established a self-governing student body. Bennion directed 161 students during his time as principal. The BNS started classes with four teachers, now known as the Founding Four. Bennion, who acted as principal, taught history, geography, and physiology classes during his three-year tenure before he left in 1900 to teach at the University of Utah. Howard R. Driggs acted as the first English professor at BNS until 1905. During his career, Driggs was both a professor of English education and a historian of the American West. SUU still honors his name with the Howard R. Driggs Collection located in the Gerald R. Sherratt Library and plays host to semi-annual lectures by national scholars. The third, George W. Decker, was a southern Utah native and was adamant about teaching from the student's point of view rather from a book. Students loved him so much that a request by the student body to proper authorities was the turning point leading to his appointment as the fourth principal of BNS. Annie Elizabeth Spencer Milne was also on the original BNS staff. She taught physical education and started the school's first basketball team. Under the leadership of Nathan T. Porter, the Science Building was constructed in 1901—now known as the Braithwaite Building — which doubled as classroom space. Interested in the arts, Porter enhanced student theatrical production and started the school's ballroom dance program. Porter remained BNS principal until 1904, when George W. Decker took the position. Decker was among the first four faculty members at BNS and also the first southern Utah native to take the position. He served the school for 16 years, seven on the faculty and nine as principal before he was elected to the office of state representative. Branch Agriculture College Roy F. Homer became principal in 1913 and ushered BNS into the next stage as the Branch Agricultural College (BAC). BAC was a branch school of the Utah State Agriculture College (now Utah State University). BAC received its third building in 1927 as the Women's Gymnasium—now known as the Hunter Conference Center. It was then that ties were created between the school and Zion National Park that are still intact, raising the quality of classes, increasing enrollment, and creating the school's first Greek societies. The school continued to expand under the leadership of Henry Oberhansley and H. Wayne Driggs. Driggs oversaw the building of the Football Field Stadium in