What's in a Name? Sue Lombard Hall

Sue Lombard Hall is named to honor CWU’s first female trustee, Sue Lombard (Horsley), who served from 1915 to 1928.

Lombard was born on September 11, 1858 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her family relocated to Iowa in 1869 and then to Yakima, Washington, in 1889, where her brother, Henry Huntington Lombard, became a partner in a prominent local furniture business.

Lombard became involved in a number of social clubs in the Yakima area and was a driving force in establishing the Yakima YMCA (and was its first president). She also served as a president of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, founder of the Narcissa Whitman chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and as a member (and president) of the Visiting Nurses association.

In 1915, Washington Governor Ernest Lister appointed Lombard to the Board of Regents at the Washington State Normal School in Ellensburg (as CWU was known at the time).

In 1917, Lombard married Frank Horsley, who was her brother’s business partner and a widower (he had been married to Lombard’s sister, Angenette, who died in 1915).

During her term on the Normal School board, Lombard supported construction of two additional residence halls for student housing. According to historian Samuel Mohler, local bonds were sold to pay for the buildings with construction beginning in 1926.

Following the completion of the buildings, the board of regents named one of them after Lombard, whose term was ending in 1928, to honor her years of service to the institution. The other building, across what is now University Way, became Munson Hall.

Sue Lombard Hall, along with Munson, were designed to echo the Spanish Colonial Revival Style of Kamola Hall, which had been built in 1911. While the four-story structure has been modified several times over the years, the original building was made of brick and wood.

In 1943, a kitchen canopy was installed on the building and in 1965, a hallway addition was built to connect the main building to the Tunstall Commons dining area (now the location of the 1891 Bistro). More major interior renovations were completed in 2006, which helped to modernize the rooms and bring the building up to code.

In the years following her time as a regent, Lombard remained active with the school, participating in annual tea events for many years with students living in the building that carried her name. She died in 1935, following a lengthy illness.