University
of Okoboji Online Store |
Have you 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 nonexistent 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".
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When Herman Richter, co-owner of The Three Son's 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 to the beautiful Iowa Great
Lakes Region. In 1988 the formation of the University of Okoboji
Foundation was announced.
Perhaps the best way to tell you about the University of Okoboji is with
excerpts from the school scrapbook.
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 uninformed New Yorker that
those shacks on the campus's frozen lakes were student housing whose
main problem was water in the basement. |
