By Jeff Hunter ’96

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As a longtime professor of history, Ross Peterson is keenly aware of some of the great “what ifs” of American history.

What if the Confederate army had won at Gettysburg in 1863? What if the Germans had repelled the Allied landing at Normandy on June 6, 1944? Or what if JFK hadn’t ridden through downtown Dallas in a convertible? The history of the United States would likely be very different today.

And similarly, what if one of the most beloved educators in the history of Utah State University had ended up attending college in Ogden or Boise instead of Logan?

For hundreds — if not thousands — of students, it’s hard to imagine such a world. But that was nearly the case.

Growing up in Montpelier, Idaho, in the ’50s, Peterson was one of the best young athletes in the small town just north of Bear Lake, providing him with some options when it came to attending college. One of them was relocating to Ogden and playing basketball and football for what was then known as Weber College. But the opportunity to play baseball at Boise Junior College, the predecessor to Boise State University, was even more inviting.

“I also had an offer, kind of a semi-walk-on, partial scholarship to play basketball at Utah State,” Peterson recalls. “But I thought if I had a future in athletics that it was going to be with baseball.”

Ironically, it was his good arm that kept Peterson from playing baseball on the other side of the Gem State and started him on the path to become an Aggie legend. He and some friends were out roaming around Montpelier on a July night when he got a chuckle out of tossing a firecracker underneath a friend’s car. That led to another attempt, this time taking aim at a new Chevrolet driven by a classmate who was “draggin’ Main” with a couple of other teenagers. 

“I threw a cherry bomb, bootlegged into Idaho from Wyoming, into a 1959 Corvette convertible,” Peterson explains with obvious remorse. “I threw it with the intent of it going under, but it hit behind his shoulder and went over his shoulder on a bounce. And the driver panicked when it went off between his legs. 

“The car accelerated and hit another car, totaling both. It was really lucky that no one was hurt. Really lucky.”

Peterson was already on the police’s radar after getting caught breaking into some local schools and churches to play basketball, but fortunately for him, his “little trouble with the law” only led to community service rather than jail time. However, he was unable to complete his service in time to enroll at Boise Junior College, and his mother took advantage of the situation. 

By the time the fall of 1959 arrived, the fourth of Ray and Zora Peterson’s six children was on his way to Logan to begin his higher education journey at Utah State. And the recent high school graduate was hardly alone as his mother had managed to secure him a room with five returned missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“My mother was worried about my spiritual future,” Peterson says. “So, I came for a year, worked construction and played on the freshman baseball team. I was planning to come back, but they lowered the missionary age to 19. So, I went on a mission, and by the time I got back here, I knew I wanted to be a professor.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to teach,” he clarifies. “But my first quarter back, I had some history classes from Stan Cazier and Brig Madsen and just decided, ‘This’ll be good.’ So, I just hung with those people all the rest of the way.”

Candid Conversations

Now 82 years old, Peterson isn’t currently slated to teach a class at Utah State University this fall. Since Peterson technically retired in 2004, that ordinarily wouldn’t be a surprise, but he is anything but ordinary. 

“Retired? If there’s anyone who didn’t know the meaning of the word, it’s Ross,” says Kay Peterson, his wife of 60 years. 

Peterson left his alma mater two decades ago to serve as the president of Deep Springs College in California. But upon returning to Cache Valley three years later, he took on the position of Utah State’s Vice President for Advancement, helping spearhead a hugely successful fundraising campaign until he retired again in 2011. 

But even then, the emeritus professor continued to present a course or two at USU, which means that he’s taught the children and grandchildren of many students he first encountered as a young professor after settling into a full-time position in the Department of History in 1971.

“As a dean, I spend a significant portion of my time interacting with alumni, and no one is mentioned more by alumni as a professor and a mentor than Ross Peterson,” says Joe Ward, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “As far as who inspired them or was helpful, no one is mentioned more often than Ross. And I say that in terms of multi generations of students. It’s not just students of a certain era, it’s alumni who stretch across decades.

“Ross joined the faculty in the ’70s, but he’d been a student a decade earlier, and he’s been a part of USU and Cache Valley with a few exceptions, ever since. He has 60 years of connections to this place.”

