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Margaret Teigen was a member of the first graduating class from Concordia College’s Practical Program.  As the only female member of the class, Teigen paved the way for other women to enroll at Concordia and believe that they too could obtain an education. Teigen continued her involvement with the college by serving on the faculty for several years following her graduation before she enrolled in medical school to become a practicing physician.  

Concordia College’s campus houses a select number of academic buildings named after various benefactors as well as historical figures significant to Minnesota. The oldest building on campus, Bishop Whipple, is named after the Epsicopal Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple. The structure, formerly the home of the Bishop Whipple Academy, was purchased by the Northwestern Lutheran College Association in 1891 in order to establish a Norwegian Lutheran school in Moorhead. While many Concordia students and faculty learn and work in this building on a daily basis, most are unaware of the work done by Bishop Whipple, the namesake of this iconic Concordia building. More so, Bishop Whipple’s connection to and work done for the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples from our region, which is unknown to most of the Concordia population, must be assessed and recognized at a campus wide level. Through his passions and labors, Bishop Whipple helped 265 Dakotas obtain pardon from execution after the US-Dakota War. After this, Whipple continued his mission of advocacy for Native Americans, continuing the work of his missions across the state of Minnesota as well.

In 1888, Joachim Murie and Marie Frimanslund moved from Yavick, Norway to Moorhead, Minnesota and married almost immediately. Together with Marie’s brother, Henrick, they purchased a homestead. Their first child, Olaus, was born on March 1, 1889. Marie gave birth to five more children, including Martin (1891) and Adolph (1899). In 1895, Joachim died at the age of thirty-seven likely due to tuberculosis. In April of 1899, Marie married Ed Winstrom, a Swedish bartender in Moorhead. Unfortunately, Ed died from tuberculosis two months into their marriage, but Adolph was already conceived. In 1909, the family also adopted a girl named Clara. To help with family finances, they cut grass for their neighbors, worked for local gardeners, and hunted and fished alongside the Red River. Olaus and Adolph both attribute this time of camping, hunting, fishing, and canoe-making to stimulating their fascination with the natural world.

Elsie Mallinger was born near Sabin, Minnesota on March 2, 1903, the seventh of nine children. Her parents, John and Elizabeth Mallinger, moved to a farm near Ada, Minnesota when Elsie was young. Elsie entered country school at age four. Eventually she started teaching other students in the back of the class while the teacher continued teaching in the front. Elsie graduated high school at age sixteen and returned to her family’s farm for some time. She then attended Dakota Business College in Fargo, graduating in seven weeks.

In 1944, Anna Jordahl was appointed head librarian at Concordia College.  In this capacity she helped develop the plans for the Carl B. Ylvisaker library, built in 1956, which gave her the space to increase the collection size to over 100,000 volumes before her retirement in 1973.
 

Barbara Glasrud (née Crawford), taught art history at Concordia College for over three decades.  During her time at the college, she shared her enthusiasm for art and culture with many students and was instrumental in building the art program at Concordia.

Concordia’s tradition of crowning a homecoming queen began in the 1920s.  Student movements and the influence of the 1960-70s society affected the practice. Due to student concerns, the 1974 Homecoming Chairperson Ken Fitzer substituted the tradition of voting for a homecoming queen with the Don Awards, which was a recognition given to four exemplary senior students. The current practice of crowning both a king and queen began during the homecoming festivities in 1977.

Dorothy Johnson was hired by Concordia College in 1953 as Fjelstad dormitory resident head and assistant to the dean of women. Soon after her arrival she founded the college’s Reading Service to improve students’ reading skills.  She also developed an annual Conference on Reading at Concordia and became president of the Minnesota Reading Association in 1966.