Badger Boys State adopted a program based upon the experience of the Illinois Boys State which was sponsored by the Illinois American Legion and had been in operation since 1935. Four hundred eighty-four high school juniors attended the first session of Badger Boys State at St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, June 16–23, 1939. The project proved very successful and was unanimously authorized to proceed as a state program by the Wisconsin American Legion Convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The individuals responsible for founding the Badger Boys State program officially on April 8, 1939 were: Due to the limited capacity of St. John's
The Badger Herald Daily Cardinal would later become more moderate in response to pressure from local media, the UW Board of Regents, staff members leaving, declining advertising revenue, and the radicalism of the 1960s and early 1970s dying down around the country. Still, "The Badger Herald" formed in direct response to the then-radicalism of The Daily Cardinal and the campus. After several months of fund-raising, scrounging for desks and typewriters, and renting a walk-up office two blocks from the University's Bascom Hill at 538 State Street, the first issue of "The Badger Herald" was published on September 10, 1969. In the late-1970s, the