Athens University

From Spearfish Lake Tales Wiki

Athens University is a large university and common destination for many characters in Spearfish Lake Tales. It is only about 300 miles south of Spearfish Lake^DW51 but part of the Great Lakes are in the way and Randy Clark is known to prefer to drive around the south side of Lake Michigan, through Chicago. We also know it is only 50 miles to and in the same state as Franklin.^DW52 "Athens was an older university campus for the Midwest, and the liberal arts colleges occupied some of the older, greener and more picturesque parts of the campus, while the science and trade colleges were in newer buildings on the outskirts." At least one dorm building was over 100 years old. As a bigger university, its sometimes offers its name through extension programs, such as its MBA program offered via Weatherford College.

It appears at sometime in the past the school was named Western State and that name sometimes occurs in the stories. The name change seems to occur around 1990 as Danny Evachevski^RM01 clearly attended Western State in the town of Athens, but even before Danny graduates, it is consistently classed Athens University.^RM17 It can be noted that many colleges changed their name when they adopted the more prestigous University label. Such older colleges had unwieldy names like Western State Normal School^[1] or Western State School of Science and Technology and Athens University would be a polished label.

• Rod Matson earned a degree in Business Administration and minor in Archeaology from Athens in 1969.

• Although he transferred in as a sophomore in 1968, Ryan Clark attended Athens on the GI Bill after serving his tour Vietnam. Ryan did not have a happy time as a vet at college during those years. He squeeze in extra classes and managed to graduate in 1970.

• Lori Mattson and Alison Blevens went to Western State in 1984. Lori dropped out to marry Bob Watson. It is unknown if Alison completed her degree there before her string of serial marriages.

• Ken Sorensen and Judy Niven transferred into Athens in 1984 after a year at Hinckley Junior College. Judy roomed with Jennifer Savage for one semester before they got married and found an apartment together in Athens. They dropped out after the spring of 1985.

• In the spring of 1987, John Pacobel takes the dead suspected Gibson's Water Snake Athens to be identified. Pam Appleton was working on her Masters in Herpetology there with Professor Frank Gerjevic.

• Danny Evachevski attended Athens in 1990. Since he had hurt his knee, Danny wasn't able to continue playing football and instead went for the baseball team. His girlfriend from Camden, Marsha Ashtenfelter and her sister Amy also attended. The girls' parents were graduates, so it was a given that the girls would attend here.^SQ02

• Carole Carter earned both her degrees from Athens, a BA in Psychology in 1990 and her Masters in 1992.

• Myleigh Harris attended Athens for her PhD in English Literature from the fall of 1997 until graduating in May 1999, except for the summer months when she was at Oxford in England. Her roommate was Olivia Reimers, a radical lesbian.