William Weidman Landis was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania on February 15, 1869, and graduated from the local high school. In 1887, Landis entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a freshman. While a student, he was a member of the Glee Club, the baseball team, Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He was also president of his graduating class. In 1891, Landis graduated with a degree in philosophy and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to become a student assistant at Johns Hopkins University.

In 1895, Landis returned to his alma mater as a professor and remained there for the next forty-six years. He taught mathematics, astronomy, and art history, and was also the baseball coach for a time. He also served as dean of the sophomore class. In 1905, he received an honorary doctorate degree from Franklin and Marshall.

Punctuating his long years at the College was his service on the Italian front during the First World War with the Y.M.C.A. For his efforts, the Italian government awarded Landis the honorary rank of major, the Cross of War and the Cross of the Third Army; he was also knighted for his service to that country.

"Docky" Landis taught at the College until the year of his death in 1942; he was seventy-three years old.

Merkel Landis was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to John B. and Barbara Merkel Landis on January 5, 1875. During his youth he lived at 136 North College Street and attended Carlisle High School and the Dickinson Preparatory School. Officially entering the College as a freshmen in 1892, Merkel began four years of study for a bachelor of philosophy degree under Dickinson's modern language curriculum. He was a member of Sigma Chi, Theta Nu Epsilon, the editor of the Microcosm for three years, an Allison Orator for four years, and the short stop for his class baseball team.

Graduating in 1896 at the age of 21 Landis worked as a clerk in the Carlisle Deposit Bank until 1897. He also attended the Dickinson School of Law and was admitted to the Cumberland County Bar on June 5, 1899. He worked at the Merchants Bank in Carlisle starting in 1901. Later the bank was renamed the Carlisle Trust Company and he retained positions there as treasurer and as president from the fall of 1921 until his retirement in 1937. During his years with the bank he developed the first version of the Christmas Savings Fund in 1910.

Birth: February 25, 1844; Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

Death: June 9, 1912 (age 68); Washington, D.C.

Military Service: USN, 1861-65

Unit: Asiatic Squadron, South Atlantic Squadron

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1862)

Benjamin Lamberton attended Carlisle High School and the Dickinson Preparatory School before spending three years as a member of the Dickinson College class of 1862. He was a member of Belles Lettres Literary Society.

Lamberton decided on a naval career and in 1861 transferred to the Naval Academy, graduating in time to see active service on the U.S.S. America as it pursued the Confederate raiders Florida and Tallahassee in 1864. He served with the rank of lieutenant commander from 1868 to 1885 when he was promoted to commander and assigned to the Lighthouse Board in Charleston as an inspector. In 1898 Lamberton was ordered to command the cruiser Boston of the Asiatic Squadron, but upon arrival in Hong Kong he was appointed as chief of staff to Commodore Dewey. He fought alongside Dewey at the Battle of Manila and later acted as naval representative to the negotiating of the Spanish surrender. He was promoted to captain soon after and took command of the U.S.S. Olympia. In 1903, he became a rear admiral with the command of the South Atlantic Squadron. His final post was as chairman of the Lighthouse Board from which he retired on his sixty-second birthday.

Willard Geoffrey Lake was born to Alvin and Amelia Haight Lake in Moravia, New York on November 26, 1863. He prepared for college at the Pennington Seminary in New Jersey and entered Dickinson with the class of 1887 in the fall of 1883. Known as "Ted" to his classmates, the 5' 7" New Yorker became a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He is perhaps far more known for his contribution to Dickinson sports. He was captain of baseball on several very successful teams and was such a driving power behind the organization of a successful football team at the College that he was know for long after as "the father of Dickinson Football." He captained the 1885 and 1886 football teams from the quarterback position during these first two years of organized intercollegiate competition that began with the inaugural game in December, 1885 against Swarthmore in Carlisle. With the help of Professor Fletcher Durell, he did much of the coaching, as well.

J. Banks Kurtz was born in Delaware Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1867 as the son of Abraham Hertzler and Molly Bergey Kurtz. He attended local schools and prepared for college at the Airy View Academy in Port Royal and entered Dickinson College with the class of 1893 in the fall of 1889. After two years as an undergraduate, he transferred to the Law School program and graduated with a B.LL degree in 1893. While at the college he was an enthusiastic member of the Union Philosophical Society and joined the Phi Delta Theta and Delta Chi fraternities. He also represented the Law Program on the board of the Dickinsonian.

