Pig’s dead. Dog gone.

A century ago, the University gathered to say farewell to a true, loyal, and vociferous friend. Pig Bellmont – a tan and white dog named “Pig” – was UT’s first live mascot. A faithful resident of the Forty Acres for nine years, his unexpected death from a car accident on New Year’s Day, 1923, affected the University community deeply. Hundreds of mourners attended Pig’s funeral and burial on the campus, and the event drew national headlines.

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Born February 10, 1914, Pig was but a seven-week old puppy when he was dispatched to Austin to live with his new owners, Theo Bellmont and his family. A native of Rochester, New York, Bellmont (right) attended the University of Tennessee, played football and basketball, ran track, was an accomplished gymnast, and graduated in 1908 with a law degree. A natural leader, his interest in physical training and education won him the position of Director of the Houston YMCA, where he worked to expand the programs and influence of the “Y.”

Bellmont’s efforts were noticed by UT President Sidney Mezes, who was looking for someone to oversee what was a quickly-growing athletics program. At the time, college sports in much of the nation was coordinated by an Athletic Council composed of faculty, students, and alumni, while each sports team was managed by a student volunteer who oversaw the budget, scheduling, transportation arrangements, uniforms and equipment, and gate receipts. By the 1910s, intercollegiate athletics had prospered to an extent that universities everywhere were looking for full-time administrators.

In December 1913, Mezes hired Bellmont as the first athletic director for the University of Texas, a position he would hold until 1929. His many legacies include the “T” Association for athletes who had earned a letter, the founding of the Southwest Athletic Conference, and the 1916 hiring of Berry Whitaker to initiate an intramural sports program, which has since evolved into the Division of Recreational Sports.

Bellmont, his wife, Freda, and their two children moved to Austin the following month, in January, 1914. The family had already purchased a soon-to-be-born pet dog, but the puppy remained in Houston until after he was weened.

The dog joined the Bellmonts in March, and it was immediately evident that he was a special character. An adventurous pooch, he refused to remain confined to the family’s backyard northwest of campus, and instead followed his owner to work on the Forty Acres. The UT campus was an exciting place, full of attentive students, squirrels to chase, fields of bluebonnets in the spring, and plenty of trees. Bellmont introduced the dog to a few sports contests, who found the games loud, fun, and very much to his liking. It wasn’t long before the affable puppy was adopted by the campus community, and though UT athletic teams were already known as “Longhorns,” the dog was understood to be the University mascot.

Of course, the puppy needed a name, a topic which generated serious discussion. The matter was solved later in the spring when the dog, while exploring the environs of west campus, found himself standing next to Gus “Pig” Dittmar (left). A captain of the football team who also hailed from Houston, Dittmar was named All-Southwestern for three years and was mentioned as an All-American by Walter Camp. An honors history major, his professors urged him to apply to Princeton University for graduate school. Dittmar’s nickname – “Pig” – was given to him by fellow UT students who thought he could pass through a defensive line “like a greased pig.”

The football captain, though, also just happened to be bowlegged. “Dittmar was rather noted for the graceful way in which his underpinnings curved,” reported the UT student Longhorn Magazine. With the puppy and Dittmar standing together, students noticed that the dog’s legs evoked some similar characteristics as the football player. Seized by a happy inspiration, “Let’s call him Pig!” was the decision of the day, and the new University mascot was dubbed Pig Bellmont.

For the next three years, Pig greeted students and faculty on daily rounds. He frequented classrooms. Sometimes he reposed under the professor’s desk, while on other occasions he eagerly joined class discussions. He climbed the marble stairs up to the reading room of the University Library (today the Architecture and Planning Library in Battle Hall) in search of a scratch behind the ears or a lap in which to snuggle. When he was hungry, Pig sometimes visited the University Cafeteria, then housed in a temporary pinewood “shack,” though he preferred the cuisine of the boarding houses west of campus. At night, Pig retired under the back steps of the University Co-op.

