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American Folklore and Cultural Knowledge: ‘The Building May Perish, but the Thought, the Legend, Lives On’
The Legends of the Nittany Valley feature only a small sampling of the total number of indigenous American Indian and Anglo-European settler legends collected or written by Henry W. Shoemaker, the first official Pennsylvania state folklorist. While folklore itself has been a part of the human experience from our earliest days, the formal study of…
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In Memory of Amy Dietz
Amy Dietz (1963-2018) was a member of the faculty at the School of Labor and Employment Relations (LER) at Penn State. She helped create LER’s online program, served as a faculty member in the program, and was the student advisor for all of the School’s MPS students in Human Resources and Employment Relations (HRER). She…
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‘Inspiriting Mount Nittany’
Tom Shakely spoke to the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) on February 14, 2018 on Mount Nittany’s significance and historical conservation efforts. As part of his presentation, Tom presented Penn State’s undergraduate student government with the gift of a Mount Nittany Square Inch Marker: Consider a “square inch” gift for any Penn Stater as a…
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Penn State’s ‘Century of Service to the Commonwealth’
Penn State celebrated its Centennial in 1955 and commemorated its first century of “service to the Commonwealth”:
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WeStillAre
WeStillAre was a student-created project launched in November 2011 in response to the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. During a time of intense media scrutiny and institutional pessimism, Penn State students created WeStillAre as a way to gather community remembrances and spotlight historical memories that captured the best aspects of the Penn State spirit…
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‘The Class of 1950: A Nostalgic Look Back’ by Thomas E. Morgan
“The Class of 1950: A Nostalgic Look Back” were the remarks of Thomas E. Morgan, Penn State Class of 1950, delivered February 29, 1980: No one could have mistaken Penn State for a sedate Ivy League college during those strained elbow-room-only days of ’46-’50 when GIs and their little sisters and brothers crammed into Pollock…
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Penn State and State College in their early years
Eric Porterfield, a friend of the Mount Nittany Conservancy, recently shared these historical State College photos. These photos show in a dramatic way the development of State College from something less than a speck on the map into the place we know it as today. They’re a witness to our community’s past, to Pennsylvania’s past,…
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The Legend of Penn’s Cave
This is the very first Pennsylvania legend published by folklorist Henry W. Shoemaker in 1902. It is the official legend featured at Penn’s Cave, where it is painted on a large sign at the entrance. This legend tells not of the Princess Nittany over whose burial mound (or over whose lover’s burial mound) Nittany Mountain…
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A Penn State Student Body President’s Memo to a Penn State President
The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s “Ben Novak Fellowship” provides Penn Staters and Nittany Valley residents an opportunity to encounter the Nittany Valley’s legendary spirit through cultural and environmental experiences meant to enhance appreciation for our distinctive community and encourage friendships for the future. The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s Ben Novak Archives are intended to help new generations encounter the Ben Novak…
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The Origins of ‘Happy Valley’
Most of have heard at least one theory on the origins of our “Happy Valley” nickname. Did it arise during the Great Depression, an expression of area’s economic resiliency? Or perhaps it was the tongue-in-cheek lament of would-be 1960s activists, frustrated by a stubbornly docile pace of life. We are pleased to present this thorough…
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Our Street Names Are Memorials
It’s always great when we come into deeper contact with the life and history of the place we live. That happened last year with a column for Town & Gown about a project cataloging the CBICC historical archive: Vince Verbeke, immediate past president of the Mount Nittany Conservancy, left a comment on the article that included some pretty cool…
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A Penn State Veterans Day Address
The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s “Ben Novak Fellowship” provides Penn Staters and Nittany Valley residents an opportunity to encounter the Nittany Valley’s legendary spirit through cultural and environmental experiences meant to enhance appreciation for our distinctive community and encourage friendships for the future. The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s Ben Novak Archives are intended to help new generations encounter the Ben Novak…
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Imagining Centre County and the Nittany Valley of the 1920s
By Cori Agostinelli Kalupson The giving and graceful nature of our community help make it such a special place. For 40 years now, these qualities have been on display through the locally-supported growth of the Centre County Women’s Resource Center, a source of help and hope for area women in need. The CCWRC is sustained…
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A Voice from Old State’s Past
The following, abridged and lightly edited, is taken from “Reminiscences of Dr. F.J. Pond,” a pamphlet-style Nittany Valley Press book of Penn State memories from Dr. Francis Pond, an alumnus and Atherton-era professor. Dr. Pond recorded these reminiscences shortly before his death, and tells us about Old State from a very different time—a place both…
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Joy of Christmas Spirits
Today, it is not unusual to enter a bar and find a laundry list of exotic beers on tap or to hear news of a local brew pub or microbrewery opening up. Such was not the case in 1984 (only five years after the legalization of homebrewing) when the editor of the Centre Daily Times…
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