way home for break. Such losses of students were always tragic, but to be expected occasionally when vacations scatter students.

The ninety-second commencement gave degrees and diplomas to 107 graduates, forty-nine from the junior college and forty-eight from the high school.

1972-1973

School opened with about 400 students. Roger Slusher, a native Lexingtonian was appointed to the faculty and will remain with the school into the 21st century. Lt. Col. James A. Shelby was appointed to commandant to replace Lt. col. Perry, who was stricken with the onset of a serious health problem, and could not serve for the year.

The summer saw a large-scale renovation being carried out in Hickman Hall and the Administration Building. Both were sandblasted, tuck-pointed, and weather-proofed, and a start was made toward replacement of 425 windows on campus with aluminum ones. The buildings included all the barracks as well as the Administration Building.

Wentworth started a sizeable recruiting effort in October by hosting a visit by over 200 Junior ROTC cadets from twenty-three schools in the Missouri-Kansas area. These students, plus the retired officers and NCOs who made up the JROTC faculty in those schools, saw cadet life, the Senior ROTC program, stayed in the Corps bivouac area, and saw a Sunday parade. These were the kinds of efforts that were going to have to become routine to attract sufficient students to the campus.

Col. James. M. Sellers, Jr.,’46, was appointed as assistant superintendent in January of 1973. The son of J. M. Sellers, Sr., the president of Wentworth, grandson of Sandford Sellers, and great, great, grandson of Stephen G. Wentworth, he was assigned duties relating to budget planning, admissions and enrollment. He had a masters degree in business administration from Harvard and experience in corporations and the U.S. Army.

Wentworth lost an experienced administrator and friend with the death of Col. Vodre M. Willoughby, Quartermaster. He first came to WMA in 1936 and served for the next thirty-seven years as football coach, athletic director, alumni secretary and Quartermaster until his death.

Lt. Col. Frank Brown died in February after eight years in retirement at the age of seventy-nine. He had served the academy for forty-two years before retiring in 1965.

The school appointed an experienced admissions director in February. He was Maj. Robert M. Martin, who died in 1998 at the age of seventy-three, after a total of twenty-four years at Wentworth.

One hundred-five graduates were honored at commencement that year. Forty-one came from the junior college and sixty-four from the high school.

Over the summer a few personnel changes were made. William Braun retired after working at the academy for fifty-six years, all of it in the maintenance section and as director of maintenance since 1946.

The Board of Trustees appointed James M. Sellers, Jr., as superintendent and treasurer after the retirement of Leon H. Ungles. Col. Ungles agreed to remain as assistant superintendent for a time to help with adjustments to the changes. The school was about to enter a whole new era in its history, one of struggle and retrenchment.

1973-1974

School opened with an enrollment of 370. There were a number of new faces among the faculty, including some who would stay a number of years. Jim Reilly, Steve Sellers, Betsy Sellers and Patti Martin were to remain associated with the school through the 1980s into the 1990s.

Mrs. Anna Gibbons, 84, had died during the summer. She had been retired a few years, having served the school from 1918-1967. Lt. Col. Weldon Perry returned for another two years as commandant after a bout with ill health. He would preside over a reduced corps organization as the size of the corps would no longer support a brigade organization with two battalions. The corps will remain a battalion with about six companies into the next century. College football was dropped for the future, but high school football would remain.

Maj. Robert Van Amburg, 69, died in the fall. He had taught mathematics at the school since 1955 and had been an academy summer representative in the upper Midwestern states for recruiting cadets. One hundred-seven graduated in the school’s 94th year. Fifty-one came from the junior college and fifty six came from the high school.

Wentworth has had a summer school since its inception in the 1920s. The sessions are usually between six and eight weeks long and consist, to this day, of academics in the morning and activities in the afternoon and study in the evenings. High school students can complete either one-half credit or a full credit and will receive credit on their military training toward achieving “old boy” status if they return in the fall. This has always remained a very positive and successful recruiting tool.

