I don’t understand this:
It’s labeled “FEV leading MOB at halftime, October 1981” and of course it’s absolutely the kind of thing he would enjoy. But by the fall of 1981 Frank Vandiver was already the president of Texas A&M. So what gives? Maybe some sort of kiss and make up type of thing? Anyone have thoughts?
Bonus: Please Do Not Sit Here.
A similar image was included in the November 1981 Sallyport’s two-page spread of 1981 Homecoming photos (pp 10-11) with the caption: “Special guest conductors for the MOB included Frank Vandiver, president of A&M and a Rice professor until last year.”
https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/99566/sallyport-vol-38-no02.pdf
Perhaps Grungy can find more info in the MOB Archives or recall the details leading up to Dr. Vandiver’s ascension to the pinnacle of MOB leadership.
There was no mention of Dr. Vandiver’s conducting performance in the next Thresher (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67446/thr19811030.pdf). But while the Aggies won the football game 56-26 (behind Gary Kubiak’s SWC-record passing performance), the MOB surely won the halftime, as that was the game at which a few Aggie Band members turned too soon and caused a complete botch-up of their formations and an early exit to the sidelines.
FTR, (Aggie Band Drum Major Jason) “Clark also denied rumors that the Aggies’ mistakes were caused by Rice students blowing whistles. “The only thing we can blame the drill on,” he explained, “was a lack of concentration within the band.”
My rusty neurons have only the faintest wisp of a recollection of this. The script isn’t in any of the digitized transcriptions, thus far. There could be a paper copy in one of the file cabinets or boxes of MOB papers here, but it hasn’t surfaced yet.
The MOB acquired an early Macintosh computer in 1984, and the script archives after that are much more complete.
The isolation of the pandemic is certainly pushing me to deal with the backlog of projects that has built up over the decades. Digitizing and cataloging my Rice and MOB paper archives is one of them.
When or if the answer to this question surfaces, I’ll post an update.
I believe this was a failed effort at reconciliation some years after the MOB classic spoof of the Aggie band which led to the rescue of the MOB from the stadium in the food service trucks. As I recall from being at the game, Rice fans didn’t care, and the Aggies booed Vandiver heartily.
That Rice-whistle-induced botch-up by the Aggie Band was a marvelous thing. The initial tremors and perturbations in the disciplined perfection of TAMU marching ended up producing not the traditional colossal T, but a J and a cluster of large percussion.
It wasn’t Rice whistles. Really. I was there. I also remember this; Dr. Vandiver was very fondly remembered by most of the older band members so it was a brief warm fuzzy.