1925 Biography - William R. Dodson

William Rufus Dodson, B. S., B. A., has been a member of the faculty of the University of Louisiana, at Baton Rouge, for the past thirty years, is now Dean of the College of Agriculture, and his splendid service has been of constructive and benignant order throughout the long period of his active association with the State University of Louisiana. He is also director of the Experiment Station of the University.

Professor Dodson was born at Belton, Texas, on the 17th of July, 1867, and is a son of Jesse Allen Dodson, who had a full share of varied pioneer experience in the West. Jesse A. Dodson was born at Riceville, Tennessee, in the year 1823, and was a resident of Berryville, Arkansas, at the time of his death, in 1882. He was reared and educated in Tennessee. and as a young man was a member of the famed army of argonauts who made their way to the newly discovered gold fields in California, to which state he went in 1848. He was still a young man when he established his residence at Belton, Texas, where he became a successful farmer and ranchman of the pioneer period in the history of the Lone Star State. He continued his residence in Texas until 1871, when he removed with his family to Berryville, Arkansas, in which locality he continued his association with farm enterprise until his death. His political convictions placed him staunchly in the ranks of the democratic party, and he was affiliated with the Masonic Fraternity. From Texas he went forth as a loyal soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war. While thus in military service, al)out the middle period of the war, he received an accidental injury of such severity as to incapacitate him for further military service of active order, he having been on Picket duty at the time of receiving this physical injury. During the remainder of the war period he was in service in the Confederate commissary department.

At Belton, Texas, was solemnized the marriage of Jesse A. Dodson and Miss Mary Elizabeth Scott, who was born in the State of Tennessee, in June, 1837, and whose death occurred at Joplin, Missouri, in February, 1923, she having survived her husband thirty years and having been nearly eighty-six years of age at the close of her life. Of the children the eldest is Frank B., who resides in Los Angeles, California, he being a skilled mechanic and being now actively identified with the farm industry in Los Angeles County; Joe Ben is a merchant at Joplin, Missouri; Prof. William R., of this review, is the next younger; Annie May is the wife of Barton H. Atkinson, a merchant at Berryville, Arkansas; and Allen Erwin is successfully established in the merchant-tailoring business in Kansas City, Missouri.

Prof. William R. Dodson gained his early education in the public schools in the vicinity of Berryville, Arkansas, in which village he thereafter attended Clark's Academy. In 1890 he was graduated from the University of Missouri, at Columbia, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Science, and at this university he became affiliated with the Zeta Phi Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. In the year of his graduation he became assistant professor of biology in his alma mater, the University of Missouri, and he continued the incumbent of this position until 1893. While on a leave of absence, in 1893-4, he pursued a post-graduate course in Harvard University, where he specialized in botany and bacteriology and where he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1894.

On the 1st of August, 1894, Professor Dodson came to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to assume the chair of botany and bacteriology in the University of Louisiana, besides becoming official botanist of the government experiment station maintained at the university. In 1902 he was made assistant director of this experiment station, and in January, 1905, he became its director. In 1909, when the five departments of the university were created and a Dean assigned as executive and scholastic head of each of these departments, Professor Dodson was chosen Dean of the College of Agriculture, the office of which he has since continued the able, honored and popular incumbent, besides continuing his service as director of the agricultural experiment stations of the university, save for an interval of about two years. He resigned his positions at the university in 1918, the resignation to take effect January 1, 1919, from which date until October 1, 1921, he was independently engaged in farm enterprise. He then resumed his active service as Dean of the College of Agriculture and director of the experiment stations, and he has contributed in large measure to the development of the Agricultural College and making its influence potent in connection with the advancing of the interests and standards of agricultural industry in Louisiana.

By ancestral heritage and personal conviction Professor Dodson is aligned loyally in the ranks of the democratic party, and he and his wife hold membership in the Christian, or Disciples, Church. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is identified with many educational and scientific organizations of important order. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Agricultural Teaching, and also of the American Society of Agronomy, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Louisiana State Teachers Association, and the Baton Rouge Dairy Cattle Loan Association, of which he is president and treasurer. In the early part of 1917, after the nation had become involved in the World war, Professor Dodson had charge of food production in the South, and he was then advanced to the position of executive head of the agricultural-relations section of the government food administration, with headquarters in Washington, District of Columbia, where he remained until November 5, 1918.

Professor Dodson is chairman of the cotton council of the Association of Southern Agricultural Workers, the function of this council being to collect and correlate all scientific research work pertaining to the boll weevil, the great cotton pest, and to cooperate with the National Boll Weevil Control Association in its efforts to eradicate the boll weevil. He is chairman of the committee of the Land Grant College Association in charge of educational work on the Purnell Bill for the more complete endowment of the agricultural experiment stations. This bill was passed by the Sixty-eighth Congress. Professor Dodson collected and installed the forestry exhibit of the State of Missouri at the World's Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, in 1893, and be gave to Louisiana a similar service in preparing its forestry exhibit for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, in 1904, besides which he had active charge of the exhibit. He is a member of the State Museum Board of Louisiana, is a member of the advisory council of the Agricultural Commission of the American Bankers Association, and is a member of the Board of Managers of the Louisiana State Fair, a position to which he was elected by the stockholders of the organization. In co-operation with V. L. Roy, Professor Dodson organized in 1908, at Mansura, Avoyelles Parish, the first Boys Corn Club in Louisiana, the club being organized with 196 members from that parish.

Professor Dodson is the author of numerous bulletins, pamphlets and monographs on scientific and educational subjects, especially in connection with agricultural industry. Among his important bulletins are those entitled "Rice," "Red Rice," "The Weeds of the Rice Fields," "Forage Crops," and "Leguminous Root Tubercles." He has made many contributions to leading agricultural magazines and to scientific literature of both standard and periodical order. He is a member of the building committee and of the executive body of this committee charged with the construction of the new plant of the university.

At Tampa, Florida, on the 29th of January, 1896, was solemnized the marriage of Professor Dodson and Miss Minnie Pettengill, daughter of the late Judson A. Pettengill, who was a representative farmer near Centralia, Missouri, in which state both he and his wife maintained their home until their death. Mrs. Dodson was graduated from the University of Missouri as a member of the class of 1893 and received therefrom the degrees of Bachelor of Pedagogy and Bachelor of Arts.

In this concluding paragraph is entered brief record concerning the children of Professor and Mrs. Dodson. Rogers, principal of the high school at Monterey, Concordia Parish, Louisiana, 1922-24, was graduated from the University of Louisiana with the degree of Bachelor of Agriculture, 1919, and Master of Science, 1925. He was in the national military service in the World war period, stationed at Alexandria, Louisiana. He was married to Oma Atkins, of Arcadia, Louisiana, in 1920. She graduated from the Louisiana State University in 1920 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Scott, the second son, died at the age of three years. Joe P. is a member of the class of 1925 in the University of Louisiana, besides which he holds a position in the service of the Standard Oil Company and is thus gaining valuable experience of practical order. Alma May is a member of the class of 1926 in the University of Louisiana. William Rufus, Jr., is a member of the class of 1924 in the Baton Rouge High School.

Note: The referenced source includes an autographed portrait of the subject.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 139-140.