Although Peterson taught numerous history courses and authored many books, including A History of Cache County and Idaho: A Bicentennial History, many of Peterson’s strongest connections revolve around the subject he’s best known for teaching: the American Civil Rights Movement.

After graduating from USU with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1965, Peterson went on to complete a Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S. History at Washington State University in 1968. He then accepted a position teaching history at the University of Texas-Arlington during a “very intense time” in American history.

Peterson relocated to Texas as the war in Vietnam was escalating and the country was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 had recently been signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, just as Peterson as embarking on his teaching career at a campus that had been integrated for only six years.

Although there weren’t a lot of Black students at UTA, Peterson says most of them gravitated towards taking the two required semesters of U.S. history from him because he wasn’t from Texas or the South. That led to administrators ask him to develop a course in African American studies.

“And I was into that personally, coming out of the ’60s anyway,” Peterson explains. “The year I went to Texas was the year that Martin Luther King was assassinated, so it was heavy on our minds. We just did whatever we could to do something in that field.”

Peterson, who also helped orchestrate UT Arlington’s nickname change from the Rebels to the Mavericks, was only in Texas for three years. But that period helped further refine his passion for educating college students about the Civil Rights Movement and the plight of African Americans, as well as other groups which have been oppressed, such as Native Americans and Japanese Americans during World War II.

Peterson was honored with the Governor’s Award for Humanities in 1998, and during the ceremony, Stanford Cazier, a longtime history professor who served as the president of Utah State University from 1979 to ’92, recalled Peterson’s return to USU as a teacher in 1971.

“He was an outstanding professor that took USU’s history department by storm,” Cazier was quoted as saying by the Deseret News.

Peterson chuckles when asked about his late mentor’s “storm” comment and replies, “I think I just mystified those guys a little bit because as a student, I wrote good papers and tested well, but I never talked in class.

“… I think I was totally different when I came back as a professor after three years in Texas. Especially after working with Black students and taking on some of those battles. You weren’t afraid of administrators, you just went in and did those kinds of things, getting new ideas and trying to get support for them.”

Always a huge supporter of USU athletics, Peterson is particularly beloved by dozens of current and former Aggie athletes, many of them African Americans, for boldly tackling some of the most difficult subjects in American history. Cree Taylor, now a senior lecturer in the English Department at USU, was one of Peterson’s students who was greatly influenced by his approach. A native of Rigby, Idaho, who was adopted by White parents, Taylor excelled academically and athletically in high school before coming to Utah State to compete in track in 2011. 

“I love history, and so a lot of things I learned in that class with Ross were more details about things I had heard and learned about growing up,” Taylor says. “The thing that was eye-opening for me was that a White teacher was speaking so candidly about those things because, in my experience, that wasn’t the case where a White instructor would be so candid and open about racism.

“… The expectation is when you walk into a class on the Civil Rights Movement that a Black teacher will be tasked with teaching the class. But Ross spoke so candidly, was so knowledgeable and spoke in-depth about the Civil Rights Movement in a way that I had never experienced from a White person before.

“So, for me,” Taylor adds, “it was like this great immersive experience because I thought, ‘No, actually everyone can have these conversations. And we can do it in respectful and meaningful ways.’”

A Lasting Partnership

Even though she was never officially one of his students, there’s likely no one who has listened to more Ross Peterson lectures than his wife, Kay. 

“I’ve heard a few … hundred hours of Ross lecturing,” she acknowledges. “I try to be supportive of him, and he’s supportive of me and my interests. My passion is music, and his passion is history, and we both have a passion for his civil rights quest. And because of that, we have been able to embrace so many people that don’t look exactly like we do, but who are exactly like we are. And we love them all. We have lots of surrogate children.”

While they were still children growing up in Montpelier, Ross played in the school band with Kay, who is two years younger. Kay was also one of his writers while he was the sports editor of the student newspaper at Bear Lake High School. The two ended up going on one date just before Peterson left to serve two years in the Great Lakes Mission, “but we were not an item,” Kay clarifies.

Kay reluctantly notes that she was attending BYU when she ran into Peterson following his mission, and eventually he made a trip down to Provo to pay her a visit.

