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ERITAGE OF THE COLLEGE
Burr Udall
BURR UDALL WAS BORN IN ST. JOHNS, ARIZONA ON JANUARY 20, 1929. HE BEGAN COLLEGE IN 1948 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA AS AN ENGINEERING MAJOR, BUT, ACCORDING TO BURR, HE FLUNKED NEAR- LY EVERY ENGINEERING CLASS HE TOOK. HIS INTEREST THEN TURNED TO ACCOUNTING.
In his senior year of college, his father asked him what he was thinking of doing with his life. Burr responded that he hated accounting and didn’t think he wanted to stay cooped up in an office studying ledgers for the rest of his life. His father, who was a judge, suggested that maybe he should try law school. Burr responded that “every damn Udall in Arizona was already a law- yer,” but he agreed to give it a try.
Judge Levi Stewart Udall had passed the bar exam in 1922 without attending law school. After serving as a Judge in Apache County, Levi was elected as the Chief Judge of the Arizona Su- preme Court, where he served until his death in 1960. Levi was succeeded by his brother and Burr’s uncle, Jesse Udall.
Levi and Louise Udall had six children, Burr the youngest. Burr’s two brothers, Stewart and Morris graduated from the University of Arizona Law School in 1948 and 1949, and formed a law practice in Tucson. Stewart served three terms as a United States Congressman. and was the Secretary of Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Stewart’s son Tom is the former U.S. Senator from New Mexico and the current U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand.
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