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 Dole
Dedication to transport KU back to World War II
Schedule
of events
 When
Bob Dole arrived at the University of Kansas in fall
1941 as a freshman from Russell, KU was celebrating
its 75th anniversary year. Dole wanted to prepare to
study medicine. He pledged at the Kappa Sigma fraternity,
which had several members from Russell, and worked as
a waiter in the house. And he participated in football,
basketball and track.
Deane W. Malott was chancellor, overseeing a little
more than 4,000 students. Enrollment was down by 300
as many college-age students were choosing military
service or were finding well-paid jobs in defense industries.
More than 1,000 male KU students and faculty had registered
for the draft in the Kansas Union the previous fall
to comply with the new Selective Training and Service
Act.
Then Pearl Harbor was attacked. Dole was among those
who registered for the draft the week after the Dec.
7, 1941, attack. He was called to duty in June 1943,
ending his KU career and launching an extraordinary
adventure of tragedy and triumph.
His amazing odyssey will be marked this month at KU
with the four-day gala celebration and dedication of
the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics.
While the event is timed to coincide with Dole's 80th
birthday, the celebration is designed to be as much
about the young men and women who served with Dole in
World War II as it is about Dole himself.
Dedication events include the ConocoPhillips military
air parade, a military encampment, a fashion show, a
re-created USO-style performance, an evening of dancing
to the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and an outdoor concert
by the 312th Army Band as well as the formal dedication.
A Memory Tent will bring together veterans, including
Marines who helped develop a secret code based on their
Navajo language, World War II Medal of Honor recipients
and members of the Tuskegee Airmen and Doolittle Raiders.
Also on this distinguished list will be a number of
current and retired KU faculty who range from a three-time
prisoner of war escapee and a concentration camp survivor
to an aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Television broadcaster and former CBS anchorman Bill
Kurtis, j'62, will moderate "KU Goes to War,"
a special program honoring KU faculty and staff who
served in the military during World War II, at 2 p.m.
Sunday, July 20, at the Lied Center.
Kurtis will introduce about 40 WWII veterans seated
onstage and moderate a discussion led by:
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Claudine "Scottie" Lingelbach of Lawrence,
a 1944 KU alumna who served in the WAVES and was
assigned to the Joint and Combined British Chiefs
of Staff and the Navy Logistics Department in Washington,
D.C. She is a retired teacher.
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John "Buck" Newsom of Lawrence, a 1941
U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served as a lieutenant
commander in the U.S. Navy. He served on the U.S.S.
Hopkins, which was the subject of the book Lucky
13: The History of a Gallant Ship by Carl Woodring
and Lawrence Kurtz. From 1958 to 1961, Newsom was
a professor of naval science and commanding officer
of the Navy ROTC unit on campus.
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Richard L. Schiefelbusch of Lawrence joined the
U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941 and became a navigator
on B-24 bombers in the European theater. He was
captured when his plane was shot down over the Baltic
Sea and spent two years in prisoner of war camps,
including Stalag Luft III in Poland. The camp was
the subject of the 1963 movie The Great Escape.
He is a distinguished professor emeritus and former
director of the KU Institute for Life Span Studies.
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Bill Tuttle is a KU professor of American studies
whose father served in World War II. Tuttle's childhood
experience on the home front inspired his book "Daddy's
Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives
of America's Children.
For more information about the Dole dedication and
the institute, visit the Dole Institute Web site at
www.doleinstitute.org/dedication
and a special media kit at www.dolemedia.ku.edu.
The Dole media kit contains dozens of photos of KU
in the 1940s and tons of information about life on campus
at that time:
KU and World War II
http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/Dole/ku_wwii.shtml
KU goes to war and peace
http://www.kuhistory.com/specialedition-war.htm
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