“And the rest is history,” Kay declares, quickly adding, “and one of the reasons he liked me is because I can throw a baseball like a boy.

“I was introduced to baseball while I was a child by a cousin whose father was a Little League coach, and they took me to games down in Salt Lake. So, I became very interested in baseball. The problem was, I loved the Dodgers, because that’s who they loved, while Ross is, of course, an Atlanta Braves fan.”

The couple married in December 1963, and “after living with it 24/7, I kind of converted to the Braves,” Kay admits with a chuckle.

She ended up graduating from USU with a degree in American studies, while all three of the Petersons’ sons — Bret, Bart and Fred — are also Utah State graduates, along with six of their grandchildren.

“Ross and Kay have been such a remarkable couple for all these years,” Ward says. “So often, the folks who are inspired by one, quickly mention the other. It’s their compassion; it’s their generosity. It’s a reminder that a kind word delivered at the right moment can have a long legacy.”

A part of that legacy is the F. Ross and Mary Kay Peterson Scholarship, which benefits first-generation USU students who hail from rural areas, and the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies that Peterson founded in 1986. The former head of USU’s Department of History has also guided numerous historical tours for the Utah State Alumni Association, is one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Golden Spike Monument in Brigham City and continues to be a highly sought-after speaker around the valley, the state, and the country.

And even in their 80s, the Petersons are seemingly omnipresent at all Utah State activities, whether they be athletic contests, concerts, plays or special events. And it’s rare when they go somewhere where they don’t know someone. Fortunately, Ross is known for his incredible recall of names and faces, often remembering students he taught decades ago.

“We’ve had some great experiences,” Kay says. “Some people can’t understand how we stay so connected, but we’re connected with people. The students we’ve had that have grown up. And we’ve just always been so attached to Utah State. We’ve been here for the good times and some difficult times, but we’ve always stayed loyal to our student friends who have grown up now and become great adults.”

An Enduring Legacy

Milton R. Merrill, who worked at Utah State from 1927 to ’65, was a mentor to Ross Peterson while serving under President Daryl Chase as USU’s first vice president. Unfortunately, Merrill was very ill by the time Peterson returned to his alma mater as a professor, prompting him to request a visit from Peterson shortly before he passed away in 1971.

“He told me, ’You’ll have a great career at Utah State if you remember three things,’” Peterson recalls. “‘One, never offend a secretary. Two, know the custodians by their first name. And three, remember, it’s about the students.’”

Peterson has remembered those words of advice for more than half a century. And similarly, Taylor still regularly consults the “Words of Advice from Dr. Peterson” that she wrote down while taking History 4720 in the spring of 2013.

“The four Essentials for Life are: Develop a passion for the place, develop a passion for the present, develop a passion for the future, and have a passion for people.” And under the final item, Peterson also encouraged Taylor and her fellow students to “engage in others, no one is ‘self-made;’ act and help others to have better lives; help others accomplish things; remember the people that helped get me here; give back.”

Taylor, who is the faculty advisor for the Black Student Union at USU, has taken many of those words of wisdom to heart as she transitioned from a student of Peterson’s to one of his colleagues. 

“It’s been really, really cool because I had the man, the myth, as a teacher as an undergrad,” Taylor explains. “But because he cares about me being a successful faculty member at USU, I’ve been able to learn and grow even more in the last six or seven years.”

Cache Valley native Terrell Baldwin, a history teacher and coach at Sky View and Green Canyon high schools the past 28 years, was friendly with Peterson’s sons growing up and went on baseball trips with the Petersons as a teenager. He eventually ended up at Utah State in some of Peterson’s history classes on his way to completing a master’s and two bachelor’s degrees.

“Every time you’re in Ross’ presence, there’s a teaching moment,” Baldwin says. “He’s the epitome of a true educator. He loves people, and he knows how to treat people. There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m teaching a class that I don’t think of Ross as a professor.”

Baldwin, who also worked as a student assistant for Peterson for a time, notes that three other history teachers at Green Canyon were also taught and mentored by Peterson. 

“It’s really hard to describe the effect he’s had on people’s lives,” Baldwin declares. “And I don’t want his legacy to be forgotten because he’s had such a huge, huge impact on so many people’s lives.”