Of course, Pig was a regular at home and most out-of-town athletic events. He paced the sidelines during football and baseball games, and ventured indoors to the gym for basketball season. Pig merrily lent his voice to the support of UT teams and developed a profound dislike for anything related to rival Texas A&M. “If you say ‘A&M’ to him, he will promptly lie down as though ready to give up the ghost in disgust,” related one account. “On the other hand, say ‘Texas’ to him and he starts barking with joy.”

Pig was so loyal, some of the University’s athletes suggested that he deserved a letter, which was granted by the athletic department. (That the athletic director was also Pig’s owner probably helped in this regard.) Naturally, Pig wasn’t able to don a standard UT letter jacket. Instead, a small brass “T” was fashioned at the University’s mechanical shop and attached to his collar. Pig was inducted as the only canine member of the “T” Association.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Pig enlisted. The war transformed the campus overnight, as the University sponsored three military schools on its grounds. The largest was School of Military Aeronautics (SMA), known informally as the “West Pont of the Air.” A precursor of the Air Force Academy, the SMA was created to provide basic technical instruction for beginning pilots before they moved on to flight training. Housed in the buildings on the Little Campus, just north of the present day Dell Medical School (only John Hargis Hall and the Nowotny Building remain), several hundred soldiers at a time arrived for six-week sessions. Pig joined them. If a long hike was part of the day’s activities, Pig was usually near the front. He kept an eye on the barracks while the cadets were in class and faithfully attended inspection each evening. The cadets recruited Pig as their mascot, included him in their graduation photos, and he twice took the train ride to Dallas where the cadets were sent to begin flight training. When he had time, Pig wandered back to the main campus to check in on UT students, most of whom were part of the Student Army Training Corps.

Once the war ended in 1918, Pig resumed his duties on the campus. He was a regular at football rallies and games, was often seen having a “vocal competition with the frogs” at the spring-fed pool just behind library (where the West Mall Office Building now stands), and chaperoned couples taking moonlight strolls across the campus. More than once, he accompanied the women’s hiking club on a 20-mile trek from Austin to San Marcos.

On one occasion, Pig was “expelled from the library for talking too loudly.” The Daily Texan student newspaper reported the incident and defended the dog. “It was a case of gross discrimination,” griped the Texan, “for Pig was not making a bit more noise than various other loquacious occupants of the north end of the reading room.”

Pig, though, was also getting older. By the early 1920s, he had noticeably mellowed from his spirited younger days, and he was going blind in one eye, a condition that would have significant consequences.

Early on Monday morning, New Year’s Day 1923, Pig was hit by a Model T Ford in front of the Texas Theater on the Drag, just north of 22^nd and Guadalupe Streets. His partial blindness may well have been a factor. He was apparently only injured and made several of his usual appearances before he decided to retreat under the back steps of the University Co-op, but the injuries were to be fatal in the long term. Pig’s body was discovered mid-afternoon on Thursday, January 4th. The news was a tragedy for the entire campus and the decision was made to provide a proper farewell for the loyal canine.

On a partly cloudy Friday afternoon, January 5th, starting at about 3:30 p.m., Pig Bellmont lay in state in front of the University Co-op, while the American flag that flew above the building was lowered to half-mast. He rested in a specially-crafted black casket, draped with evergreen boughs and orange and white ribbon. Assembled the previous evening, the closed casket included a viewing window. For the next hour-and-a-half, hundreds filed by and paid their final respects.

By 5 o’clock, members of the Longhorn Band had arrived and a one-of-a-kind funeral procession was underway. Playing Chopin’s “Funeral March,” the band led a somber and respectful crowd south on Guadalupe to 21st Street, then east to the old Law Building, where the Graduate School of Business building now stands. Behind the parade was an impressive column of automobiles – mostly Model T’s – which brought still more grievers. Carrying the casket, Pig’s pallbearers were members of a new student group called the Texas Cowboys.

The band made its way to a tiny grove of three live oak trees just north of the old Law Building. Rows of folding chairs were provided for the mourners, but quickly filled, and it was standing-room only for the service. A few of the children present, desperate for a better view, scaled the trees and sat in the lower branches.

