It is totally appropriate that Dr. Frances Flanagan ’35 is featured as “faithful, proud and true” in a magazine issue during Missouri Western’s centennial year. She was born the same year as the St. Joseph Junior College opened and has been an advocate for the Junior College and Missouri Western ever since she first walked through the doors of the Junior College.
Besides being an alumna, Dr. Flanagan was also a faculty member at the St. Joseph Junior College and Missouri Western, serving for six years as department chair.
She retired in 1980, and in 1982, Dr. M.O. Looney, Missouri Western’s president, asked the professor emerita of English to research and write Missouri Western’s history, covering 1915 to 1983. She was given just nine months to complete the task, and she said she put in many long hours to have the book ready for publication in time.
As part of Missouri Western’s centennial, Dr. Flanagan’s book will be reformatted and available online.
After Dr. Flanagan earned her associate degree from the Junior College, she began teaching elementary students in the St. Joseph School District. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, and her master’s and doctorate from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. She joined the faculty of the St. Joseph Junior College in 1963.
As Missouri Western celebrates its centennial year, we want to extend our best wishes to Dr. Flanagan for a happy centennial year, too, and we thank her for being faithful, proud and true to Missouri Western.