150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

E.L. Quaife

E.L. Quaife was named Iowa State College’s first swine extension specialist in 1917, a position he held until 1958. Quaife is believed to be the first swine extension specialist in the United States and is credited with developing the first farrowing stalls. Early journal articles written by Quaife demonstrate his extension efforts. In 1922, he wrote an article titled “Boys’ and Girls’ Pig Club Work” for the American Society of Animal Production in which he outlined three different types of clubs — the market pig club, the pure bred gilt club, and the sow and litter club. He wrote: “The great objective in pig club work should be to interest boys and even girls in better live stock, and furthermore, to build up the quality of hogs in a community. In my own state at least, there are many instances where pure bred herds have been established on farms where grades were kept before.” In 1931, Quaife had an article titled “How We Improve the Iowa Hog Crop” published in the same journal. He wrote: “Probably no piece of work has attracted more interest among our swine producers than has the Iowa Pig Crop Contest. … At some of the farms the past fall we had 50 to 300 men come to see the pigs weighed and hear the raising of hogs discussed.”

Fast fact: Quaife, along with Herb Plambeck, WHO Radio, and Wilbur Plager of the Iowa Swine Producers Association, are credited with getting the Master Pork Producer program underway in 1942. It started as a way to stimulate pork and lard production during World War II, with the initial criteria stressing the number of pigs per farm and the number weaned per litter.

Lanoy Hazel

Lanoy Hazel

Born in Texas, Lanoy Hazel came to Iowa State in 1939 with a master’s degree in genetics to study with Jay Lush, who had written a book, Animal Breeding Plans, that puzzled Hazel. Hazel earned his doctorate at Iowa State in 1941 and went on to several efforts — swine research in Nebraska, sheep research in Idaho and poultry research in California — before Lush invited him in 1947 to be a professor of animal breeding at Iowa State. In the 1950s, when widespread interest existed in developing a “meat-type” hog, Hazel was instrumental in two major developments that spurred this trend – the backfat meat probe and central swine testing stations. The probe was a thin, metal ruler that measured the fat thickness of a live hog when inserted through a small incision in the hog’s hide. Its blunt end could not penetrate muscle, thus providing a quick, almost painless and accurate measurement of the body fat layer. The first Iowa test stations for identifying meatier, faster-growing hogs began near the Iowa State campus. Breeders submitted several animals for growth testing. Hogs were housed in pens and fed a common ration. At the end of the feeding period, all animals were rated and indexes were announced prior to a public auction. In 1968, Hazel was named head of the animal science department at Iowa State, a position he held until he retired in 1973.

Fast fact: The combination of Lush-Hazel attracted a host of graduate students to Iowa State. During their combined tenure – 1930 to 1973 – Iowa State had 279 graduates with master’s or doctorate degrees in animal breeding. These students then worked in 42 states and 32 countries.

Maurice Helser

Maurice Helser was born in Ohio. After high school graduation, he taught at a country school and then entered The Ohio State University in an agricultural course, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1914. In 1915 he joined the Iowa State College staff as a teaching scholar in animal husbandry. In 1916 he received a master’s degree from Iowa State College. From 1916 to 1932, he was a faculty member in the Department of Animal Husbandry. When the college organized a meats laboratory in 1918, Helser was named its head. He wrote a textbook on “Farm Meats.” Meat judging began in 1926 and he took Iowa State’s first undergraduate meats judging team to the International Live Stock Exposition. In 1931, Iowa State’s President R. M. Hughes was looking for someone to help with many of the duties involved in looking after the welfare of undergraduates. A canvass of the faculty pointed to Helser. He was appointed Director of Personnel, and accepted the new role on a trial basis. So successful was he in this responsibility that he was named Dean of the Junior College in 1933. He held these two titles until July 1955 when he reached 65, the mandatory age of retirement at that time.

Fast fact: When he retired in 1955, he was given a Buick as a parting gift. Shortly after his death in 1956, a four-story residence hall on the west edge of campus was named in his honor — Helser Hall.

Leslie Johnson

Leslie Johnson, left

A native Iowan, Johnson attended Penn College for two years and then enrolled at Iowa State College, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees, all in animal science. As a graduate student, he was an instructor for two years in the animal science department. Johnson became Head of Animal Husbandry at South Dakota State College in 1947, where, under his direction, an extensive beef cattle experimental program was developed. He also advanced work there with both swine and sheep. In 1954 he was named Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry at Iowa State College, a position he held until 1965 when illness made it impossible for him to continue to serve. He died in 1967. His 12 years of leadership were marked by tremendous growth in the department. He possessed a broad understanding of the total program of research, extension and teaching. Undergraduate teaching improved and graduate student enrollment grew. In 1962, the Department of Animal Husbandry became the Department of Animal Science and planning began on a new building. In 1965, all livestock was moved off campus to the Animal Science Teaching Farm and the department moved into Kildee Hall.

Fast fact: From 1929 to 1935, Johnson was a vocational agriculture instructor in Winterset, followed by two years as an agronomist with the USDA Soil Conservation Service in Madison County.

Max Rothschild

Max Rothschild is director of ISU’s Center for Integrated Animal Genomics. Since 1993, he also has been the U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator, which facilitates U.S. and international pig genome mapping projects. Researchers in nine states and more than 20 countries work on the USDA-CSREES swine genome project, which has a goal of mapping all the important genes in the pig. Rothschild established the first U.S. collaboration with the European pig gene mapping community. In 1989 he was among the first animal geneticists to participate as part of a delegation that went to China to select and import 155 pigs from three unique breeds, which have been useful in many of his and other animal scientists’ discoveries. Rothschild and his students have discovered many genes affecting traits of economic importance in the pig and these are used worldwide in pig breeding. His many other international research efforts include a collaborative effort to identify genes in Brazilian pig breeds, gene identification in cattle in Israel and animal genetics experiments in France, Finland, Italy, Scotland and Spain. Rothschild helped initiate an animal genetics project to improve animal production in Uganda through the Center for Sustainable Livelihoods, a current effort led by the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Fast fact: In July 2007, Rothschild was appointed to the Ensminger International Chair, which encourages international work.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives