Honoring the commitment to education, hard work of Gus T. Ridgel

We’d like to commend the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library Board of Trustees for its recent selection of a name for the Kanell Boulevard location.

It seems fitting that the new trail the library is blazing with the branch be named after a trailblazer.

The Gus T. Ridgel Branch Library is named after a Poplar Bluff man who was the first African-American admitted to the Graduate School at the University of Missouri in 1950.

Excellence, loyalty and perseverance are the principles Dr. Gus T. Ridgel lived by, according to his daughter Betty Bolden, who spoke to the Columbia Missourian in August after his death.

Rigel was admitted to MU after he won a lawsuit against the university to desegregate the school.

When he arrived at Mizzou, according to the school, he lived alone in a two-person room because others refused to live with him.

He also faced financial challenges, as his G.I. Bill ran out and help from the NAACP was not enough to cover the duration of the two-year program. Ridgel, with help from administration, found a way to complete his four-semester master’s program in just two semesters and did it with honors.

Ridgel did the same at Lincoln University before attending MU, completing his bachelor’s degree in business administration and graduating magna cum laude in three years, his daughter said.

After attending MU, Ridgel earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Wisconsin and started postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago and Duke University.

The small but mighty new library branch has a lot to live up to in its new name.

We hope the renovation work under way now is the start of a future that honors the commitment to education and hard work of Poplar Bluff native Gus. T. Ridgel.

— Daily American Republic