When everyone assembled, Thomas Taylor, the red-haired founder and first dean of UT’s engineering school, climbed upon a wooden crate to be seen by all and delivered an impassioned eulogy for the fallen mascot. “Let no spirit of levity dominate this occasion,” Taylor began, “a landmark has passed away.” The Texan reported that Taylor, “In a voice that he could not restrain from trembling slightly . . . recited those lines penned by Lord Byron as a song to his dog. ‘I do not know what joys await Pig Bellmont on the Other Side. But I do know this: that if there is a place of Elysian happiness for dogs, Pig will join that great dog of Lord Byron. Certainly, no dog was ever more deserving of such a reward as he.’”

Taylor’s speech, published the same month in the Alcalde alumni magazine and later in his memoirs, concluded: “In that haven to which he is gone there is a rainbow spanning the sky, reaching almost to zenith, composed not of the prismatic colors but of two colors – Orange and White – and on that rainbow are the word, ‘Always loyal to the team, and win or lose, the team.’ The Orange in that rainbow will recall to him the golden opinions that he has left behind in the hearts of thousands of students and ex-students of the University, and the White in that rainbow will testify to the fact that for nine long years on our campus his record of loyalty was spotless white.”

Following Taylor’s remarks and with dusk approaching, the band played “Taps” as Pig’s casket was lowered into a prepared grave. “Then, as the last low strains of the call died away,” observed The Texan, “and as the listeners were standing breathless, there wafted on the air the notes of the same call, from another point on the campus.” It was a lone trumpeter who, on cue, played “Taps” for Pig in front of the old Main Building.

The students left a makeshift, handwritten placard with a simple epitaph: Pig’s Dead. Dog gone. Harry Beck, the University’s long serving Superintendent of Grounds, had planned a formal marble tombstone to read: Pig Bellmont, Only a dog, but true to Texas, Born: February 10, 1914, Died: January 4, 1923. The marker, though, was never placed.

News of Pig’s passing and his funeral was reported in newspapers across Texas as well as in national publications. The Houston Post lauded, “Pig never missed a football game nor any other large assembly of students, and he frequently attended classes and studied in the library,” while the Corsicana Daily Sun claimed, “Students know better than to stride recklessly into a classroom when the professor is in the midst of a profound dissertation, but Pig always chose the middle of the class hour to march majestically in and take his place in front of the desk.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Theo Bellmont had been offered a three-month old English bulldog as a new mascot, but it was simply too soon to replace the venerated Pig. Nationally, the popular Outing magazine provided a full account of Pig’s funeral for its readers and added, “His spirit was genuinely one hundred percent Texas, and he left folks know it. He had a pair of eighty-horse-power lungs that were brought to disturbing defense for his ‘alma mater’ whenever the name was mentioned.”

Theo Bellmont received sympathetic messages from many alumni and friends, including a telegram sent by Gus Dittmar, then in Houston: “I mourn with you and all of Varsity the loss on my old namesake. I hope that he is now in the happy hunting grounds of all good dogs, where there are endless rows of trees, under the shade of which he may lie; where there are huge stacks of fat bones upon which he may gnaw; and where there are thousands of autos for ‘Pig’ to chase.”

Above: The earliest known image of the UT campus, taken in 1883 at the present intersection of University Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The west wing of the old Main Building – where the Tower stands today – is the only structure.

The arrival of the University of Texas wasn’t greeted with trumpet and fanfare, but with neighs and whinnies.

At 10 a.m. on a sunny, sticky, Saturday morning, September 15, 1883, nearly 300 persons gathered for the opening ceremonies in what was the unfinished west wing of the old Main Building. The audience sat on chairs arranged on a makeshift floor of undressed lumber, surrounded by unpainted walls. The incomplete windows were open to the elements, which required the day’s speakers to compete with the brays and snorts of the many horses hitched outside.

