Thomas A. Spragens (1917–2006) was an American administrator who was
the 17th president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate
of the University of Kentucky, Spragens worked for the state and federal
government early in his career before joining the staff at Stanford
University as a presidential advisor. He was the president of Stephens
College in Columbia, Missouri, for a five-year term, and left Stephens
for Centre in 1957. He was an effective fundraiser and was instrumental
in the school's integration; Centre admitted its first black student in
1962 and hired its first black faculty member in 1971. While in office,
he helped to facilitate the founding of what is now the Southern
Collegiate Athletic Conference, and he attended the 1968 Democratic
National Convention as a delegate to support Senator Eugene McCarthy. He
resigned in 1981, at which point Centre's enrollment and faculty numbers
had both nearly doubled and its endowment had grown.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Spragens>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1644:
First English Civil War: The combined forces of Scottish
Covenanters and English Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at the
Battle of Marston Moor.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marston_Moor>
1941:
A German SS unit arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began the
systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponary_massacre>
2008:
Israeli–Palestinian conflict: An Arab man rammed a loader
into traffic in Jerusalem, killing three people and injuring 40 others
(damage pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Jerusalem_bulldozer_attack>
2013:
The International Astronomical Union announced that the fourth
and fifth moons of Pluto to be discovered would be named Kerberos and
Styx, respectively.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx_%28moon%29>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
look as if one has been dragged through a hedge backwards:
(intransitive, Britain, simile, humorous, informal) To look extremely
disheveled.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/look_as_if_one_has_been_dragged_through_a_hedge_backwards>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of
yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
--Hermann Hesse
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse>