EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference staff at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.

30 years ago

HOUGHTON — Michigan Technological University should not be blamed for financial wrongdoing and bad investments by a private development company it established, administrators say. The university responded to an audit that described the school’s foray into private business as an almost total failure. The report by the state auditor general said Michigan Tech administrators showed “an inattentiveness to the university’s integrity and its fiduciary responsibility” in overseeing the Ventures Group, the for-profit company established to handle school assets in 1986. In a statement that followed release of the audit Thursday, university officials said “significant change” has been enacted since the period covered by the audit, July 1987 through April 1992. But it said neither university administrators nor the board of control had directly overseen Ventures. Instead, on the advice of attorneys, they set up a separate corporation, the Educational Support Institute, to monitor Ventures. Ventures was created to transfer university technology to the marketplace and foster development in the economically troubled Upper Peninsula. There is widespread agreement that the experiment failed, as evidenced by the liquidation of Ventures holdings over the last 18 months. The two former university officials most closely identified with Ventures are awaiting sentencing for taking kickbacks from a contractor.

60 years ago

MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University’s educational radio station, WNMR-FM, will begin broadcasting on Monday. Broadcast hours of the new station, located in Lee Hall, will be from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays. A special dedication program will be broadcast Monday at 7 p.m., with university officials and Marquette area representatives participating in the event. University officials said the non-commercial station will serve students, faculty, and the public. The station will be operated by students under faculty supervision. Programming will be educational and cultural in nature and will include music, news, and special campus events. WMNR will make use of the educational tape network provided by the National Association of Broadcasters. The first student manager will be Dick Corn, Vulcan senior. Faculty advisors will be John Major and Kenneth Bergsma. The radio station is part of a new communications center which will include a television operation now being organized.