The west wing sat near the center of a square, uneven, 40-acre campus, initially dubbed College Hill. It was almost devoid of flora, save for a thicket of mesquite trees and a handful of live oaks, some festooned with Spanish moss. A great gully extended from the top of the hill to the southeast, dry most of the time but a muddy torrent in wet weather. According to Halbert Randolph, who earned his law degree in 1885, the ornamental shrubbery consisted of “cactus sporting its full-grown fruit, looking like the ripe nose of a drunkard.” For a few weeks in the spring, the campus was aglow with a blanket of Texas Bluebonnets, and the pitiful state of the landscape was temporarily forgotten.

Above: The west wing of the old Main Building, about 1885, surrounded by newly planted hackberry trees. It was made from yellow pressed brick with limestone trim, and had grey slate-tiled mansard roof. Plumbing for the building was incomplete. Out of sight and behind the hill to the right was a temporary lavatory.

To the east, beyond the University grounds, lay vast tracts of pasture land and open prairie. Just to the west, along a dusty and unpaved Guadalupe Street, stood two grocery stores, a dry goods shop, and a saloon.

The sprawling town of Austin filled the view to the south, its 11,000 inhabitants still abuzz over the local telephone service that was installed two years earlier. Austin won the privilege to host the main campus of the University after a hotly contested state election, and as it was already the seat of Texas government, civic leaders predicted Austin would soon be the “Athens of the Southwest.”

Fortunately, there were no proposals to change the city’s name accordingly. Through much of the 19^th century, as the United States expanded westward, colleges and universities were desired assets of newly-founded, up-and-coming towns with lofty ambitions, and communities sometimes renamed themselves to reflect their goals. It’s no accident that two of Ohio’s state universities reside in towns named Oxford and Athens, that students enrolled at the University of Mississippi travel to Oxford, or that the University of Georgia is located in Athens.

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Ashbel Smith, a 76-year-old physician from Galveston (photo at left), was selected to chair the first Board of Regents, and was entrusted with the Herculean task of creating the new university. A graduate of Yale, Smith was a secretary of state for the Republic of Texas and served multiple terms in the state legislature.

In the final years of his life, Smith’s passion was the University of Texas. His top priority was to recruit the best faculty possible. Smith traveled extensively, visited colleges throughout the country, and spent many late nights devoted to University-related correspondence. His letters, scribbled by candlelight, are now carefully preserved in the University’s archives.

After nearly two years of effort, Smith and the Board of Regents selected eight professors. Six of them formed the Academic Department, and most were assigned to teach multiple disciplines: English, literature, and history; chemistry and physics; mathematics; metaphysics, logic, and ethics; ancient Greek and Latin; and Spanish, French and German. The remaining two faculty members composed the Law Department. Salaries averaged $2,500 per year, a generous sum in the 1880s.

Most of the professors hailed from Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. To save on travel expenses, Smith convened the first faculty meeting in May 1883 not in Austin, but at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Above: The University’s first faculty. From left: John Mallet, professor of physics and chemistry; Leslie Waggener, professor of English language, history, and literature; Robert Dabney, professor of mental and moral philosophy and political science; Robert Gould, professor of law; Oran Roberts, professor of law; Henri Tallichet, professor of modern languages; Milton Humphreys, professor of ancient languages; and William LeRoy Broun, professor of mathematics.

The initial entrance requirements were determined by the faculty. Candidates for the Academic Department were expected to know elementary Greek and Latin, though French and German could be substituted for those planning to pursue science or literature. Competency in algebra and plane geometry, English composition, history, and political geography were also required. Admission to the law department did not yet require a bachelor’s degree, though candidates were urged to have a strong background in reading and writing English, and a “familiarity of the history of the United States and England.”

In the weeks before the University was scheduled to open, college-aged youth made their way to Austin to present their credentials and be interviewed by the faculty for admission. In a state where 90 percent of the population was classified as rural, many of the candidates were from farms and ranches, the children of pioneers, raised in log cabins with few luxuries. They were practical and self-motivated, but their preparatory education was incomplete. Many did not possess high school diplomas, and the standards for admission were too high. One prospective student who hoped to study mathematics, when asked how much math he had taken, proudly responded that he’d completed a class in “discount and bankruptcy.” Though hindered by a lack of formal education, the young Texans managed to impress the faculty. According to chemistry professor John Mallet, “Boys whose spelling and arithmetic were much behind their years, talked and thought like grown men of house building on the prairie, of cattle driving, even of social and political movements.” At the end of the first day of entrance examinations, the faculty met, discussed the situation, and with a collective shrug decided not to rigidly enforce the “grade of scholarship” established for admission, due to the “limited advantages for education in this state.”

