Author Archives: Melissa Kean

You would hope.  

No, this isn’t going to be a picture of a Rice president sitting uncomfortably atop a horse on Rice Night at the rodeo (although I do have several–it’s its own genre). I hope this doesn’t disappoint too many people. Instead … Continue reading →

When I was last in the Woodson I was looking for something specific: the file folder in Dr. Lovett’s papers that held the correspondence with the Semper Fidelis Club. After I found it I took some time to look around … Continue reading →

In 1936 Will Rice gave the Institute the first really large gift since the death of William Marsh Rice. I’ve known that so long I can’t remember learning it. What I forgot until a couple weeks ago when I was … Continue reading →

Looks like someone had a scathingly brilliant idea. Nice move to enlist the kids for hose duty: It came from a picture I took on my phone and I can’t remember where I found it or what the date might … Continue reading →

I’ve used this photo once or twice here before. (Check out this one, about the path through the empty lot across Rice Boulevard from the Mech Lab.) It came out of some papers from Jim Sims ’41 and it’s a nice, … Continue reading →

More than once I’ve heard Rice alums say that we always get the leadership we need when we need it. I never argue with them but their thesis is certainly not uniformly true (which I suspect they know but would … Continue reading →

You never know what you might find if you’re stuck at home with your laptop long enough. This is what I turned up today. Back in 2013 we received a collection of materials from the family of Fred Alter ’34. … Continue reading →

They held a big event on November first in the Grand Hall of the RMC, thanking Albert Thomas ’20 for his service to the university during his long tenure as the representative of Texas’s 8th Congressional District. Thomas had a … Continue reading →

This picture has to have been taken in 1955, as that is Senator J. William Fulbright in between Houston and Autry House Rector Stanley Smith. Why they’re in a coat closet, and what’s so funny, I can’t say, but it … Continue reading →