Alex O. Potter
Inducted In
1974
Alex O. Potter was a world traveller, teacher and writer. A Berlin native, he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Gettysburg College and his doctorate from Columbia University.
He was instrumental in the founding of Waterloo College, later Wilfrid Laurier University, and was its first dean and executive head.
As European secretary of Rotary International from 1930 to 1937 he represented Rotary at the public conference on disarmament in Paris in 1931 and attended the League of Nations sessions as a special observer. Potter was awarded the Order of St. Sava by the government of Yugoslavia.
He served in the First World War and worked for the Department of National War Service in the Second World War. Later he was a history professor at Waterloo College and in 1965 was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by Waterloo Lutheran University.
In Kitchener’s Centennial year (1954) he wrote a column “Let’s Reminisce” in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record which he continued until his death in 1969.