The summer camp activities were added in 1946. Boys from ages eight through fifteen could participate in age-grouped units in all manner of activities such as swimming lessons, canoeing, softball, golf, and horseback riding until the late 1970s when Wentworth sold the last of its horses and tore down the stable. In the afternoon, there would be scholastics for an hour and arts and crafts for another hour and activities such as rifle shooting and archery. The late afternoons were reserved for team sports and games between the teams, and finally the last activity of the day was a free swim before supper.

Evenings had some more sports or Indian-lore activities. There was a pow-wow each week and the We-wo-mil-acs tribe took in new members each year and passed on its traditions to the new boys. The Indian dances learned in summer camp were continued as an activity for many years during the regular school year as were the Boy Scout activities. These groups provided demonstrations for many years as part of “The Wentworth Show.”

The last week of summer camp was always devoted to a trip to the Ozarks when all the boys, gear, food, cooks and staff were packed up and transported to a leased campsite on the lake with access to the water. There they had fun for a week which was punctuated with woodcraft instruction.

This summer camp group also made one day-trip each week to see things in the local area. This whole experience was geared to recreational development and giving the boys experiences to remember.

Many of the summer campers came back to school at Wentworth when they were old enough. The summer school students often came back in the fall to continue the success they had achieved in the school’s structured environment. For many years, during Maj. Pirhalla’s supervision of The Trumpeter, there was a list published in the fall of who had come to school after having been in the summer camp or summer school.

The summer camp aspect was discontinued in the early 1990s as uneconomical, but the summer school continues to this day to be a valuable experience for students in remedial work and for introducing students and parents to the value of Wentworth. It also provides a much-needed infusion of cash flow at the start of the school’s fiscal year in early June.

1974-1975

Lt. Col. Cordell Thomas retired as academic dean during the summer and Dr. Terry Davis came to Wentworth in the summer of 1974 as the new dean. A new athletic director was hired, Maj. Dick King, as well as a whole new roster of coaches. The only one to return was Paul (Yogi) Butherus as head football coach.

In September, Ray Gant was hired as an assistant commandant. He remained at the school as assistant commandant and commandant until the late 1990s.

The regular February event, “The Wentworth Show,” played to nearly 10,000 people. This was the 25th consecutive year and the crowd seemed to enjoy it as much as the cadets did in staging it. It was a maximum logistics effort and virtually the entire campus faculty and staff was involved.

Wentworth began to prepare for the 1976 visit of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. This began the process of a self-study which was to be used by the visiting team as the basis of their examination of the college and high school to determine if they met commonly accepted standards of education. These investigations required a great deal of preparatory work to maintain an institution’s accreditation.

The academy established its continuing education division in 1975 with the first eight-week classes being taught by regular faculty. Soon the number enrolled swelled to 131. Among these students were many former servicemen who were seeking ways to use their Vietnam GI Bill benefits and an adult night school filled the bill. It allowed the academy to add some needed income as well as fulfill a community need. The division soon expanded college enrollment and necessitated establishment of satellite campuses in four outlying towns. At the end of the century, the junior college enrollment, on and off campus will be 347.

This year’s commencement saw 104 graduates, fifty-one from the junior college and fifty-three from the high school.

Two events happened at the end of school with the appointment of Maj. Ralph Short as Headmaster of the Junior High Division and the retirement of Thelma (Sam) Heghin as the librarian. Times and personnel were changing.

Maj. Short was a chaplain who had served in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne and had years of experience as a junior school head at an academy in Virginia. He will remain nearly twenty years before retiring in 1996.

Sam Heghin came to Lexington with her husband, Steve Heghin, who taught high school chemistry from 1943 until his retirement in the early 1970s. Sam was the school librarian from 1946 through 1975 and would help thousands of students discover how to use the library to their advantage.

1975-1976

School opened this year with two missing buildings. The “Great Fire” of August 7, 1975, destroyed them. The fire was discovered about 2:00 p.m. and smoke soon forced evacuation while firefighters battled the blaze. When the roof of D Company collapsed they were able to remove many of the records and valuable equipment from the administration building. They were lucky that the fire did not spread through that building as it threatened to do. There was substantial water damage to the administration building and much of the photographic archive was lost.

The faculty and staff had to work hard to resume operations the next day, mostly in temporary quarters in the Student Union. For some, the temporary quarters became permanent as the Military Department is still in the building now known as Groendyke Hall and the band still practices in an upper room in the field house.

