NEWS

Linda Lou Ropp, daughter of Louisiana Tech’s 11th president, R.L. Ropp, has passed on documents from her father’s legacy to the university’s Prescott Memorial Library archives.

Peggy Carter, university archivist, said the documents, which included letters and speech notes, delved deeper into Ropp’s outgoing personality.

“This is everything that went on between 1949 to 1962,” Carter said, referring to the 13 years Ropp served as president. “His contacts, the people he spoke for – everything. You really get the idea that he put Tech and the community together.”

Including notes handwritten by Ropp and by others who wrote to him, the documents are extensive and include notations he made for speaking engagements.

Ropp said her father made more than 500 speeches in his 13 years as Tech’s president, speaking to clubs and organizations, at high school graduations, to alumni and at numerous other events. Often, Ropp said, he would just jot down a brief outline of what he wanted to say, sometimes in the car or on his way out of town to make the speech.

“He was a great speaker,” Ropp said. “He had no need to write speeches out word for word. He made them out on pieces of paper, sometimes on the programs themselves. He was confident; he knew what to say.”

Ropp said the documents had been kept in a trunk her father brought from Ohio in 1923. R.L. Ropp taught in the public schools in Ohio and at Northwestern State University.

The documents should be available for public viewing around the first of June.

For more information about the university archives, contact Carter at (318) 257-2935.

Written by Judith Roberts