Early traditions Help form tarleton’s identity

early traditions Help Form

raditions Help Form tarleton’s identity

It may be right or it may be wrong; it may be good or it may be bad; but right or wrong, good or bad, it has always been done this way. We like it done this way and we plan to continue to do it this way

– L. V. Risinger

Through the roaring ‘20s, the Great Depression and beyond, Tarleton was establishing its identity among Texas schools.

Dean J. Thomas Davis, who served the longest term for any Tarleton chief executive, took over the school in 1919 and became the catalyst for many of the changes that helped create its character.

He was first to live in what has been named the Trogdon House, part of an extensive building boom on campus. Davis also oversaw the construction of a new conservatory, a science building, additions to the women’s dormitory, a central heating plant and the installation of the famous stone gates at the college’s entrance.

The improved facilities brought with them a corresponding jump in enrollment. Student numbers were boosted three-fold to more than 1,800 in the decade of the 1920s, prior to a downturn as a result of the Great Depression.

One tradition, not invented by Davis but enforced by his administration, was the annual publication of “The Purple Book,” which served as a student conduct guide.

A photo of the 1966 Homecoming bonfire burning brightly. Members of the 1945 Ten Tarleton Sisters (TTS), now known as the Purple Poo, promote school spirit amongst students.

The book, among a myriad other regulations, dictated that female students were to be in their rooms by 7 p.m. on weeknights. Men, many of whom were residents of boarding houses off campus, got an extra 30 minutes. Additionally, the book stated students were not allowed to ride in cars, had to take the most direct route possible when going to town, and not partake of alcohol, tobacco or dancing. Plus, girls had to have a chaperone to talk on the phone.

While the restrictive tone set a formidable list of “don’ts,” students of the Stephenville campus nonetheless set about formulating some of the university’s most beloved traditions. As with other colleges across the nation, a big part of Tarleton’s identity came with the advent of these student-led traditions, many of which revolved around athletics, especially the annual homecoming football game.

For example, the beating of the drum, one of the best-known rituals, starts on an autumn Tuesday with students pounding a 55-gallon barrel for 24 hours a day until Saturday’s yearly homecoming football game.

The tradition initially began in the ‘20s as a way to defend the bonfire from rival North Texas Agricultural College. Now, threats to the bonfire site appear to have diminished, but the symbolic drum beating and the connected bonfire have become integral parts of homecoming festivities.

While working hard to establish its own traditions, Tarleton still shares some of its long-held customs with Texas A&M, including not walking on campus grass, the annual Silver Taps and the yearly lighting of the bonfire.

Student organizations, Ten Tarleton Peppers (TTP) and Ten Tarleton Sisters (TTS) began in 1921 and 1923, respectively, to anonymously boost the Plowboys, who before 1924 were called the Junior Aggies. The groups met nocturnally and painted signs, initially on canvas, for upcoming games. Senior students’ identities were revealed annually upon publication of the yearbook.

The Purple Poo, originally TTP and TTS, is a secret organization still with a sign-creating presence on campus. Members dress in costume for public appearances to conceal their identities, unmasking at the annual Leadership and Service Awards Ceremony each April.

Air raid intended to inflame rivalry

Students had been working for months collecting fuel for the annual homecoming bonfire.

Scrap wood had been donated, some perhaps unknowingly, to the mass of lumber that would light up the sky prior to the Plowboys’ annual battle against the archrival Grubbs of North Texas Agricultural College (NTAC).

Another tradition, one less official, had emerged as the two schools battled each season. Each student body sought to light the other’s bonfire prematurely, to have the flames burn and go down before scheduled celebrations.

Tarleton’s annual beating of the drum tradition began as a deterrent to rivals seeking to slip in and torch the heap early. In fact, a horde of Tarleton students had, in 1939, driven to Arlington and done just that.

In response, an army of Grubbs supporters planned a unique air attack on the Plowboys’ 30-foot-high structure awaiting Friday night’s lighting.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before homecoming, the sound of a propeller buzzed overhead, noticed by Tarleton football player L. V. Risinger. A plane, flown by two NTAC fans, swooped directly toward the bonfire site with a payload of phosphorous bombs intended to ignite the scrap lumber.

The plane was supported on the ground by truckloads of Grubbs, who were intended to distract Tarleton students and allow the plane to glide in and destroy the woodpile. One bomb dropped, was recovered before burning and buried by local students.

Mickey Maguire, an eye-witness to the event, stood atop the wood stack with a garden hose in hand to battle any flames that might erupt. He recalls how low the plane was flying.