From the beginning, the University was open to women, a progressive statement at a time when opportunities for women in higher education were rare. That UT would be co-educational was the result of a compromise in the state legislature as it debated the bill to create the University. Some members of the House who were opposed to female students were also political opponents of Governor Oran Roberts, and they feared that Roberts, whose term in office was coming to a close, would be named UT’s first president. In order to support the inclusion of women, the legislators demanded that the University be modeled after the University of Virginia, which was then led by a faculty chairman instead of a chief executive. An agreement was reached. Women were admitted as students, but for its first decade, University affairs were the responsibility of the elected head of the faculty. Roberts was denied the possibility of serving as UT’s president, but he was appointed one of the two initial law professors.

While the 1876 Texas constitution mandated the creation of the University, it also required the legislature to “establish and provide for the maintenance of a College or Branch University for the instruction of the colored youths of the state,” which denied the Austin campus to African Americans. It would take another 70 years, starting with the 1950 enrollment of Heman Sweatt in the School of Law, for the University to truly become of and for all Texans.

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Among the speakers for the opening ceremonies was Dr. John Mallet (photo at left). Hired away from the University of  Virginia to teach chemistry and physics, Mallet was elected by his fellow UT professors to be the first Chair of the Faculty.

Mallet cautioned those present not to expect too much too soon, and prophetically compared the progress of a university to the growth of a tree. “It must have a fruitful field . . . but you will be disappointed if you expect it to grow from the seedling to the proportions of a stately tree in a single night. And more will you be disappointed if, in your efforts to hasten its growth, you pluck it up by the roots to see how much the roots have grown.” Mallet also spoke of the students, “to whom the faculty look with peculiar interest and hopes,” and then, directly to the students in the audience.

To the students: “We ask you to be fellow workers with us. You should try to understand your true relations to the University. You frequently hear the phrase used, ‘coming to the university,’ not remembering that you are the university. More than the faculty – more than the Board of Regents – more than all else – it is the students that make the university. It is not the crumbling stones of Oxford, nor the memories of its hundreds of able teachers that make it the great university of England, but it is the never dying intellectual and moral life of the five and twenty generations of men who have gathered there as students. The students are, in the highest and truest sense, the university themselves. If Texas is to have a university of the first class, worthy of the name, the work of the faculty can form but a small part in its success. Its development must be the result of the united efforts of the people of Texas, of the State government, of the Board of Regents, of the faculty, and above all, of the students of the university.”

With an incomplete building, sitting on a mostly barren campus, boasting an inaugural faculty of eight professors, and joined by 221 students, the University took its first, tentative steps upon the stage of Academe.

Fifty years ago, UT students considered replacing the Longhorn mascot.

It was never meant to be taken quite so seriously. On Tuesday, November 2, 1971, the University’s Student Senate unanimously approved a resolution, introduced and supported by Student Body President Bob Binder, to poll UT students about switching the University’s mascot from the longhorn to the armadillo.

The idea originated the previous August at the annual National Student Association conference, where student leaders from neighboring states were divided into regions. Those from Texas and Oklahoma were considered the “Greater Southwest,” but they didn’t care much for the moniker and opted instead to call themselves the “Armadillos.” The name resonated with Binder and the other UT students who attended the conference, and they wondered if a mascot change might have some interest on the Forty Acres.   

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The nine-banded armadillo – dasypus novemcinctus – is a medium-sized, mostly nocturnal mammal that feeds on insects and grubs rooted from the ground by the claws on its forefeet. As anyone who has seen one knows, an armadillo’s most recognizable trait is the tough bony shell that protects most of its body like a shield of armor. Actually, “armadillo” is a Spanish term that translates as “little armored one.”

