Leman, Nancy Farwell.

A.L. (August LeRoy) Strand was appointed as President of Oregon State College in the fall of 1942 and led the College through World War II and the post-war period of extensive growth in students and facilities. Strand retired in 1961 and remained in Corvallis where he served a 4-year term on the Benton County Commission. He died in Corvallis in 1980.

Strand was born in Victoria, Texas, in 1894, but moved to Montana as a young boy soon after the turn of the 20th century. He earned a BS degree in entomology from Montana State College in 1917 and MS and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in the mid-1920s. He returned to Montana State College in 1931 as Professor and Head of the Entomology Department. Six years later, in 1937, he was appointed the college's President. The student union building at Montana State University was named for A.L. Strand in 1972. As student body president in 1917, he began a long-range student campaign to build the union which became a reality while he was President of Montana State College.

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