Hal Ross
Kansas Historical Foundation
Board of Directors
Elected to board: 1994
Elected to executive committee: 1998
President: 2004-2005
Hal Ross grew up in Ottawa, where he graduated from Ottawa High School. During the summers he worked for his father in a small local flour mill. In 1949 he earned a degree from Kansas State University in flour milling administration. He decided to continue his education at the University of Kansas in the field of law and received his LLB and Juris Doctor degree in 1952.
Later in 1974, his family sold out their milling interest at Wichita, Newton, Wellington and Hutchinson, including the Wichita Terminal elevator to Cargill Inc. At this point, he opened offices in law and concentrated on his farming, real estate and oil interests.
In 1968, he established a fund at Kansas State University, enabling the university to build on ultra modern mill on campus which could produce 200 sacks containing 100 lbs of flour a day. In appreciation, KSU named the mill after Ross, a former graduate in milling.
He is fascinated with flour milling history, and in that capacity, he and a friend restored Champney's Old Oxford Mill in Sumner County. The old water powered mill was built in 1874 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He is also interested in Kansas history and has published a book with two friends entitled "Peerless Princess of the Plains" post card views of early Wichita. In addition, he has studied Kansas postal history and as a hobby has formed a collection of Kansas territorial covers and letters from May 1854 to January 1861.
He is a member of the Franklin County Historical Society, the Brown County Historical Society and the Sedgwick County Historical Society. In the latter, he formerly served as trustee and treasurer.
Ross and his wife, Mary Lou, live in Eastborough and have two daughters, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was first elected to the Kansas Historical Foundation Board of Directors in 1994. He was elected to the executive committee in 1998 and has served on the development committee. He served as president in 2004.