“There were two men in the airplane,” he said, “They were so low I was eye-balin’ the men in the cockpit.”

As the plane circled for another try, Risinger hurled a two-by-four from the lumber heap into the air. The board hit its low-flying target, forcing the damaged plane to make an emergency landing on campus, barely missing the home of Dean J. Thomas Davis, and landing in his garden.

Thomas came to the rescue of the pilots, taking them from the clutches of angry Plowboys supporters and escorting them to the dining hall to await pick-up by NTAC administrators.

Risinger’s heroics resulted in having the yearly bonfire named after him. For a first-hand account from a participant in the 1939 bonfire defense, watch the video and hear the story from Maguire, ’40: www.tarleton.edu/maguire.

About the end of World War II, leaders from both schools decided enough was enough and temporarily halted the annual bonfires, choosing instead to award the season’s football game winner a trophy Silver Bugle, the subject of another lasting Tarleton tradition.

Football player L.V. Risinger holds his brother aloft. Risinger famously threw a 2x4 piece of wood at a rival plane, which hit the propeller and took the plane down.

As political conditions eroded in Europe and America’s entry into war seemed inevitable, Tarleton’s administration prepared the school to do its part. Dean J. Thomas Davis had joined forces with municipal leaders in 1939 to petition the Civil Aviation Authority to offer pilot training at Tarleton in anticipation of the United States’ entry into World War II. Additionally, the school offered ancillary courses in airplane engine mechanics and a preparatory class for air corps hopefuls. Dean. J. Thomas Davis In 1942, Davis even rearranged the school’s class schedule in the summer, making it a regular semester so students anxious to enlist in the military could graduate quicker.

Women who wished to join the effort were included in a course instructing them to perform traditionally male duties at defense plants, now scattered across the country.

Tarleton also became a selected campus for the Army Specialized Training Program, as college professors instructed soldiers in specific high-need areas, including engineering, medicine, science, mathematics and languages.

Among the college’s graduates who served with distinction in World War II were pilots Lt. Col. William Dyess and Bob “Bullet” Gray.

Dyess, who was forced into the infamous Bataan Death March after being captured by Japanese soldiers, is credited with shooting down five enemy planes and destroying a 12,000-ton ship in the Pacific theater.

Gray, one of 80 pilots selected by well-known fighter pilot Lt. Col. James Doolittle to participate in the Raid over Tokyo, targeted a Japanese munitions factory before being hit and forced to bail out over China.

But the school was not just educating soldiers. It was supplying them.

Obviously, students were flocking to recruitment offices, but Tarleton’s faculty also answered the call sent out for men to defend the nation. Among them were professor of auto mechanics E.A. “Doc” Blanchard, who became a quartermaster; O.H. Frazier, who went from teaching animal husbandry to serving in a tank destroyer unit; and Plowboy football coach James Earl Rudder, who became an Army Ranger.

Rudder was in the first wave of U.S. soldiers to storm Normandy Beach on D-Day. He is credited with leading a cliff-side raid that disabled German artillery. By the time the war had ended, Maj. Gen. Rudder had become one of the nation’s most decorated soldiers. He was later installed as President of Texas A&M University and Chancellor of The Texas A&M University System.

Strong Military

The college uniform Forged was based on a classic military look, even in the very beginning.

Tarleton’s ever-present connections to the military became even more pronounced when it became part of The Texas A&M University System. The Aggies shared their servicebased traditions of drill and military tactics that were part of the curriculum for male students in the fall of 1917.

Preparing for the eventuality of joining World War I, local students marched in their street clothes with wooden rifles to perfect their close quarter skills.

By Thanksgiving, each cadet was swathed in an official uniform and training evolved into a national duty. Doing its part in the war effort, Tarleton formed a branch of the Students’ Army Training Corps so men in classes in Stephenville could continue studying while training for deployment overseas.

Administrators were initially leery of the plan, arguing that students shouldn’t be expected to carry a full academic load and train for combat. However, the $30 stipend offered for trainees proved to be more of an enticement than that argument could subvert.

Many of Tarleton’s young men were called upon in WWI, including Ammon Turnbow, the first in Erath County to sacrifice his life in the conflict.

In a letter from Turnbow to then college President James Cox, the soldier described his connection to the school, as well as some of the difficulties he and his fellow doughboys faced.

