04-09-2018
( Reply#: 9167 ) |
Colonel |
No one having guessed here, I now supply the answers.
The schools attended by Fred McFeely Rogers are readily ascertainable online. After being educated in the public schools of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. However, after a year or so, he transferred to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where he completed his education with a degree in music composition. Since Shep never lived in Latrobe and clearly never attended an Ivy League school -- he would have been sure to have mentioned it if he had -- that leaves Rollins, if one were to make an educated guess.
On the other hand, there is nothing in print (or online, for that matter) that accurately and completely reveals a timeline of all the schools Shep attended after graduation from Hammond High in June 1939. Shep, in large measure, is responsible for the foregoing, often having fabricated his post-Hammond education (as well as most other things about his personal life).
In any event, Shep at least once provided something like a complete list of schools he attended. It occurred in response to a question from the audience at an appearance at the Overseas Press Club in Manhattan on March 2, 1970. Among those he listed was Rollins College. But as I said, Shep often fabricated his personal history.
But not this time, as revealed by independent research.
Shep served in Army uniform for 20 months, much of that time attending schools, both military and civilian. After basic training at Camp Crowder (thereafter serving some time at Camp Murphy), Shep was selected to be a cadet in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). In August 1943, Shep began refresher courses in Florida at Rollins, then an Army STAR (Specialized Training and Reassignment) school, in preparation for his transfer to an ASTP school. After about two months at Rollins, Shep began the ASTP Basic Engineering curriculum at the University of Maryland (College Park), the academic year beginning on October 11, 1943. He would apparently remain there until the entire ASTP program was terminated by the Army at all schools in March 1944. Shep would be discharged from the Army "for the convenience of the Government" by the end of that year. |
