Sherman Dryer (1913–1989) entered the University of Minnesota in 1934. As a student, Dryer was in the leadership of the Minnesota Daily, headed a new literary magazine, and worked at the campus radio station WLB. He was a political activist in the Minnesota Student Alliance. He appeared on Chase lists as “Jew, Communist, Agitator, and Publicist.” After leaving the university in 1936, he worked on Governor Elmer Benson’s staff as well and was the subject of Ray P. Chase’s Are They Communists or Catspaws: a Red Baiting Pamphlet.

Dryer went on to a distinguished career in radio. He was awarded a 1941 Peabody for Roundtable of the Air, a University of Chicago radio series.