Founded in 1903, Pittsburg State University began as the Kansas State Manual Training Normal School Auxiliary in a borrowed building in downtown Pittsburg. The effort to secure state support to build a permanent building for the new school met with strong opposition from other state schools.
In 1907, the school’s principal, Russell S. Russ, along with faculty and the Pittsburg mayor, lobbied hard in the legislature to get the lawmakers to pass an appropriation for funding. In doing so, Russ broke a legislative rule by sitting in a legislator’s seat during the session. The Pittsburg delegation was fined a barrel of apples for the impropriety.
The requested appropriation was approved, however, and when the triumphant Pittsburg delegation returned to Pittsburg, a joyful assembly of students followed the legislature’s lead and fined the faculty a barrel of apples, which the faculty paid and distributed to the students. They have done so every year since on “Apple Day,” normally observed in March.
