I felt a small surge of panic when I came across this picture and flashed back to my epic 2013 struggle (here, here, and here) to figure out when the Tau Beta Pi bent moved from the front of Abercrombie to the back corner:
My first thought was that I had failed to establish when the bent was installed in the first place. But it turned out I actually had–it was 1968.
These guys here were the initiates from the spring of 1949 when all we had was a sad little cloth bent. They had to lay it out on the lawn as part of the initiation ceremony.
(I’m giving you the entire page with the story about this event because of the article right underneath about the upcoming debate on federal education policy. One of the debaters was Rush Moody, who spent a couple of years at Rice before heading to UT for a joint BA/law degree. Why do I care? I have two reasons. First, he’s the father of my friend Brad Moody ’80 and second, we have some of his deeply interesting papers right here in the Woodson Research Center. Go ahead, take a peek!)
Bonus: I laughed when I saw these and thought of the Hackerman inauguration.
The ads brought back memories. I was gone from Rice by then, but I fondly remember 5-cent cokes, and I used to wear Arrow dress shirts. I don’t remember what they cost, but they were cheap.
I was in the the eighth grade in Corpus Christi in 1951-52, and I distinctly remember that federal funds for education was a debate topic in our speech class. The Negatives had to come up with all the reasons federal funds (read federal control) would be bad for local education. Tough assignment. I suppose that topic was recycled to the junior high level from the high school level.
I always thought you had a literary bent.
Hoo boy!
Melissa, Tom and Rush were Rice , UT Law and maybe rival HS debaters. Plus at Baker Botts together. We have private, nice, not for publication stories that you might want to hear about our friendship with Ann and Rush and arrival of the triplets!
Nancy
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I really would love to hear that! I will email you to find a time we can get together.