Alumnus remembers walk with Hannah, revisits MSU

By Annah Backstrom

Fifty years ago, a stroke of luck gave Bill Storey an encounter with one of MSU's most prestigious leaders: John Hannah, who served as MSU president from 1941 to 1969.

This year, Store will again be in attendance on a monumental day: the Founders' Day Clebration that will mark the sesquicentennial year of the university and the installation of MSU's new president, Lou Anna Kimsey Simon.

Storey, a 1949 graduate of MSU, was living in the village of Chelsea in 1955 when his good friend, who happened to be village president, was invited to represent the village at MSU's centennial celebration. Storey said his friend was a University of Michigan graduate, so he asked Storey if he would like to represent the village at his alma mater. Storey obliged, details were taken care of by “official people” and Storey set off to represent his village.

Walking through campus on the day of the ceremony, Storey and another delegate happened to run into Hannah, who was also on his way to the ceremony.

“He (Hannah) liked to walk around campus,” Storey said. “He liked to talk to students. He would talk to anybody.”

Storey said the chat was brief and casual, talking about the beautiful day on campus, before all three men took their respective positions at the ceremony. Storey and the other delegates were all given brass paperweight type coins, Storey said, engraved with the centennial years, as well as Beaumont Tower and Old College Hall.

On the back it read “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” a quote from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Storey was a World War II veteran who came home from the war and enrolled at what was then Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences. He remembers when all of campus was north of the Red Cedar River and the only way to cross the river was on the railroad tracks that brought coal to the power plant.

Since his graduation with a degree in business, Storey has seen his three children, a son-in-law, a nephew and grandson all graduate from MSU. He worked for Bell Telephone for 38 years and is now retired, still living in Chelsea. He returns to campus quite often for various celebrations and was invited by the Board of Trustees to take part in the Founders' Day Celebration.

His chat 50 years ago with Hannah may have been brief, but it brings back great memories for Storey.

“Without a doubt, he is the best thing that ever happened to MSU,” Storey said. “His vision laid a course so the new presidents wouldn't have to start from scratch.”

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