Today marks the celebration of President's Day -- a topic to which Penn State is no stranger.

Whether in an official or unofficial capacity, Happy Valley has become a popular stop-off for nearly every U.S. President, starting with Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower in 1955, said Annemarie Mountz, Penn State spokeswoman.

Ninety-eight years after the founding of the university, Eisenhower took the Bellefonte Central Railroad to Centre County, where his wife, Mamie, presided over the beginning of "Spring Week" on the Penn State campus, said Michael Bezilla, director of advancement projects for the Office of University Relations. Eisenhower went fishing. But that wasn't the last Penn State saw of Ike.

The former president visited three more times during his term to support his brother, Milton Eisenhower, university president from 1950 to 1956. Occasionally Ike flew to the State College area, although there was no University Park airport at the time, Bezilla said, adding that most visitors of prominence at the time would fly into the Blair County airport.

Eisenhower is the only reported U.S. President to have stayed overnight in State College.

In 1955, Eisenhower gave his famed "Atoms for Peace" speech at commencement, where Penn State presented him with an honorary Doctor of Law degree. According to the Daily Collegian's 1955 archives, 25,000 were estimated to have seen Eisenhower's speech.

The next president to visit Penn State was Richard Nixon in the first year of his presidency, 1969, for a family funeral. Nixon's uncle, Ernest L. Nixon, taught at Penn State for 37 years in the agriculture department, and Ferguson Township has a road named after him, Mountz said. Nixon arrived by helicopter near Beaver Stadium, and his four-car motorcade drew a crowd of thousands hoping to catch a glimpse of the president.

Jimmy Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, vacationed in Centre County numerous times during his presidency as a fishing fan of Spruce Creek.

"He often came there but it is not known whether he came to State College and University Park," Bezilla said. "If he did, it would have been in a strictly unofficial capacity. I don't think he did personally."

Although Gerald Ford hadn't been president for a year when he visited in 1978, he came to speak in the HUB-Robeson Center to campaign for local republican congressional candidates, as well as attend a fundraising lunch downtown, Bezilla said.

Ronald Reagan, who dominated the presidency throughout the '80s, never made an official visit during that decade. But, Bezilla said, it is rumored that he visited Centre County in the early 1950s at an event in Penns Valley. At that time, Reagan was strictly an actor.

While running for re-election in 1992, George H.W. Bush spoke in front of Old Main to a crowd of 20,000. Bush was the first sitting president to visit campus since Eisenhower. Bezilla said it was a friendly visit, but an unsuccessful re-election campaign. It was the second time Bush senior visited Happy Valley -- the first time was during an also unsuccessful bid for presidency in April 1980. He spoke a third time at a political rally in 2004.

The past four presidential visits are split evenly between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

In 1996, Clinton spoke at the Graduate School commencement at the Bryce Jordan Center.

"There's a lot of preparation that gets done," Mountz said. "The Secret Service comes in, and they check out the venues and determine what security is needed."

She said there's a White House Advance Team that checks out facilities for the White House Press Corps and where the president will be staged before he goes out.

Both times Clinton visited -- he came again in 2000 for the National Governor's Association meeting held at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel -- he visited the University Creamery, where he got a Peachy Paterno and Cherry Quist ice cream cone, Bezilla said. Clinton has been the only person to have ever been able to mix two flavors of ice cream at the Creamery.

According to the Daily Collegian's 2000 archives, he also took home half-gallon packages of vanilla, Peachy Paterno and Raspberry Fudge Torte ice cream.

"If he wasn't a fan [of the Creamery] when he got here, he was when he left," Bezilla said.

In George W. Bush's presidency, he has stopped at Penn State twice, although the first time was at the Penn State Delaware County campus for a literacy event.

He spoke at University Park in June 2005 for a Future Farmers of America event.

"It's really exciting, even though I didn't get to meet either president," Mountz said. "It was still exciting working with the White House people and the secret service."