A NOTE TO OUR READERS
INSIDE PAGES 5 and 6
The Flare
Friday, October 3, 2014 Vol. 78 No. 5
RANGERETTES CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARY
THE FLARE
Photos and memorabilia
The woman who changed halftime
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leah Bryce • Staff Writer
n a time when halftime shows were filled with bugle corps, drumlines and pep squads, one woman changed the halftime experience for football fans all over the US.
Gussie Nell Davis created the Rangerettes 75 years ago.
The Houston Contemporary Museum of Art credits her for creating, “a living art form,” influencing drill team and auxiliary line fans around the world. She began her halftime show revolution in Greenville. Davis commissioned a local carpenter to construct wooden batons, then she created a team consisting of Greenville High girls and taught them to dance with bugles, flags, various props, drums and these new batons.
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The girls were called, “Flaming Flashes,” and a new art, and halftime show, was born. Davis died in December 1993, but one of her final interviews ran in the March 1994 issue of Texas Monthly. “I saw a boy standing by the field, watching us. Something he had in his hand kept flashing, reflecting the sun,” recalled Davis in the magazine interview. “When I went over to him, I found he had a baton. That’s where I got the idea to have light-weight
wooden batons made for the Flashes, since there was no place to buy such a thing back then.” Once Davis made history with the Flaming Flashes, others sought her out for the same position at their schools. These fans included KC’s president B.E. Masters, from whom she accepted a dual job offer and challenge. “He told me he wanted something to keep the fans in the seats at halftime of the football games,” Davis said. “I thought the college needed a first-rate girls’ organization to attract more women to the campus.” After accepting the challenge Davis designed an elite group of women — the Rangerettes. For the second time in her life Davis made history by constructing an original female halftime squad. This time, they needed unique uniforms.
75 Years of Rangerettes PART 1 OF 3 “I came to Kilgore in the fall of 1939. One of my first friends was Mrs. Earl (Vinnie) Ford,” Davis said. “She had a son, Earl Jr. (a KC art student), who designed the Rangerette uniform at home, with his mother and me hanging over his shoulder. Our skirts for the original uniform were two inches above the knees. I can’t believe we were so daring.” See MISS DAVIS on Page 3
I hold very high standards for my girls. I want them to look, think, act and dress like ladies. – Gussie Nell Davis
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Theatre Department opens season Tuesday
Student actors rehearse a scene
Victoria WhitWell Staff Writer The KC Theatre Department will present Tom Stoppard’s modern classic Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The curtain will rise at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 7, and the play will run through Saturday, Oct. 11, with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12, in the Van Cliburn Auditorium. General admission tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for students and $5 for KC students with a student ID. The play is appropriate for all
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Elexus Hodge/ THE FLARE
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ages, however, children under the age of seven will not be admitted. Late arrivals will also not be admitted. The box office will open one hour prior to each performance. For reservations, call 903-983-8126 or e-mail the KC Theatre Box Office at boxoffice@kilgore.edu. Reserved tickets may be picked up at the Box Office beginning one hour before curtain on the day of the performance. The play is directed by Micah Goodding and is produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.