Linfielder Ron August gained fame as a high school and Linfield football coach, but he was a Wildcat swim team diver, too

Ron August was a 1964 Linfield grad who coached football at the college after a long and successful career coaching the sports in Willamette Valley high schools.

For the Linfield Wildcats he tutored several record-setting All-America kickers.

August's success as a football coach is well known. The fact he lettered in swimming as a diver for Ken Holmes coached Linfield swim teams is not. He came to Linfield as a California junior college transfer planning to play football. But, injury prevented that. So, he became a 'Cat diver.

August, 70, died Jan. 28, 2012, in Salem, Ore., Hospital. Survivors include his widow, Betty, who studied at Linfield.

Prior to coaching at Linfield for 12 years, August coached football at Dallas, Ore., High School -- leading the Dallas Dragons to a state championship -- and Salem’s McKay High. In total, he coached the sports 43 seasons.

Linfield Sports Information Jan. 30, 2012, news release, source of some info in story above.
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Below from Salem Statesman-Journal

Ron August, former Dallas, McKay, Linfield football coach, dies

Former Dallas, McKay and Linfield football coach Ron August died Saturday at the age of 70,

Linfield sports information director Kelly Bird confirmed.

August spent 43 years coaching football between the three schools.

His teams were known for their use of the veer offense.

August was an assistant at Dallas from 1964 to 1969 and the team’s head coach from 1970 to 1988.

The Dragons made the state playoffs 10 times with August as head coach, including winning the state championship in 1986 and reaching the state title game in 1988.

He was the head coach at McKay from 1989 to 1995. His ’89 team was the first from the school to make the state playoffs, and it would be in the playoffs in all seven of his seasons at the school.

August had a 183-75 record as a head coach and was the Class 3A state coach of the year in 1986.

He served 12 seasons at Linfield as an assistant coach before retiring from that position in 2007.

At Linfield he primarily worked with special teams and was on the coaching staff for the Wildcats’ 2004 NCAA Division III championship team.

August was inducted into Dallas’ Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

Photographs above: Wildcatville photo of purple-clad Ron & Betty August at the Nov. 21, 2012, L&C at Linfield football game and photo from the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame website. Ron as a swimmer from 1963 and 1964 Linfield Oak Leaves yearbooks.

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Jay Locey, a former Linfeld head football coach and now an Oregon State assistant, and Bill Dressel, were among those who spoke at Ron’s 2/18/2012 celebration of life in the Dallas, Ore., Gym. Former Linfield football players Dressel ’62 and Paul Ward ’59, both of whom played football for the Wildcats, were assistants on Ron’s first Dallas football coaching staff in 1970. Clipping of May 1, 1970,apparently from Dallas, Ore., Polk County Itemizer-Observer.

Professor Harold C. Elkinton obituary from 1989

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 1989, McMinnville, Ore., News-Register

HAROLD C. ELKINTON
1900-1989

Services for Harold Charles Elkinton, longtime McMinnville resident and chairman of the Linfield College (McMinnville, Ore.) department of business administration and economics, will be held at 11 a.m. Friday
in the First Baptist Church, McMinnville. The Rev. Bernard Turner will officiate.

Entombment will be in Riverview Abbey in Portland. Mary & Son Funeral Directors is handling the arrangements.

Mr. Elkinton died Jan. 22, 1989, in Ukiah, Calif. He was 88.

He was born July 22, 1900, in Devon, Pa., the son of George Murray and Emily Ziegler Elkinton.

His family moved to Sunnyside, Wash., in 1912, then to Walla Walla, Wash., two years later. He attended Whitman College there and ws graduated cum laude in 1925.

Mr. Elkinton received his master's degree from the University of Oregon in 1927 and joined Linfield that fall to organize the department of business administration and economics. He chaired the department for 42 years, before he retired in 1969. He also taught courses and summer schools at Portland State University, Warner Pacific College and George Fox College.

He and Alice May Davis were married on July 13, 1930, in Portland. She preceded him in death in 1988.

He was a member of the Kiwanis Club for more than 50 years and was lieutenant governor in 1966 and 1973. He was organist for First Baptist Church for 35 years, a member of the American Guild of
Organists , an adviser for Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, president of the Community Concert Association for seven years and Bicentennial chairman in 1976.

He was selected McMinnville's outstanding citizen in 1976.

Mr. Elkinton was given a DCS degree by Linfield in 1960. In 1982, the Elkinton Endowed Professorship was established in his honor.

HE is survived by a daughter, Marguerite Keiffer of Ukiah; a son, Jack Elkinton of Vancouver, Wash.; two sisters, Madeline Hoovel of Lewiston, Idaho, and Virginia Morud of Portland; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Fist Baptist Church, in case of Macy & Son Funeral Directors.

Bob Ferguson's book: Humorous, yet poignant

Updated 1/19/2012

Vancouver, Wash. (March 9, 2009) – Late last year, Linfielder Bob Ferguson published his book, Some Days Chicken, Some Days Feathers.