Though its appearance might not be all that impressive, a ‘dillo is not without its talents. It can hold its breath for nearly six minutes – probably developed after keeping its snout buried in the ground for long periods searching for food – and when it needs to forge a creek, there’s no need to swim. The armadillo simply holds its breath and saunters across the creek bottom. If startled or threatened, it can launch itself three or four feet in the air or run short distances up to 30 miles-per-hour, faster than an Olympic sprinter. The former is likely meant to surprise a potential predator and give the ‘dillo a few moments to scamper to safety, but when an armadillo crosses a busy Texas road and is scared by a passing car, a jump up and into the underside of the vehicle is often, unfortunately, deadly.

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On campus, news of the Senate’s resolution was met with shock, disbelief, and laughter. Head Football Coach Darrell Royal chuckled with no additional comment, while quarterback Donnie Wigginton responded with a long, incredulous “why?” Some students voiced their support of the idea. “I think it’s great. I do. I think we need a change,” stated one student in The Daily Texan. “I think it’s just student attitudes towards the system. I like it,” echoed another.  “The armadillo represents the state of Texas as well as the longhorn,” said a third, “they’re all over the highway, too.”

Alumni were less accommodating, and Binder’s mailbox was soon full of letters from unhappy UT graduates: “The prospect of having an armadillo as a mascot may amuse some of the students, but I’m sure I speak for several thousand Texas Exes when I tell you that we are, very definitely, not amused.” Another was less tactful, “I have heard of some fantastically idiotic happenings at the University of late but this has to be the most blasphemous piece of rot that ever crept across the campus.”

The news media had a field day. Not only did newspapers and TV stations across Texas carry the story, it was mentioned as far away as Orlando, Florida, north to the town of Petoskey, Michigan, and west to the California coast. The University of Texas, after all, had been named national football champions for the past two years, in 1969 and 1970. For the Longhorns to consider trading in their iconic image for the humble armadillo was, well, news.

Above: Headlines from the nation’s newspapers.

When asked, Binder claimed that the armadillo was a “peaceful and ecologically-minded animal, and cheaper to maintain than a longhorn.” The comment fit well with the times. University students were caught up the activism of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, including civil rights and anti-war protests, women’s liberation, and the ecology movement, where pro-environment political action had led to the passage of the Clean Water Bill and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. On campus, students had already made international news over their protest against the removal of trees along Waller Creek (see The Battle of Waller Creek) and had unofficially named the new East Mall Fountain, “Peace Fountain.”

Pervasive as it was around Central Texas, the ‘dillo had also gained a following in Austin. The Armadillo World Headquarters, opened in 1970, quickly became the city’s best-known music venue, and when the Austin American-Statesman’s Capital 10,000 race debuted in 1978, “Dash the ‘Dillo” was the event mascot.

Still, not everyone on the Forty Acres was convinced. “I fail to see why an insect-eating armadillo is more ‘peaceful’ than a grass-eating steer,” opined one UT student, while another thought that the Student Senate “might have more important things to worry about.” Texan columnist Hartley Hampton pointed out that, “Bob Binder is a peaceful and ecologically-minded animal, and cheaper to maintain than a longhorn,” and promptly suggested that Binder be the new mascot.

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As the fall semester progressed, the ‘dillo debate continued, though much of it more sarcastic than serious. The Friday after the Senate approved its resolution, a football rally was held in Gregory Gym where many of the students attended holding images of armadillos mounted on poles. Chants alternated between “Texas Fight!” and “Root ‘em ‘Dillos!” But when head cheerleader Jose Pena asked the crowd if there were any UT Armadillos present, the answer was a resounding “No!”

An Armadillo Marching Band was organized with 40 students in the ranks and with internationally-respected psychology professor (and future Plan II director) Ira Iscoe as the group’s faculty advisor. The band made several well-received appearances, but eschewed traditional musical instruments in favor of kazoos, washboards, and spoons. “We don’t say we favor the change in mascot, but we do believe in the armadillo,” one of the members explained. A letter to the Texan was a bit more candid: “As an indication of the overall attitude of the band, it might be noted that were the University mascot in fact changed, in all probability this organization would immediately disband and transfer to the local agricultural institution.”

