Horace W. Sturgis

Dr. Horace W. Sturgis became President of this north Georgia college on July 1, 1965, before it had buildings, or students, or books, or even a name. Two decades in a teaching position at Georgia Tech had culminated in his position as associate registrar there, and brought him to the notice of the Board of Regents. The Board saw him as a stellar candidate and offered him the presidency of his choice of the state’s emergent junior colleges.

While some decisions came easily to the new president, others did not. It was easy to determine school colors everyone would agree with—black from the University of Georgia and gold from Georgia Tech made an attractive combination. It was equally easy to choose the owl as the school mascot so as to maintain an emphasis on scholastics.

Determining a name for the school proved to be a more difficult decision. In the tradition of several other schools around the state, Dr. Sturgis erroneously assumed that citizens would want the college to be named after the closest city. When he first ordered stationery it read "Marietta College," which upset newspaper editors, mayors and citizens alike. After much debate a consensus was reached; the school would be called Kennesaw Junior College. As we now know, the name would metamorphose again along with the development of the school.

The school opened its doors in 1966 with an enrollment of 1014 students. The three main college buildings were not yet ready for occupancy, forcing those first students to attend classes in spare classrooms on the campus of Southern Tech. By the time Dr. Sturgis retired on December 31, 1980, the school had added buildings, dropped "junior" from the official name of the school, and awarded its first bachelors degrees. Kennesaw State's first president concluded, "we set out to build a quality institution and I think we have done that."