“No doubt you will be surprised to hear from an old student like me,” Turnbow wrote in September of 1918, “but when one has gone to the old college as long as I have, I think about how things are going about now.” His reminiscences were short as his situation took over the letter’s tone. “I have been having some real times over here,” Turnbow penned. “Have been in the front line once and stayed there three days and nights. No sleep nor rest while you are there. You don’t want to sleep very much.”

Ammon Turnbow, who attended Tarleton, was the first in Erath County to sacrifice his life during World War I.

Lt. Col. William Dyess Chancellor John Sharp (right) talks with members of the Corps of Cadets, including the first female corps commander, Kelley Rumsey, following an exhibition of military drill on campus.

The end of World War I did not end Tarleton’s military contributions.

In the middle of World War II (1943), 2,500 would-be soldiers were based in Tarleton’s Army Specialized Training Program. Among those training in the program were war hero Lt. Col. William Dyess, academy award-winning actor George Kennedy, and Gen. James Earl Rudder.

The ASTP program originally was intended for four-year colleges only, however Tarleton administrator E.A. “Doc” Blanchard, convinced the army brass that the school and the training program were a good fit. It was fortuitous for the Stephenville school as the war had resulted in drastically declining enrollment numbers.

Blanchard himself joined the Army Intelligence Corps, making him one of very few with Tarleton ties to serve in both World Wars.

World War II Gen. Mayhew Wainright was honored at Tarleton with the 1949 formation of the Wainright Rifles drill team. Entry into the group required an audition and a vote by existing members.

The team made appearances at various drill competitions, at every home football game with its finest hour coming in a performance at the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.

The group reformed in 2013 after two decades of inactivity.

The Texan Corps of Cadet program was revived in the fall 2016 with the goal to develop leaders of character, instilled with the values essential for service to the nation and exceptionally qualified to succeed in business, government and the military.

World War II Gen. Mayhew Wainright

As World War II was winding down, so was the administration of Dean J. Thomas Davis, who had guided John Tarleton Agricultural College through nearly three decades in The Texas A&M University System.

Post-War Era Saw Lasting Changes In 1945, Davis handed the reins to President E.J. Howell, who would oversee the school through a period of unprecedented campus growth and change. on Campus Realizing he was building upon the foundation supplied by Davis, Howell was quick to offer his appreciation. “This fine physical plant, the strong faculty, the high academic standards and the thousands of men and women who are former students of the college stand as a monument to his wise leadership and administration,” Howell said. Challenges confronted him. Overcoming space shortages in housing and classrooms with resourceful additions of student living space and new agriculture and science buildings, a women’s gym and a student center, Tarleton took on the aspect of a major educational center. To draw more female students, Tarleton added an education program. Howell felt, however, that the John Tarleton Agricultural College moniker limited the scope of perceived educational opportunities on campus. He proposed a name change to Tarleton State College, which won the approval in 1949. The most enduring change—offering bachelor’s degrees—required the heavy lifting of public support. Howell turned to Stephenville community stalwarts in 1952 for help, and they responded by creating the Tarleton State College Booster Committee, chaired by Dr. Vance Terrell, and including Hugh Wolfe, Brad Thompson, Bill Oxford, Lucy King and a virtual Who’s Who of local leadership. The committee’s credo, “If Tarleton College Grows, Our Town Grows,” produced a three-year strategy to attract more students. Included in the plan were an additional 100 scholarships and a far-

Saw Lasting Changes on Campus

reaching publicity campaign. Enrollment rose in 1953, topping the 1,100 mark by decade’s end.

Terrell, Joseph Chandler and other Booster leaders were convinced that regional educational needs could only be met by a four-year school. Easier said than done.

After a failed attempt in 1955, a second effort in 1957, highlighted by a presentation to lawmakers by Terrell and Jack Arthur, gained legislative sanction. Although lack of support by the Commission on Higher Education held up final approval until 1959, Gov. Price Daniel signed the bill into law in a ceremony attended by Howell and Booster members, including Arthur and Rufus Higgs.

The Class of ’63, 29 strong, was the first to graduate under the fouryear curriculum.

As the ‘60s opened, the growth in programs and the changing times prompted Tarleton students to replace the Plowboy mascot, electing instead to be called Texans for the men’s sports teams, and TexAnns for the women’s squads.

The symbol of the “Texan Rider,” a cowboy on the back of a rearing horse, was adopted. The Class of ’67 gifted the iconic mosaic in front of the Tarleton Center, modeled on the first Texan Rider, Mike Moncrief, who later became a state legislator and Mayor of Fort Worth.