When East Lansing residents Patricia and David Brogan were MSU undergraduates in the 1950s, they experienced events firsthand that are now history.
They remember the annual "Water Carnival" on the Red Cedar River and David Brogan's attendance at the 1954 Rose Bowl as a sophomore, during which MSU defeated the University of California, Los Angeles.
Photographs of these events are part of "Memories of MSU," an exhibit that opened Sunday at the MSU Museum and will continue through December.
The exhibit is a look back at the last 150 years of MSU through photographs, artifacts and timelines from students' perspectives.
"It's fun to see it," Patricia Brogan said. "It does jog lots of memories."
The exhibit has been in production for about two years and is opening this year because it's the university's sesquicentennial anniversary, said Val Berryman, curator of history for the museum.
The sesquicentennial celebration commemorates MSU's 150th birthday and the university's beginning as a land-grant institution.
Other artifacts include furniture used by MSU professors and presidents - such as former MSU President John A. Hannah's office furniture and a cabinet containing herb samples from William James Beal, a botany professor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Old marching band uniforms also are on display.
"It's kind of the physical and visual history," Berryman said. "You can sit down and read a book, but when you look at an object that was used by a certain famous professor, it's just more exciting. It just helps you visualize what life was like back then."
Steve Frank, a landscape services coordinator with the Grounds Maintenance Department, was viewing the furniture section with his wife and four children on Sunday.
"This really interests me to see Dr. Beal's cabinet," Frank said. "You go back to that time in your mind."
Looking at MSU's history helps people be more grateful for what they have in the 21st century, Frank said.
"This place really struggled in the early years, and it really makes you appreciate the hard work to keep this place going," he said.
The exhibit was scheduled to open in the Main and Heritage galleries and Heritage Hall in the museum on Feb. 20, but was not completed by then. The exhibit still is not finished, but parts of it in the Main Gallery and Heritage Hall are open to the public. The part of the exhibit that will be displayed in Heritage Gallery is currently not open.
"It's taking a little longer than we'd hoped," Berryman said, adding that adequate financial support wasn't received early enough, which hindered the ability to have people researching and gathering photographs. "It just takes a lot of work to find just the right photograph to illustrate the story you're trying to tell."
Different sections of the exhibit will feature agriculture, entertainment, architecture and transportation, among others. A bicycle that was owned by Ernst Lucas, fondly known on campus as "Ernie the Can Man," who died last January, also will be on display.
Many of the artifacts that can be seen came from archives and collections, but many were donated from alumni.
"One of the nice things about this exhibit is how many people have contributed," said Ilene Schechter, an exhibit co-curator. "There's so much social history. It's such a rich fabric.
"It gives a sense of what this university's all about."
