Y’all, I’m having a week. I didn’t manage to make it into the HMRC today but I found these images from President Pitzer’s inauguration in October, 1962 a few weeks ago in their Houston Post Collection and when I looked closely at them last night I felt, as Marie Kondo might say, a spark of joy. In the first, the outgoing President, William Houston, is bringing Pitzer and Board Chairman George Brown to the podium:
In the second, Brown and Pitzer looking suitably sober as the ceremony goes forward:
But in the last one the photographer caught something special–genuine human emotion, in this case something like happiness. Pitzer’s smile is obvious, but look at GRB’s:
(The citation for these is Houston Post Photo Archives, RDG0006N-6083.)
It turned out to be a great partnership.
George R. Brown was a great benefactor of Rice and also Southwestern U. in Georgetown, Texas. I knew he attended Rice and did not graduate, but I did not know the rest of the story. Wiki says, “George R. Brown studied at Rice University and the University of Texas at Austin before he graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1922”. Not too shabby a collection of schools.
I hadn’t realized that either, until we toured CSM back when our son was looking a colleges, and I saw his familiar portrait near the entrance of its engineering building … Brown Hall (https://tour.mines.edu/brown-hall/)
Why does GRB have three stripes on his sleeves? I thought that was for people with doctorates only. Is it a Chairman of the Board thing?
Do honorary doctorates count for the stripes? GRB’s other alma mater, Colorado School of Mines, gave him an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree just a few months earlier, at its June 1, 1962, commencement:
https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Dietzgen/ColoradoSchoolOfMines_1962DistinguishedAchievement_William_Page_Morris.pdf
I’ll bet that is exactly the answer.