WHAT IS the U OF O YOU ASK?

Have you ever seen shirts with this crest on them and wondered just where is the University of Okoboji? 

The University of Okoboji started small, but now boasts of being the best known non-existent University in the Country!

It all began when the owners of a small clothing store in Milford, Iowa printed a few t-shirts with the crest and school motto, which is "IN GOD WE TRUST, EVERYONE ELSE...CASH".

When Herman Richter, co-owner of 'The Three Sons' clothing store had those first t-shirts printed, he couldn't have imagined how big the "university" would become.  The U of O sponsors many activities around our "campus" all year that draw people from all over the our beautiful Iowa Great Lakes Region.  In 1988, the formation of the University of Okoboji Foundation was announced. 

Excerpts from the "school scrapbook" is perhaps, the best way to explain the University of Okoboji and what it is all about.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - NOVEMBER 1977
Milford, Iowa - the University of Okoboji, located somewhere on the boundary line between the Big Ten and the Big Eight, has everything you would expect of a top flight institution of higher learning.  Everything, that is, except dormitories, classrooms, a curriculum, students and a faculty. 

That leaves bumper stickers, pennants, sweatshirts and about 500 trash barrels with signs imploring potential litterers to "help keep your campus clean".  But it's the latter things that have helped make the "University of Okoboji" what it is.....or rather, what it isn't.

THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR - APRIL 1986
Like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, the U of O is a state of mind and a fount of whimsical humor.  Example:  Herman Richter is supposed to have told an un-informed New Yorker that those shacks on the campus's frozen lakes were student housing whose main problem was water in the basement.

For a taste of the University of Okoboji firsthand, please visit their website at:
www.universityofokoboji.com