Dixie State University

Little Dixie State University, St. George History. The State George Stake Academy, which was originally located in the basement of the Tabernacle, in 1911 it moved over to the Woodward Building, which is still there today, and the Woodward Building would have represented the first school. That's now a children's museum, and it's kind of a nice place to take your kids. In there in 1911, it was a high school as well as some university courses. Later in years, around 1930s, the LDS Church then gave that to the State Board of Education. They wanted to split that out into a high school and to a university, but the community resisted. And when the church pulled out of its funding, the community helped fight together to keep the funding together and keep that school alive. And so if you want to go where the original school was in 1911, go to the Woodward Building right next to the St. George Tabernacle on Tabernacle Street and enjoy the history of this great school.

In the 1960s, late 1960s, there was a wonderful woman at Dixie College. Her name was Rowene de Fury and she started a group called the Dixie Dozen which later became the Dixie Program Bureau and they became music ambassadors traveling around singing songs about St. George and Dixie and they became a wonderful, wonderful program that inspired thousands of people to to attend Dixie State College, Dixie University and they would do Midnight Program Bureau and so at Homecoming and on D-Week at midnight, they would all get together and sing the old songs of Dixie. Now Rowene passed away in the 1990s but the program bureau still gets together to this day and so if you're ever in there D-Week and I don't always do it at midnight because we're getting a little bit older but if you're there D-Week or Homecoming, go to the Founders Day assembly and ask when Midnight PB is and you can sing some great songs.

Dixie State College actually originally started, Dixie State University originally started as the St. George Steak Academy. This was in the 1800s when the pioneers first came to the St. George area. They were a group of pioneers from the old Dixie South, southern part of the United States, and they were sent there as cotton farmers. And they stopped right there on the, right there in the middle of where campus is today. And you have the in-campus mall, all right, right there, and you have some statues and some pioneers. And that was actually dedicated to the pioneers because that's right where they stopped. The first thing they did is they built a bowery and they tried to start up a school. And the school failed eventually later, and it was re later reorganized as the St. George Steak Academy. And the quick history, it was located in the, in the basement of the tabernacle on Tabernacle Street there in St. George. And that's where the St. George started its first academy, first school.