The Senior ROTC Department had to start over from scratch. All 428 M-14 rifles, and .22 cal. target rifles, as well as a number of Springfield ‘03 weapons, were burned beyond repair and salvaged for scrap. All weapons were accounted for. Those parts of the photo archives that were salvaged had to be dried out, trimmed and re-cataloged. Lesson plans and cadet records had to be reconstructed.

The shell of part of the burned out building was propped up and the debris removed. Seven years later the new building was constructed, enclosed and put into partial use. It still has not been finished, but hopes and plans are still alive and fund raising is still going on.

Dean Terry Davis added a new aspect to Wentworth academic life when he inaugurated the twenty-minute tutorial period. It has been a feature of the schoolday at Wentworth for the past twenty-five years. It initially was put into a twenty-minute gap between the second and third academic periods. It was a time when students could come for a little extra help or be forced to come if faculty felt such a measure was necessary. Tutorial periods have been tried at different times of the day and are now held from 7:30 a.m. until the first class period.

Another feature of the academic day was hall. It had been the province of Maj. Fred Hepler, who supervised students assigned for low or failing grades or incomplete work and helped them during their free period. He did it for twenty-five years and Maj. Ed Kemper followed him for number of years more. Future cuts in personnel eliminated the dedicated study hall teacher and the instructional time demands of increased graduation requirements have forced the elimination of free and activity periods for secondary students. Two hours of nightly study in barracks supervised by faculty members have remained in force as the school enters the 21st Century.

Mrs. Beth Hepler retired in February after thirty years as hostess of the academy. Besides teaching etiquette to countless cadets, she supervised and arranged many social functions and handled travel plans for many students over the years. She welcomed friends, parents, and distinguished visitors alike.

Mrs. Hepler handed over her duties to Gerda Shockley (later Fitts,) who held the position and duties into the late 1980s and the current hostess is Mrs. Maryanne Florence. These women have found a fond place in the lives and memories of numerous cadets, staff and faculty members over the years.

On April 9th, 1976 the school received a double evaluation. Visiting teams from both sides of the North Central Association of Colleges and schools came to look at the operations of the institution. It was a complete evaluation that was the culmination of a year-long self study process in which all levels of the school examined all aspects of their operations and reported what was working well and what needed to be improved.

The visiting teams had read the study and came to see for themselves that the school did what it said it did and how that compared with common academic practice in the rest of North Central’s member institutions. The team members were all faculty and administrators of schools that were similar in enrollment and mission to Wentworth, or at least, as close as possible to it, given the WMA mission.

The result was that the school was given a further reaccredidation for five years with few concerns, such as the financial stress resulting from the decreased enrollments and increasing inflation that plagued the entire country in the wake of the Vietnam War.

They complimented the school on “…an intangible, but significant one, That was the great degree of teacher-student rapport and high morale which pervaded the classrooms.” These NCA evaluations have continued every five years, the latest taking place in 1997 and 1998.

At the end of school, sixty-eight graduated, thirty-two from the junior college and thirty-six from the high school.

On July 7th, the Continuing Education Division graduated thirty-seven adults who had completed their associate of arts degrees in the first class of this new endeavor. Wentworth now had a community college division whose graduates had degrees that entitled them to be called Wentworth alumni and go on to bachelor’s degree granting institutions.

That summer, the school received notification that Major William E. Adams, ’60, had been posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Vietnam. The citation quoted below says it all.

