Telling K-State stories
At the K-State Alumni Association, one of our favorite things to do is telling stories.
From a K-State grad who shares his passion for nature by working in a National Park,
to a group of K-Staters who launched a mural project to revitalize their small town
community, we love sharing stories about Wildcats who are using their K-State education
and purple pride to impact the world for good.
Every day, we share these stories through a variety of platforms: from our quarterly
member magazine, the K-Stater; to our online newsletter, At K-State; to social media. In 2024, we’re celebrating our 150th anniversary, and in honor of
that, we’re inviting you to share your own stories from your K-State history.
Here are a few of the stories we’ve collected so far, and if you have a good K-State
story to tell, we’d love to hear it!
📖 Brian Berlin ’84
I was set to graduate from Manhattan High School and I couldn't think of anything other than getting out of Manhattan. First I applied to Ohio University to study photography, was accepted but couldn't afford the tuition. Then I applied to Arizona State University, was accepted, and my father sat me down and explained there wasn't money to send me there, either. I was stuck in Manhattan, and stuck with K-State. Looking back, being stuck with K-State was the best thing that ever happened to me. I received a great education, made tons of new friends and became part of a lifelong community of Wildcats. I am so proud to be a graduate of Kansas State University!
📖 Joanna Ehrlich-Brown ’78
I always enjoyed walking to class in the snow. We have the most beautiful campus.
My favorite place to study was the "stacks" in Hale Library. Of course those areas
are now gone but Hale Library is even more beautiful and efficient than it was prior
to the fire.
Some of my favorite memories include returning to campus with my daughters and having
them enjoy the same activities that I used to and be involved in helping them become
a part of campus life. Mother's Weekend was always a favorite one to share. And while
my daughters were still in college, tailgating was always fun. We still tailgate and
it never gets old returning to campus and enjoying all it has to offer.
📖 Julie Sellers ’94, ’96
In 2013, my husband (a K-Stater by marriage) and I decided to travel to the Tostitos
Fiesta Bowl from where we were currently living in West Virginia. I had listened faithfully
to every game on satellite radio, sometimes even sitting in my car to do so. We decided
that living large and going to watch the Big 12 Champion Wildcats in their bowl game
in sunny Arizona would be much better than sitting at home through the gray days of
early January.
While the weather in Phoenix was a welcome change, what we found even more warming
was the reception from the K-State Alumni Association and fellow K-Staters. We had
enjoyed all our interactions, and then we went to the pep rally. The purple energy
was amazing, and we felt energized and pumped for the game. As we were exiting, I
spotted a line forming to take pictures with Willie. Of course, I wanted my photo
with him, too, so I got in line. My husband took the photo, and he waited patiently
as I wove my way out of the fans around Willie. Somehow, he got distracted, and thinking
I had finally gotten through the crowd, he proudly showed the photo he’d taken to
the woman standing next to him.
“Isn’t that a great picture?” he said.
“Yes, it is,” an unfamiliar voice answered.
I arrived just at that moment, and he realized his mistake. We talked with the other
alumna and her husband as we walked back to the buses and discovered many points of
commonality.
Although the Wildcats were not victorious in the game, the experience was unforgettable.
And my husband and I both still agree it really is a great picture of me with Willie.
📖 Tammy Gaynier Steeples ’67, ’69
K-State was a smaller university when I started in fall 1963 as a freshman. Coming
from Dallas, Texas, I saw Manhattan as a charming small town with big, beautiful trees
that dropped gobs of colorful leaves in the fall. Some of my friends in the dorm,
from small Kansas towns, felt like they were coming to a BIG city. I understand their
feelings better now that I have lived and worked in Kansas for over 50 years — sometimes
in small towns.
My undergraduate years at K-State were some of the most fun and busy times of my life.
We studied hard, but also went to football and basketball games (K-State was much
better in basketball then than football), fraternity, sorority, and dorm parties and
competitions of all kinds from watermelon eating to relay races to modeling Greek
garb! There were only intramural sports for women then, and only a few of those. There
were still yearbook beauties and queens and kings of various organizations and events,
like Homecoming.
One of my most cherished activities was being a cheerleader for three years. My first
year on the squad, there were eight women; my second there were seven women cheerleaders
and one guy called a yell leader; then my senior year there were five men and five
women, and we each had a partner. We did more stunts and acrobatics that year.
We loved our teams and did quite a bit of travel to other schools for games, usually
going in private cars and paying our own way. Sometimes we got reimbursed for gas
or meals. Usually, we tried to stay at a dorm or sorority house at that school. One
thing the pep committee paid for each week was dry cleaning the white wool skirts
after football games when we cheered on the cinder track around the field at Memorial
Stadium. Memorable Saturday afternoons! Not many wins perhaps, but still great times!