It is a 320-page memoir crammed with “delicious humor, yet Ferguson's poignant Vietnam experiences will bring a tear to the reader's eye,” says publicity material.

The book comes of the heels of a Wordsmith award Ferguson, a long-time Vancouver resident, received in 2007 from the Vancouver’s daily newspaper, The Columbian.

Comments from reviewers:

• "Magnificent.”


• "One of the best books I have ever read, and I read a lot."


• "Well written..."

Ferguson, a Portland, Ore., native, admits the comments are from friends. But, he said, “their overwhelming enthusiasm has pleasantly stunned me.” The book follows the Ferguson family -- which included his parents and an older brother -- from Astoria to Bend, where one of his earliest recollections is harvesting potatoes as a preschooler.

Later the family moved to Eugene, where he attend elementary, junior high and high school, graduating from South Eugene High in 1961. In Eugene, Ferguson “led a bunch of senior classmates on a panty raid of a 'house of ill-repute' that we still laugh about,” he said.

Ferguson graduated from Linfield College in 1965 after earning All-America football honors playing for coach Paul Durham. After college, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and became a photo reconnaissance officer in the F-4 Phantom jet. Midway through his 1968 Vietnam tour he was assigned to a ground unit as a Forward Air Controller conducting air strikes in support of the ground troops.

Since leaving the Marines in 1969, Ferguson has been the director of Camp Easter Seal, a camp for handicapped kids near Coos Bay, a stock broker in Portland in 1973 and owned a manufacturer’s representative agency for the last 35 years.

He earned a Master’s in Teaching degree at age 61 and now enjoys substitute teaching. “One day I was teaching eighth graders to write a memoir. It was fun and that got me to working on my own story,” Ferguson said, who believes that every person has a good story to tell.

At 6:30 p.m. April 23 in Linfield’s Nicholson Library in McMinnville, Ferguson will talk about his book and hold a free “fun-filled” workshop which will give those attending tools to write their own stories.

For $20, which includes shipping, Ferguson will mail an inscribed copy of the book. Contact him at robefergus@aol.com, 360-993-3342, 17204 SE 32nd St., Vancouver, WA. 98683.Ferguson invites libraries, book stores, schools, and senior centers to make contact to schedule a talk about his book and a workshop.

One of the photos above shows Bob Ferguson holding one of his USMC dog tags. Photo taken 1/19/2012 at Cardinal Circle held at Raccoon Lodge, Raleigh Hills/Portland.

Linfield College is named for George Fisher Linfield

For whom is Linfield College named?

The Rev. George Fisher Linfield, a Baptist pastor, born in 1846 and died in 1890.


The Rev. and Mrs. Linfield are pictured with this story.

It was McMinnville College until 1922 when Rev. Linfield's widow, Frances Eleanor Ross Linfield, donated property (valued at $250,000) in Spokane to the college on condition that the name be changed as a memorial to her husband.

Announcement of the gift of property and the college's name change was by President Leonard Riley. He told the college's students, faculty and staff during a special afternoon chapel on Jan. 10, 1922. During the same chapel, Riley announced the college's 16 year ban on football was over. The sport resumed with the 1922 season.

In 1873, Frances E. Ross graduated from Elmira College in New York. She became a teacher, including at the Englewood, Ill., high school and at Pennsylvania State Normal School at Mansfield. She also taught at the Delaware Literary Institute in New York and Wayland Academy in Wisconsin.

She came to Spokane in 1895 due to the illness of her parents, who were living there. While devoting much of her time to their care, she taught at Spokane's Lewis & Clark High School for 17 years (1895-1912) and was head of the schools' modern languages department.

On Sept. 4, 1878, she married the Rev. Linfield. His background included serving as principal of Wayland Academy. He died April 30, 1890. Where he died depends on the source you believe. The choices are Beaver Dam, Wisc., and Muscatine, Iowa.

While the Rev. and Mrs. Linfield worked together as instructors at Wayland, they formulated a plan for a future contribution toward Christian education. In 1922 the plan reach its fruition in the gift from Mrs. Linfield to the college. See footnote.

The Rev. and and Mrs. Linfield's plan was that, if the Lord prospered them, they would some day make a generous contribution toward Christian education, further agreeing that in one year Rev. Linfield should pay all expenses and her salary should go toward making an investment, while the succeeding year the plan should be reversed.

Under this plan the Rev. Linfield invested $2,300 in a lot in Spokane which later sold for $100,000. Mrs. Linfield made other investments which constantly grew in value.

One of the reasons she chose the college as recipient of her gift was because of the determination of its officers and trustees to maintain it as a distinctly Christian institution.

Mrs. Linfield died at age 88 in Portland on March 26, 1940.
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Footnote: When Mrs. Linfield gave the gift, she was the college's dean of women. From 1921-1928, she served in that role. She also served on the college's board of trustees.

See source of this story here.