“The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has posthumously awarded in the name of the Congress the Medal of Honor to

Major William E. Adams

United States Army

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty: Major William E. Adams, Field Artillery, United States Army, A227th Assault Helicopter Company, 52nd Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade, distinguished himself on May 25th, 1971 while serving as a helicopter pilot in Kontum Province in the Republic of Vietnam. On that date, Major Adams volunteered to fly a lightly armed helicopter in attempt to evacuate three seriously wounded soldiers from a small fire base which was under attack by a large enemy force, He made the decision with full knowledge that numerous anti-aircraft weapons were positioned around the base and that the clear weather would afford the enemy gunners unobstructed view of all routes into the base. As he approached the base, the enemy gunners opened fire with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. Undaunted by the fusillade, he continued his approach determined to accomplish the mission. Displaying tremendous courage under fire he calmly directed the attacks of supporting gunships while maintaining absolute control of the helicopter he was flying. He landed the aircraft at the fire base despite ever-increasing enemy fire and calmly waited while the wounded soldiers were placed on board. As his aircraft departed from, the fire base, it was struck and seriously damaged by enemy anti-aircraft fire and began descending. Flying with exceptional skill, he immediately regained control of the crippled aircraft and attempted a controlled landing. Despite his valiant efforts, the helicopter exploded, overturned and plummeted to earth amid the hail of enemy fire. Major Adams’ conspicuous gallantry, intrepidity, and humanitarian regard for his fellow man were in keeping with the most cherished traditions of the military service and reflect utmost credit on him and the United States Army.”

1976-1977

School opened this year with a new athletic director, Major Paul Butherus. “Yogi” or “Bear,” as he was popularly known, had been a faculty member for eighteen years and had a broad background in athletics, having coached football, basketball, tennis, track and baseball in both high school and junior college. He was also a field representative and mentored students from the geographic area for which he was responsible. He served in this capacity into the mid-1980s when he was forced into retirement by a stroke. Paul Butherus has been honored by a plaque in his name in the entrance to the field house from Groendyke Hall.

Major Ray Gant took over as commandant in the fall of the year. He had been on the staff as assistant commandant for a few years previously.

The Trumpeter had a long break in its publication that year because there was no issue published from December to April due to a fire in the Lexington Advertiser-News office.

The paper came back to tell of the twenty-first Missouri drill meet which was hosted by Wentworth. Twenty schools and over 200 students participated in the event which was held in the fieldhouse.

An unusual sight became commonplace when college students were authorized to bring cars to the campus. This was a first for WMA, but typical of the changes, that were coming to all campuses as times changed. Junior college students could now more easily fulfill their obligations to U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard units.

Spring Parents Weekend was different that year as well. The Military Ball was combined with this weekend for the first time and held in the latter part of April. One of the major reasons for this was to move the ball into a season when warmer weather was more likely. The ball and weekend schedule remained at that time of year to the present day except for an experiment in the early 1990s to return the military ball to an earlier date just before spring break.

Lt. Col. John R. Edwards, ’52, joined the staff in the spring semester. He had just retired from the U.S. Army and became the Operations Officer who had supervisory responsibility for maintenance, dining hall, laundry and dry-cleaning, the aviation program, and summer session director. He remained on the staff until 1998-1999 when he retired, having served the academy in many capacities including interim superintendent. One year in the 1980s his high school basketball team would become Central River Conference champions. At retirement he will be honored as one of the academy’s longest serving and hardest-working graduates.

1977-1978

School opened that year with an enrollment of approximately 280, down from 550 five years previously. The fall activities proceeded normally through Parents Weekend/Dad’s Day and Homecoming.

Word came in early January that Col. Lester Wikoff had died at the age of eighty-four. He had come to WMA as a coach and teacher in 1915 and remained until 1970 when he retired from the superintendency.

This extraordinary man had provided leadership in the academy and community for so long that people came to depend on him as one who could get things done. He was active in all phases of life: his church, the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary International, Boy Scouts of America, and the Independent Schools Association. Col. Wikoff was known far and wide as a person whose main goal in life was to show boys how to advance in their lives into successful adulthood.

It was said that one could always know where he stood with Col. Wikoff. That direct approach enabled him to get things done and find out who he could depend upon to carry out the multitude of things that resulted from the projects he organized. Universally, people respected him and what he was doing.

About six weeks after Col. Wikoff died, the twenty-eighth and final Wentworth Show was held in Kansas City. The show had been started by Col. Wikoff in 1950 and had served the Academy well as a public relations vehicle. Times were changing and fewer people were attending the show about a military academy, but, the real reason it ended was a massive increase in the rent for the hall that would have been included in any new contract that would be signed by the academy. Thus another old tradition ended, having served its purpose well.