He was called to the bar in Blair County, Pennsylvania and began practice in Altoona. By 1905 he was district attorney of the county and served as chairman of the committee of public safety and the national defense for Blair County during the First World War. A Republican, he was elected to the United States Congress in November 1922 and served for six consecutive terms until he, like many of his fellow Republicans, was defeated in the 1934 election. He returned to Altoona to practice law and later took up the post of city solicitor. He remained active in party politics and was a delegate to the national conventions of 1936, 1938, and 1948.

Roy Kuebler was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania on October 10, 1911 to Roy R. Kuebler and Tillye Cleaver Traub. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1933 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. While at the College he was the president of Omicron Delta Kappa, a member of the Microcosm editorial staff, and the treasurer of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

After studying library science at Columbia University, Kuebler began his career at his alma mater as a library assistant from 1933 to 1935. He was then named the assistant treasurer and superintendent of grounds and buildings in 1935 and held that position until 1941. At this point he embarked upon nearly fifteen years of punctuated service in the mathematics department, rising to the rank of associate professor. The longest interruption in his Dickinson career lasted from July 1942 to April 1946 during his war service as a captain in the equipment intelligence section of the Ordnance Corps. He saw duty in Leyte, Okinawa, and Korea, earning the Bronze Star along the way. Another hiatus stemmed from his leave to study at the University of Pennsylvania during 1947-1948 to earn his master's degree in mathematics. In 1950 he returned as acting dean of the College when Professor Russell Thompson's health waned.

John Krebs was born in Hagerstown, Maryland on May 6, 1804, the son of William and Ann Adamson Krebs. The senior Krebs was a merchant and postmaster in the town and John received his early education there before he went to work as a clerk in his father's post office. His father died in 1822 and soon after he became determined to join the Presbyterian Church. After instruction at the local academy, he entered Dickinson College in February 1825. Krebs graduated in the class of 1827 with high honors and commenced pastoral studies under the Rev. George Duffield of Carlisle. He also received an appointment at the Dickinson Preparatory School and taught there between 1827 and 1829. By 1829 he had been licensed to preach in the Carlisle Presbytery, but, in May 1830, he briefly entered Princeton Theological Seminary. As soon as November, 1830, he had been formally ordained and taken up a post as pastor of the Rutgers Street Church in New York City.

Birth: 1837; Blacksburg, Virginia

Death: July 15, 1864 (age 29); Point Lookout Prison, Maryland

Military Service: CSA, 1861-64

Unit: Company L, 4th Virginia Infantry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1860 non-graduate)

William T. Kinzer was born in Blacksburg, Virginia. In January 1856 he entered the Dickinson College Grammar School and studied there for a semester before entering the freshman class. As a student, Kinzer was a member of the Union Philosophical Society, the VP society, and the Good Templars Temperance Society. He also wrote several articles for his hometown newspaper.

Kinzer’s father died early in the summer of 1857, thereby removing his means of financial support. At the end of the spring semester in 1857, Kinzer and a friend took a train to Hagerstown, Maryland and walked home to Blacksburg from there. He remained and began the study of law under Waller Staples, Esq., in nearby Montgomery.

Kinzer moved to St. Stephens in the Nebraska territory in 1859. He did not enjoy a successful practice, and, falling gravely ill, he returned to Blacksburg after only six months. Kinzer resumed the practice of law there, but he enlisted in Company L, 4th Virginia Infantry on July 16, 1861.

Birth: December 22, 1837; Portland, Maine

Death: November 15, 1918 (age 81);Brooklyn, New York

Military Service: USA, 1861-65

Unit: Army of the Potomac, First Cavalry Division of the Army of the Shenandoah

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858); Trustee, 1896-1918

Jacob A. Kiester was born in Mount Pleasant in south western Pennsylvania on April 29, 1832. Having prepared for college in the local common schools and at the nearby Mount Pleasant Academy, he entered Dickinson College with the class of 1857 in 1854. Kiester left the college after just a year, although he did have time for election to the Belles Lettres Society. Soon after, he moved west and was admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1855. Kiester moved on to Wisconsin for some months and then settled in April 1857 in Blue Earth City, Minnesota, the county seat of the newly organized Faribault County.

Soon after arriving in Blue Earth City, Kiester was elected as county surveyor of Faribault County in October 1857. The following year he was chosen as county registrar of deeds. Kiester seemingly made a very early impact on the county since, as soon as January 1859, the county supervisors named a small township in the eastern part of Faribault after him. He later served as a Republican representative to the state legislature in 1865, county attorney for 1866-67, and as United States internal revenue assessor in 1868. Kiester was named as a probate judge in 1869 and served in that post for more than twenty years before he was elected as a state senator in 1891, serving there as a Republican until 1895.