Wendell E. Dunn - Early Years in South Dakota

Early Years in South Dakota

Wendell Dunn was the son of Moncena and Lois Woodward Dunn. Moncena Dunn (1867-1944) was a farmer, optometrist, and inventor of the patented Dunn Ballot (fraud-proof coupon ballot). After a boyhood on a prairie homestead near Summit, South Dakota, Wendell Dunn earned an A.B. in transportation from the University of Wisconsin in 1916. He helped pay his way through college playing professional baseball as a second baseman in the Three-I League and as a cornetist and violinist in musical ensembles. He began his career in education after serving in the Army in World War I, during which time he attended officers candidate school. His first school post was as a high school science teacher in Pierre, South Dakota, from 1918 to 1919. During that time he supplemented his income by ghostwriting speeches for state legislators, sometimes penning remarks on both sides of a debate question. Dunn then served as superintendent of the Blunt, South Dakota, school district for four years before beginning a seven-year tenure as principal of the Aberdeen, South Dakota Senior High School. From 1924 to 1930 he was a professor of economics and American history at the Black Hills Teachers College in Spearfish, South Dakota. In 1927 he earned his M.A. in education from the University of Wisconsin. He moved to Baltimore in 1931. He had studied during summer 1921 at the Johns Hopkins University.