2016 Hall of Fame Inductee
In a career that spans three ward, Brig. Gen. Norman F. Ramsey (1882-1963) dropped out of Topeka High to participate in the Spanish-American War and later the Philippine Insurrection, seeing combat in the latter, Pvt. Ramsey kept a diary but also wrote back to the THS World about his experiences overseas (courtesy of the family, the THSHS has a copy of his diary). Upon discharge, he returned to Topeka High, graduated, and subsequently obtained an appointment to West Point where he was president of his class, 1905. Assigned to the Ordinance Corps, Ramsey was briefly in France in World War I. When World War II broke out he headed the Army Ordinance Arsenal at Rock Island, IL. In 1926 he earned the Soldier’s Medal for heroism when he risked his life to save others at a New Jersey ordinance depot on fire. For his service, Gen. Ramsey received numerous awards including French Legion d’Honneure and made a Commander of the British Empire. He and his wife Minna Bauer, also a THS graduate (June, 1901), had one surviving son, Norman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1989.