remembering One of Our a rchitects

Peterson earned his master’s and DVM degrees at Kansas State University. He served as a livestock inspector in Illinois and was engaged in general veterinary practice in Colorado and Kansas. He then served as an anatomy instructor at Kansas State University and an assistant professor in the department of physiology at the University of Missouri.

Students in the OSU Center for Veterinary Health Sciences are studying anatomy in a new learning center, named most appropriately the Duane R. Peterson Anatomy Learning Center in honor of beloved professor Dr. Duane R. Peterson.

He taught the first class at the School of Veterinary Medicine 60 years ago and subsequently dedicated nearly 40 years to OSU students of veterinary medicine.

“Many veterinary graduates revere Dr. Peterson for his excellent teaching of anatomy, agronomics, clinical techniques and biochemistry,” says Dr. Michael Lorenz, dean and professor.

He had only one month to prepare for the first OSU veterinary school lectures before classes began on Monday, March 1, 1948. Although he was younger than most of his students, he was named head of veterinary anatomy in 1948, and he became the acting head of veterinary pathology in 1953.

Upon Dean Harry Orr’s sudden death in 1956, Peterson was named acting dean until the appointment of Dean Glenn Holmes later that year.

“Dr. Peterson’s legacy is permanently etched in the College of Veterinary Medicine. It lives on in the many students he inspired, the buildings he helped plan and construct, and in the curriculum he planned and implemented,” Lorenz says.

“We celebrate his legacy by dedicating the anatomy laboratory in his honor. It is fitting that the dedication ceremony coincides with the 60th anniversary of the first lecture given in our college.”

Students in the class of 1980 observe Dr. Duane Peterson from the anatomy laboratory gallery, better known as “the rack.” (Centennial Histories Series)