 Other fans made the connection with Rufus Putnam, who presided over the meeting to form the Ohio Company of Associates that resulted in the founding of Ohio University.Rufus Putnam was also on the first board of trustees at the University from 1804 to 1824, and was given the honor with the naming of Putnam Hall in 1926.In October 2014, coinciding with a major space conference being held on campus, Rufus the Bobcat was the first college mascot name to venture into deep interstellar space, after his name was submitted by Michael Massa to be included among the names of other individuals on a registry to be transported onboard the Mars regionally bound Orion NASA test Spacecraft.