Entering the U.S. Marine Corps straight out of college in 1941 as a second lieutenant, Lee earned both the Silver and Bronze Stars as a communications officer on Guadalcanal and Okinawa and rose to the rank of major by war’s end. (Along the way, he found time to marry Kathryn Smith ’42 during a stateside assignment between tours of duty in the Pacific.) Recalled to active duty in 1952, he served another 14 months during the Korean War and returned home a lieutenant colonel.

He served his alma mater in many roles: as director of admissions from 1947 to 1955, alumni trustee from 1958 to 1964, director of development from 1963 to 1969, and registrar from 1969 to 1985.

And he served his community, most notably as secretary of the Wooster Rotary Club for 35 years, a record unlikely ever to be approached, much less equaled.

Growing up in New Martinsville, West Virginia, Lee first heard about The College of Wooster from Frederick W. Cropp ‘26, a minister in Wheeling who worked at a summer camp that Lee attended. A high school teacher also sang Wooster’s praises.

Lee worked his way through Wooster as a waiter, and later headwaiter, at Babcock (and recalls that tuition, room and board his senior year amounted to $625). When he offered to spruce up a room in his landlady’s house, he discovered a latent talent as a paperhanger that the college was happy to put to good use. The next summer, he papered a hundred rooms in college buildings, the most memorable of which was in a house on College Avenue. Make that the house on College Avenue. The room was Otelia Compton’s bedroom, and so pleased was she with the outcome, Lee recalls, "she gave me a crisp dollar bill." To his protest that he was already being paid by the college, Mrs. Compton replied, "I’ve never known a college student who didn’t need a dollar."

Lee majored in physics and math, and his skill in mechanical drawing – "the only ‘A’ I ever got at Wooster" – led to a commission from Professor Karl Ver Steeg to draw a campus map that was used for many years thereafter.

That map was just one of the subtle but lasting marks Lee left on The College of Wooster. As an alumni trustee, he sketched out the design for Andrews Library’s study carrels on the back of a placemat over dinner with Howard Lowry at the Wooster Inn.

But perhaps his most indelible mark is a humble Tootsie Roll. As registrar, Lee thought students should receive something a bit more celebratory than just a receipt for turning in their I.S. So he began handing out a piece of candy to each senior. One year, the women in the office found they could get a good price on Tootsie Rolls in bulk. "So they should get all the credit," Lee says.

Asked which of his jobs at Wooster he liked best, Lee answers without hesitation: "Registrar, because I got to see more students."