Oregon Tech - Dr. Winston D. Purvine - OBIT on Legacy.com - permanently restored

I was in the mist of looking at Oregon Tech's old campus photos and ran across Dr. Winston Purvine's photo. His life was amazing since I had read his life's work about a decade ago. His bio within the obituary was ironically offline and unavailable.  He had a great picture and the link is just below, and authorship works link is further down below the Alma mater.  The PDF is very awesome. I found it like 10 years ago and read it, and now want to make sure it's shared again.

 

REF:  https://cdm17267.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/campus/id/2316/rec/59

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Oddly, I noticed his end of life as 2009, how sad, so I wanted to see his obituary and found that it was no longer available on legacy.com - how sad, bummer - that is technical speak for dead diode. On the side of the page was a suggestion; for $38, one could permanently restore and preserve, and sponsor his bio, obituary and guest book. I thought, why did someone not already do this? I guess it was a personal posting. I had hoped someone from the OIT Foundation or Alumni Foundation would have noticed and permanently protected it. Alas, I was an ASOIT Student Body President and loved the history and read it all while I attended OIT in Klamath Falls. All the collections, the references, and I was truly a library geek junkie and guru. Even our campus tours that ASOIT members gave to guests, new students, clubs and more, community members and the like. I remember giving some of the most informative tours. Plus, one of my on-campus student jobs was in the library, the Learning Resource Center (LRC), I was a reference assistant which let me get really close to all the references, including Dr. Winston Purvine and the OIT Presidents photos, letters, notes, books, as well as, in the main College Union conference room the gallery of president photos and quotes, plus the resource centers gallery's and collections and everything everywhere.

 

We cannot let Dr. Purvine pass into the dark on the Internet, especially his Obit. The Oregon Tech archives is amazing. Dean Stanaway had an interview audio clip I found and listened to. That was cool. For me, Dr. Purvine was a very amazing man for bringing Oregon Tech to life. So, come here VISA credit card and let's get this restored. That's what we do, Oregon Tech grads just do it. Don't ask for permission, just get it done, and if we need forgiveness, we will get that later. Some of my professors in CSET taught me that. Some of the OIT administrators cringed at me for that kind of style and lack thereof diplomacy, yet, hey folks, we need to get things done and move on to the next important thing that needs our attention, focus and resources. We don't need to vote on this.

 

For me, I never knew Dr. Purvine personally, he had retired before I attended, yet my brother John would have, who attended Oregon Technical Institute from 1968-1972 and graduated as a Medical Laboratory Technologist. John had great stories from his campus days at OTI and his wife Bonnie she also attended and graduated from OIT.

 

I have read all the history and background on Dr. Purvine that I could have found in the last few decades; his charge, passion, activities, his politics and his challenges and successes to bring Oregon Tech to what it was when he retired in 1976. From then, the so-called "Montana Mafia" of administrators and such took over and propelled OIT OTI VoTech OregonTech to what it is today.

 

If you have the time, read the following PDF publication. I did and was totally immersed in it. 

 

Title    OVS, OTI, OIT : Oregon Tech's first 30 years, 1946-1976.
Creator/Author    Purvine, Winston Dane
Date of original    1979
Subject    Oregon Institute of Technology
Oregon Institute of Technology (Klamath Falls, Or.)
Alternative Title    Oregon Tech's first 30 years
Description    636 pages, 35 leaves of plates : illustrations ; 29 cm 

 

For me, I graduated from Oregon Institute of Technology aka Oregon Tech aka OIT in 1991 with a BS CSET degree. That was a brutal 4 years yet I had the stones to get it done.  Some of the best professors I knew where spread between Purvine Hall, South Hall (now Bovine Hall) and Owens Hall, and in between these places there was great knowledge from Cornett Hall (Diesel, Gunsmithing, Welding, gun range, and later Robotics), Semon Hall (oddly named yet funny for student health services and prophylactics), the LRC (Library), and Snell Hall (Administration), and of course we had the dorms (legacy dorms of the 70's), and the College Union (Cafeteria, KTEC, ASOIT), and the Gym / Athletics (Swimming Pool, Basketball court), Football Field, Softball Fields, Tennis courts, etc.. and more...

 

Purvine Hall was built in the 4 years I was there, circa 87-91. I remember many a long nights in Purvine Hall in the labs doing necessary studies and projects in order to get a good grade and eventually graduate.

 

Dr. Purvine did a great service and I read the entire available history and challenges Dr. Purvine endured to get OTI aka VoTech created back in the late 40s and early 50s.

 

So, let's not let our leaders pass into the dark and the night. Light the candle and hold it over some of our greatest of Oregon leaders, administrators and men of the era.

 

I signed the permanent sponsorship as such: With all due respect, kindness and care from Purvine Hall, Oregon Tech KFalls.  I hope this small donation will benefit others who choose to look up Dr. Purvine and his legacy from now until the foreseeable future as long as legacy.com continues.

 

References:

1.  https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newsobserver/obituary.aspx?pid=122974432 - 2009 Dr. Purvine OBIT

2. if the above PDF publication for Dr. Winston's authorship errors, click here. and his picture click here

3. Agnes Box OBIT c/o of my Rick Lengel lookup as a note I noticed on the legacy.com site. For Agnes in my memories, I was as student worker in the campus computing group in South Hall (now Bovine), the team we had was Bill Lewis our director, Lynn Langhorn was my supervisor/administrator, we had Rose and Cher over on Banner and the other big applications and systems, and Rick Lengel was a superuser and system administrator, and a few other student workers like Joe who did graveyard shift like me.

4. The Owler 1983 - the last of the yearbooks for Oregon Tech.

 

 

more to come...