B.W. "BILL" HARRISON

B.W. "Bill" Harrison was born on May 2, 1910, on his family's farm southeast of Salem. He still owns and operates the farm.

He attended Salem High School where he was the first president of the local FFA chapter. He then went on to attend the University of Missouri-Columbia, graduating in 1936. While still a student, Harrison began his career as an employee of the Missouri Extension Service in 1933. This was the start of a 40-year extension career from which he retired as a professor of extension education in 1973. During this time his assignments ranged from assistant county agent to state extension agent.

Harrison has lived in Cape Girardeau since 1947. His wife, Hazel Huhn Evans, was born in 1902 and died on Oct. 11, 1990. She was a home economist with the extension service and later taught in the Cape Girardeau public schools. They married in 1946, and to this day Harrison jokingly says, "The only reason I paid attention to her is that Hazel knew how to fish."

Mrs. Harrison and her mother were Catholic, and this is one of the reasons B.W. Harrison has been so interested in the St. Vincent's College and property. Harrison has long attended Cape Girardeau's St. Vincent's Catholic Church and is a member of its board as well as a long-standing member of the Greater Cape Girardeau Historical Association.