At graduation seventy-nine received diplomas, thirty-two in the junior college and thirty-six in the high school.

The plans for the 100th Anniversary Commemoration were well-underway that summer under the direction of Lt. Col. John Edwards. The school planned to observe Wentworth’s birthday through out the 1979-80 school year and 1978-79 would see the plans come to full development.

1978-1979

School opened that year with an enrollment of 251 cadets and proceeded normally through the usual events until January 13, 1979. During the night of January 12-13, a heavy snowfall of almost two feet fell on the campus. About 9:00 a.m., all but about ten feet of the roof on both ends of East Barracks (Junior) collapsed. Fortunately, none of the members of D and E companies, which were housed in the barracks, were injured and the interior ceilings held up.

Students were immediately moved out and doubled up and space reallocated to accommodate the displaced students. All of the companies remained intact, but space was very tight until repairs could be completed later in the spring.

The reconstruction of the roof cost about $75,000 and was not covered by insurance which covered specific hazards such as fire and wind. Marine Hall’s roof was shoveled off and plans were made to reinforce it during the summer.

Academy officials were proud of the thoroughly disciplined and organized fashion in which the cadets responded to the unusual situation which called for about 75% of the cadet corps to move to different quarters in sub-zero temperatures and through approximately four feet of accumulated snow on the campus. The students of this institution have always responded in such a manner when called upon so to do.

At the end of that first semester, a number of first-time cadets were awarded “Old Boy” status and rank based on their qualifying for membership in the Wentworth Honor Society. This was a new incentive given to new cadets to cut their RAT year in half. A number made it and caused a great deal of debate among the cadet corps.

Those cadets who had had to wait an entire school year were against it. They thought that it cheapened their accomplishment. The resulting debate illustrates the kind of change that was being made in the school, and to some degree, in society, to accommodate the changing students. As happens with all change, this one was accepted and remained part of the traditions of the school until the next change came along.

This occurred in the 1990s when Old Boy status was awarded to all cadets who had achieved a full semester of longevity and had completed all RAT requirements and had satisfactory grade and deportment averages. At that time, rank was awarded to junior college students who had met all requirements for longevity in eight weeks. Again, there was much grumbling that the old traditions were being violated. The result has been gradual acceptance of this change necessitated by students who resent a long period of arbitrary deprivation of privilege and refuse to enter the institution in the first place. Another need met by the change was that students, who were able leaders, had often been given positions above their rank. They were needed and this gave them an opportunity to serve effectively.

Change dictated by circumstances will always create debate and opposition. Such change is a necessary part of life in an increasingly fast-paced world. Making those changes as needed is the reason the institution has survived for 120 years. Sometimes these changes work out for the better, sometimes not, as we will see below.

School ended that year with sixty-eight graduates, twenty-seven from the junior college and forty-one from the high school.

During the summer, Col. Sellers, Jr., testified before the House Armed Services Committee in favor of Ike Skelton’s bill to allocate two-year ROTC scholarships to the six military junior colleges. The purpose of this bill was to encourage newly commissioned junior officers to spend their careers in the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard to repay the government scholarship. It would help to alleviate a critical shortage of young officers in the reserve components which had developed after the end of the Vietnam War. The bill eventually passed Congress and marked the genesis of today’s Early Commissioning Program.

1979-1980

The centennial began with 258 cadets enrolling. The birthday events started with the Lexington Old Homes Tour, of which Wentworth was the centerpiece. At one point in the 15-16 September weekend, Col. Sellers, Sr., cut a large cake to mark the founding and the other commemorative events followed throughout the year.

Gen. William M. Hoge,’10, died in November, 1979. General Hoge remains the only Wentworth graduate to wear four stars. He had completed his Army career in 1955 and had retired to Lexington for a period of time. He then became president of Interlake Steel Co. in Cleveland, Ohio, and retired again after his wife died in 1959. He lived, until his death,on a farm near Leavenworth, Kansas, near his son, Col. George Hoge.

Commencement of the centennial year had a distinguished speaker. Vice-President Walter F. Mondale came in honor of the 100th year and sixty-five students graduated, twenty-one from the junior college and forty-four from the high school.

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