Lewis & Clark College: Oral History Project
Since Spring 2014 students in History 300 (Historical Materials) have been interviewing alumni, faculty and staff for the Lewis & Clark College Oral History Project. The interviews document and celebrate the rich history of the college through the collection of spoken memories. This is a joint venture of the History Department, Alumni and Parent Programs, and Watzek Library's Special Collections and Archives.
Pete, Henry (1941, 1952)
Henry Pete was born on a farm in Glendale, Oregon in 1920. Skipping two grades, he graduated High School at 16, and then attended Albany College (later Lewis & Clark) on a half tuition athletic scholarship. While at Albany College he majored in history and government and participated in a variety of sports and athletic activities, especially baseball and basketball. He also witnessed the transfer of Albany College from its campus in Albany, Oregon, to its temporary downtown Portland campus, and attended classes in both locations. Mr. Pete graduated in 1941, and soon after joined the army at the outbreak of the war. Upon his return home, he enrolled in the newly renamed, and again moved, Lewis & Clark College, and received a Masters of Education in 1951. He worked in the educational field for the rest of his life. He started first as a coach, and later was school superintendent in Philomath, Oregon. Finally, Mr. Pete was President of Rogue Community College.
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Pete, Henry (1941, 1952)
Henry Pete was born in 1920, in Glendale Oregon. He came to Albany college in 1936 at the age of 16, having skipped the first and sixth grades. The youngest of his brothers, education was stressed to him at an early age from his Finnish parents, where education is a high societal priority. When he came to Albany, it was still down in the city of Albany itself near Corvallis, and when the school began offering classes at their temporary campus in downtown Portland in 1938, he began taking classes and playing football, basketball, and baseball there. He briefly attended night classes after the College purchased the Frank Estate from the Frank family, and after he graduated in 1941, the school made the full jump to the Estate. After college he went to study Russian for the Army in New York, and then was sent to fight in North Africa and Europe in 1944. After the war he went to study in Britain under a U.S. Army initiative that offered soldiers classes, he came back to the Portland area after eight months in Britain to teach history, and went on to become a superintendent of a school district in Phoenix, Oregon. He has always shared a love of reading and sports, and the main thing that he enjoyed the most out of attending Albany College was the lessons of hard work and dedication, as well as always striving to be competitive.
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