Wherein Paul Hester ’71 Enters My Pantheon of Heroes

I’ve recently had reason to be looking at files about the various pieces of sculpture that have inhabited campus over the years. A couple of weeks ago I was poking around in the box that holds the records for 45° 90° 180° in the Engineering Quad when I found several contact sheets. I got out my loupe for a closer look, expecting to see images of the slabs being installed, but oddly enough it wasn’t there at all:

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Interesting.

I flipped the sheet over to check for a date (which wasn’t there, incidentally), and instead found a sticker that said “Photographs by Paul Hester.”( See here and here.) I laughed and started scanning to get a better look. It turns out that he walked all around the quad taking pictures of the whole thing. Now I have record of every angle on one winter day in the early 1980s! Here are a few:

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Here’s where the Mechanical Engineering Building is today. I feel like I have pictures somewhere of some of these trees being moved:

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And here we can catch a glimpse of the edge of that old Sigma Tau pyramid that cost me so much sleep back in the spring of 2013:

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This is just glorious. Glorious!

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But you know what? It gets better.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you my theory.

Bonus:

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2 Responses to Wherein Paul Hester ’71 Enters My Pantheon of Heroes

  1. effegee says:

    The Thresher says the trees were moved “during Christmas break” in a January 27, 1984, story on page 1 announced construction of Mechanical Engineering would commence the following month.
    https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67576/thr19840127.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

  2. Pingback: Tree Evacuation, 1983 | Rice History Corner

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