These days the incoming freshmen are greeted by cheering upperclassmen who help them unload their baggage. Here, for example, is a shot by Campus Photographer Tommy Lavergne of the kind of welcome they receive:
Back in the day things went quite differently. Here’s a letter from a Rice freshman that was published in the Temple, Texas newspaper, The Mirror, in October of 1916. It provides the folks back in his hometown a pretty good look at the treatment that the newcomers could expect:
Young Mr. Welsh did in fact go on t0 become a doctor. George Brown, however, went on to become George R. Brown.
Hugh Welsh was the go-to campus physician when I came down with meningitis at the end of my junior year, in 1959. I think he was also the football team physician at the time. His diagnosis was, essentially, “take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning”. I could easily have died, except my wife took me to the doctor of her first cousin, who lived in Houston, and he immediately sent me to St. Luke’s, where I spent 11 days in isolation. I never had much use for Hugh Welsh after that.
Yikes! Thank God that ended well.
George R. Brown. Not to be confused with Jar Jar Binks.