Across campus, buildings commemorate well-known figures in MSU's history, including former university presidents and alumni.
But one emeritus professor of economics, who has no campus buildings named after him, is just as famous to countless MSU students.
Charles Patric Larrowe, better known to MSU students from the 1960s through the 1980s as simply "Lash," died at 90 years old Friday from ailments related to Parkinson's disease.
Known for his Hawaiian shirts, biting wit and opinionated gusto, the self-labeled civil libertarian was politically active on campus and a longtime contributor to The State News.
Larrowe took on the nickname "Lash," after the Western and cowboy movie star Lash LaRue.
Scott Westerman, a 1978 graduate, said everyone on campus knew of Larrowe and was already equipped with an opinion of him.
"There was no middle ground," Westerman said. "You either loved him or you hated him."
According to people who knew Larrowe, his most well-known actions were a testament to his personality. Westerman said he would never forget when Larrowe volunteered to be the campaign manager for a local radio station disc jockey who wanted to run for MSU president, or when Larrowe enrolled in a two-credit class so he could obtain a student number, which was needed in order to write for the campus newspaper at the time.
Walter Adams, a deceased fellow economics professor, former MSU president and friend to Larrowe, wrote the introduction to the compilation of Larrowe's work, "Lashing Out: The Best of Lash Larrowe," and noted that he first met Larrowe in 1956 when he came to MSU. At that time, Larrowe was well-groomed and seemed like a "prototype of an earnest scholar and dependable establishmentarian," he wrote.
"From the first, despite his pedantic appearance, he was a maverick," Adams wrote. "No underdog was too forlorn, no cause too unpopular for him to champion, which explains, no doubt, why the FBI and Michigan's own State Police Red Squad had hefty files on him."
Larrowe was able to obtain the FBI's 53-page file in October 1975, which contained some of his personal information and clippings from The State News and Lansing State Journal where his name was mentioned. In an October 9, 1975 State News article, Larrowe said he was flattered the agency kept a file on him, and he was more pleased than angry.
"They could never pin anything on me," he said in the article. "If they could have gotten me on a moral turpitude like scoring with a coed on my office desk, then maybe they could have gotten me."
Larrowe was a faculty advisor to an on-campus group started in the 1960s and 1970s called the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. The socialistic group began in Port Huron in 1962 and then spread to major universities across the nation.
According to a March 1, 2005 article, during a rally at the rock on Farm Lane — which was then located near Beaumont Tower — Larrowe was asked to come speak five minutes before the event started because there was no one else.
"So I hot-footed it over there, and the head of SDS was mulling around trying to get this thing started," Larrowe said in the article. "So I climbed up on the rock and denounced a resolution they had passed, and somehow the First Amendment was brought into it."
In May 2006, Larrowe was inducted into the newly-formed The State News Hall of Fame. Joe Serwach, a State News Alumni Association board member, was part of the committee that nominated possible inductees. He said he nominated Larrowe because of the breadth of his columnist career. His work, often a point of contention for many readers, spanned about two decades, making him one of the longest contributors to The State News, said Serwach, the newspaper's editor in chief during 1985 and 1986.
"I said he was like the Cal Ripken of The State News because he was there so long," Serwach said. "There are few people who would be remembered by that many generations."
Serwach said Larrowe wrote in a self-deprecating manner and wasn't afraid to poke fun at himself, as well as the subject of his column.
"Lash was smart, but he could be silly and talk in everyman's language," he said. "That's what Lash was all about — the everyman."
Lindsey Poisson can be reached at poisson4@msu.edu.
Amin As Speaker?
Lash Larrowe | April 6, 1977
I'm hurrying into Kellogg Center one night a couple weeks ago; I see this lone picket out front. He's got a big piece of cardboard tied over his face with holes cut out for eyes.
"Hi Lash," he says, lifting the mask up, and I see he's one of my Iranian friends.
"What's with the mask?" I asks. "This Iran's Independence Day?"
"You oughtta know better than that," he snorts, turning his picket sign around so I can see what it says: STOP SAVAK-CIA REPRESSION OF IRANIAN PATRIOTS. "I'm here to demand the trustees get MSU out of Iran, quit propping up the Shah's dictatorship.
"You going to address the board, Lash?" he asks.
"No," I says. "I came over to check out the bar they just put in. I hear you can get free drinks tonight if you can prove you're an administrator."
"So that's why I haven't seen you at demonstrations lately!" he smirks. "I heard you'd gone over to the other side, but I didn't want to believe it."
"It's true I haven't made any demonstrations recently," I admits, "but it isn't because I didn't want to be there. It's just that I've got this new gig that keeps me tied up in the office, what with me being faculty grievance officer and all."
"Okay Lash," he says. "But about this trustees' meeting here tonight. Only people I've seen going in are the fat cats from International Programs. Weren't you invited to talk to the board, too, you being the conscience of the 'U' and the voice of the little man?"
"I never get invited when anything big is goin' down," I explains. "They only trot me out when money isn't involved. Don't forget, there's a lot of bucks for MSU riding on these international projects. Brazil alone brings in $15 million bananas, you know."
"That's exactly why you should have been on the agenda for this meeting!" he shouts. "Somebody's gotta give the trustees the true facts about Brazil. You know yourself, Lash, the boys from International Center aren't going to do it."
"I can see you're not aware," I says, "that a lot of us on the faculty count on what the 'U' gets from running scams like Brazil for the money to boost our salaries each year."
"You're even more corrupt than I thought!" he says. "That confirms the rumor I've heard that the next dictatorship MSU is going to prop up is Uruguay. No wonder they scheduled this meeting for term break. Students are gone, State News isn't publishing."
"If you're going to criticize the trustees," I says, "there's one thing you ought to know about MSU's history. Fact is, the 'U' always has used term breaks to deal with the real tough issues, like raising fees, getting rid of troublemakers, talking turkey with generalissimos.
"They know if they put out a contract with another dictatorship like Brazil, students'll get upset, they'll cut classes to protest. It isn't demonstrations that worry the folks topside, though. It's the effect on your studies. And that's what you're really here for."
"I can see that, Lash," he concedes. "But these international programs are giving MSU a bad name in the Third World. I gotta go back there, you know, when I get my degree.
"Way State's going now, it won't be long before MSU'll be into a partnership with every right-wing dictatorship on Amnesty International's Dirty Dozen list.
"But at least," he says, brightening, "the 'U' doesn't have a contract yet with Uganda."
"I'm not so sure," I says. "One of my pals in the administration leaked me a list of people proposed for commencement speakers.
"One of the names on there was Idi Amin."
