Students and visitors to Pound Hall on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus will now be greeted by the building’s namesake, Louise Pound, following the Sept. 18 unveiling of a statue honoring the multisport athlete and intellectual pioneer.
The statue, the first on campus to honor a woman, depicts Pound holding her bicycle with a tennis racket resting across the handlebars and a stack of books tied to the rear fender.
Sculpted by Dave Biehl, it nods to the multifaceted nature of Pound’s life on campus and beyond.
A Lincoln native, Pound graduated from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 1892, then returned to campus to teach English for nearly a half-century after earning a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, a release from the university explained.
According to the Lincoln Journal Star, Pound co-founded the Order of the Black Masque, the college’s first honor society for senior women now known as Mortar Board.
She also helped organize the first squad of women cheerleaders in the nation.
Pound’s involvement in sports went well beyond cheerleading. She was the first woman to earn a varsity letter in any sport at UNL—for competing in men’s tennis, at that. She also won Nebraska’s first women’s state golf championship in 1916, earned a medal for completing a 100-mile cycling ride, competed in figure skating, and helped lead Nebraska’s first women’s basketball team, according to the university’s release.
“I just couldn’t believe such an outstanding woman existed back in the Victorian era,” said Deb White, who spearheaded the nearly 10-year effort to install a statue of Pound. She first led the campaign to rename the old College of Business building from Social Sciences Hall to Pound Hall.
“[Pound] was involved in everything and so good at it all,” White continued.
White told Nebraska Today that she plans to continue pursuing Pound’s selection for the Nebraska Hall of Fame while working with the Nebraska State Historical Society to place a historical marker near the site of Pound’s former Lincoln home.
“I’m just going to keep working on her legacy,” White said.
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