During July 2008 a portrait dedication ceremony was attended by members of the Byron and Iona Troyer family and BSU faculty members.  The oil portrait of Byron L. Troyer, donated by his children Arlene Rees and Bruce Troyer, was hung in the Department of Anthropology's David Scruton Reading Room.  Benefactor Byron L. Troyer generously donated a posthumous endowment to the Department of Anthropology that has served to create several scholarships and grants annually for anthropology students.  Two scholarships, the Byron L. Troyer Scholarship and the Iona Troyer Scholarship, are awarded to anthropology students each year.  Troyer Grants are also awarded to students annually to help support student research and conference presentations.  Byron L. Troyer, veteran journalist, editor, and author, was a native of LaFontaine in Wabash County.  During his career he served on the editorial staffs of newspapers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Marion, and Bloomington.  He edited and published Hoosierland Magazine, and planned the format of and edited the state magazine, Outdoor Indiana.  He wrote the books Touring Historic Indiana and Yesterday's Indiana, as well as articles and stories for ninety magazines.  Byron L. Troyer had an avid interest in the anthropology, history, archaeology and prehistory of  Indiana, hence the gift to the Department of Anthropology.  The original 2000 BSU news story announcing the Troyer endowment is presented below. 

'Curious' Hoosier author endows anthropology scholarship (4/25/2000)

MUNCIE, Ind. - During the 1970s, students in the Ball State University Department of Anthropology practiced archeological digs on land belonging to Byron L. Troyer, an Indiana author and editor. Today, students of the same department are thankful to Troyer for more than the practical knowledge gained from his farmland. A gift of $161,500 from the estate of Troyer's wife Iona Lloyd Troyer has established the Byron L. Troyer Scholarship in the Department of Anthropology.

The endowed fund provides scholarships and research and travel grants to outstanding students in the department.

Troyer introduced himself to Ball State with a phone call to Elizabeth Glenn, the former department chair.

"He was interested in Native American life in an Indiana context and would call Professor Glenn with questions," said current chair Don Merten. "It isn't rare to have calls like these, but it's usually a one shot deal. Mr. Troyer continued to call occasionally."

Troyer was born in the small town of LaFontaine in 1909 to corn farmers. His father, C.E. Troyer, was a farming celebrity--named "World's Corn King" at the International Hay and Grain Show four times during the 1930s.

Byron Troyer attended Indiana, Purdue and Pennsylvania State universities. He married and had two children, and married a second time in 1954 to Iona Lloyd.

Troyer, a copy editor for the Indianapolis News in the early 1950s, worked for newspapers in Marion, South Bend, LaFontaine and Fort Wayne. He was financial editor of the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette for 12 years and owned and published the Bourbon (Ind.) News Mirror in the mid-1960s.

In 1966 Troyer was named editor of Outdoor Indiana, the Department of Natural Resources magazine. He is the author of "Touring Historic Indiana" and "Yesterday's Indiana," a narrative history of the state for which he assembled 435 photographs, drawings and maps.

"My impression is that he was an individual who was intellectually curious and remained so his entire life," Merten said. "He saw the university as a resource of knowledge."

Troyer died in 1980 in Fort Myers, Fla. The estate from his widow's recent death provided the endowment.

Merten said the department is still working out the details of how the money will be used.

"We want to make awards that are substantial enough to really help students, but we want to help as many students as possible," he said.

The awards will likely be made as scholarships to one or two students each year along with smaller grants to students willing to present their research at conferences.

"The grants give us an opportunity to tell a student that if he or she does the research and writes the paper, we can take them to San Francisco or Dallas or wherever the meeting is that year," Merten said. "For our students it's not easy to pull together several hundred dollars to attend a conference that will help them individually and professionally. A grant could make the difference in whether they go."