So you know more about the situation than people who were actually involved at the time? That's interesting. As I said, I've been told by folks much closer to the process then either you or I were at the time that Sowle did not play his hand very well. Yes, the legislation passed -- way after Sowle had left office, but the seed had been sown when Sowle was president. Once it passed in 1985, it certainly became history. But, that doesn't mean it was inevitable. So how am I "revising history"? I'm not claiming it didn't pass. I'm just repeating what I was told by a high-level OU administrator who put the blame on "losing the branch" on Sowle for being very weak. Maybe he was wrong in his assessment.

As you know, the move to create what became Shawnee State, actually preceded Vern being speaker. He was first elected speaker in 1975, but the Board of Regents voted to support a state general and technical college, created from the merger of Ohio University-Portsmouth and Scioto Technical College in 1974. A decade later Riffe sponsored a bill to make this merged college into Shawnee State University. So actually, when Sowle was giving up the ship, he wasn't really up against Vern Riffe, at least in his legislative leadership capacity, and he was not yet the most powerful man in Ohio. At that point Sowle was mainly combating the Board of Regents, perhaps with Vern's blessing and encouragement.

You can't present "facts" to discredit that I've said. You can present facts about how the legislation was proposed and how it passed, but what I'm talking about proceeded the actual drafting of the legislation by almost a decade. If the high-level administrator who gave me this information wasn't dead, I'd ask him to put it in writing for you.

Consider another legislative action impacting Ohio University at about the same time: The Ohio Board of Regents, the American Medical Society, and other powerful groups opposed Am. H.B. 229 in the Ohio General Assembly in 1975. However, despite this powerful opposition it became law, in part, by the much more skillful legislative efforts by incoming President Ping. In the House, Vern Riffe was a key player in getting this bill passed, BTW. Its passage in the house was overwhelming. It was in the Senate where it nearly bogged down due to tremendous pressure from the outside groups previously mentioned. Once passed, these groups put lots of pressure on Gov. Rhodes to veto the bill, but he signed it anyway. Thus was born what is now the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Things are always 100 percent certain when looking back after the fact.

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For the record, here are the relevant OU president's terms:

Name

Claude Sowle . . . . . 1969-1974
Harry Crewson . . . .1974-1975
Charles Ping . . . . . . 1975-1994

You claim that I made this up in that case. Now you are making things up. It was a problem of putting some things I was told in the wrong time frame. I remembered correctly what I was told about Alden and his feelings toward Marshall and the MAC, but I had the timeframe all screwed up. I apologized for that. I told you that I had been wrong. I'm not sure why you delight in bring it up over and over again. I will admit when I'm wrong. There are some folks on here that never, ever do that. Have you never remembered something and placed it in the wrong timeframe? I do think it happens most human beings now and then. Heck, in my reading of Civil War history, it's very interesting to see the difference between the way someone will describe their role in a battle right afterwards, and in their reminiscence years later. Often this is just lapses in memory. Sometimes it's done intentionally to make themselves look better, or to advance a narrative, like the Lost Cause mythology.

This present case involving the Portsmouth Branch is an entirely different matter. I've actually checked the timeframe, and it actually fits my memory of it.

I forgot about the PT department on the outside of the lower level.