Lloyd Vernor Ballard was born August 22, 1887, in Magnolia Corners near Evansville and called Beloit his home beginning in 1908. He married Eleanor Brannon in Beloit in 1922. He is remembered as one of the most distinguished graduates and teachers at Beloit College. Professor Ballard graduated from Beloit College with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1912 and started teaching at Beloit after receiving his M.A. degree from Harvard University.

He taught the first classes in Sociology ever offered by Beloit College, became the first chairman of the Department of Sociology when it was established in 1934 and he and his wife established and endowed two chairs of sociology and economics. Professor Ballard served Beloit College from 1913 to 1954 and for seven years was secretary of the faculty preceding his retirement with honorary Emeritus rank. Professor Ballard’s teaching career of 40 years at Beloit spanned the terms of four Beloit College’s seven presidents. He was dignified and typically “professorial” in his classroom conduct, yet he had great rapport with his students.

Under his teaching sociology became the most popular course on the camps and widely recognized. In the 1940’s Professor Ballard was a leader in forming statewide programs designed to fight juvenile delinquency and in 1942 he was granted a years leave of absence as chairman of the department of sociology to become assistant director of Wisconsin’s Division of Child Welfare. During this period Professor Ballard was active in writing legislation and speaking throughout the state. He placed primary blame for delinquency on “delinquent home and delinquent parents.”

His influence was felt in the Beloit community when he founded the Family Service Association. His influence in the state included the presidency and work as the Chief Executive Officer of the Wisconsin Welfare Council, Assistant Director of the Wisconsin division of Child Welfare and as the principal author of the Wisconsin Children’s Code. Professor Ballard served as President of the Midwest Sociological Society, wrote numerous articles for professional journals and published college textbooks. “Social Institutions” in 1937 and “Introduction to Sociology” in 1952, as well as a history of Beloit College under the title “The Brannon Years.”

He served with distinction on the Wisconsin Board of Public Welfare, brought new ideas to the handling of welfare cases, was a leader in social work education and brought professionalism to the handling of welfare programs. Many years before it became fashionable to deplore battered wives and abused children and to “become concerned and aware with social problems,” he was spreading the gospel of sociology, prodding legislators, helping the less fortunate with organized welfare programs and giving his students a philosophy of social action and reform.

In 1957 Mr. Ballard and his wife endowed a professional chair in sociology at Beloit College, named by the Board of Trustees the Brannon-Ballard Chair of Sociology in honor of Professor Ballard and the late president of the college, Dr. Melvin A. Brannon, Mrs. Ballard’s father. In 1964 another gift from the Ballard’s in the form of securities and real estate endowed the Lowry-Sale Chair of Economics and Business, named in honor of a grandfather, an aunt and uncle of Mr. and Mrs. Ballard.

In addition to his work in Beloit organizing the Family Service Association, Professor Ballard organized a group of secretaries and presidents of the six agencies included in the Community Welfare Association. This group later was enlarged to include workers in all United Givers agencies, the Vocational School, Job Service and other social programs. This Council of Social Agencies worked cooperatively on programs to eliminate overlapping services. Professor Ballard died on October 5, 1969, at the age of 82.