Above: A pair of orange-painted ‘dillos on Kyle Field.

Texas A&M supporters were eager to voice their preferences. The Thanksgiving Day football game between the University and A&M was held that year in College Station. At the start of halftime, a pair of armadillos (above), splashed with orange paint and with “TU” written in white on their backsides, was released on Kyle Field just as the Longhorn Band was about to perform. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “one was picked up by an assistant Texas band director and carried off the field while the other high-tailed it toward the Longhorn cheerleaders. He knew where he belonged.” The pranksters were thought to be Aggie freshmen. No matter. At the end of the game, UT had prevailed 34-14, won the Southwest Conference title, and earned a berth in the Cotton Bowl to face Penn State.

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Above: “Texas Armadillos” bumper stickers were popular in Austin.

With all of the interest surrounding the ‘dillo debate, it was inevitable that some would want to cash in on an opportunity. Less than two weeks after the Senate passed its resolution, local entrepreneurs were selling three varieties of bumper stickers: two displayed the words “Texas Armadillos” with a pair of fierce-looking ‘dillos on each side, printed either orange on a white background or white on orange, and a “Root ‘em Armadillos” sticker printed white on orange. The stickers were carried by the University Co-op (and elsewhere) and quickly became bestsellers. It wasn’t long before the bumper stickers were seen throughout Austin.

Above: Days after UT’s football team won the Southwest Conference and was going on to the Cotton Bowl to play Penn State, “Dig ’em ‘Dillos” bumper stickers were being sold in stores along the Drag. 

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After the start of the New Year, discussion about the mascot had run its course and all but vanished. The idea received plenty of attention, but it was never fully supported on campus, and the Student Senate didn’t follow through with its poll. Besides, replacing the longhorn required approval of the Board of Regents, which was unlikely. There were, though, a couple of reminders.

In late January, 1972, country music singer-songwriters (and married couple) Mitch Torok and Ramona Redd composed a song that offered a compromise solution, a merger of both longhorn and armadillo, called “The Texas Hornadillo, Part 1 & 2.” Torok explained, “We thought it might be good to resolve matter through a song and a little humor.” A record was produced by Torok’s Calico Records in Houston, and the song performed by the Orange and White Barroom Singers and Dancers, Class of ’49. The recording included voice impersonations of Coach Darrell Royal, several Texas politicians, and “the head of the Institute of Texas Animal Crossbreeding.” The “Hornadillo” was available in record stores statewide and was occasionally heard on the radio.

Above left: A Ben Sargent cartoon of the “Hornadillo” appeared in the Austin American-Statesman.

Toward the end of the semester, at what was then the Round-Up Parade down Guadalupe Street and Congress Avenue, the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and Acacia fraternity teamed up to construct one of 17 floats in the parade: a longhorn steer – made from chicken wire and papier-mache – accompanied by an armadillo. The float won Best Overall honors.

Above: A Round-Up Parade float that featured both a longhorn and armadillo was named “Best Overall”.

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Not all was lost for the modest armadillo. In 1978, students at Oak Creek Elementary School in Houston asked the Texas Legislature to name the ‘dillo the official state mascot. Their senator, Jack Ogg, sponsored a resolution, but despite a growing number of supporters from all parts of Texas, the Legislature resisted both in 1979 and 1981. One senator described the armadillo as a “God-awful animal.”

Ogg (photo at left), though, served as president pro tempore of the Senate, and on October 3, 1981, with the governor and lieutenant governor both out of the state, Ogg was sworn in as “governor for a day.” Traditionally, this was an honorary position, but Ogg dedicated his brief administration to “the most important people in the state – our children,” and issued an executive decree naming the armadillo as the Texas mascot. Ogg signed the proclamation “because it is important that [the children] see the system work.” 

Eventually, the reluctance of the Legislature softened. In 1995, lawmakers officially designated the ‘dillo as the “small mammal of Texas.” What was the large mammal? The longhorn, of course.

It was an extraordinary journey. After four months of meetings, researching, and writing, the Eyes of Texas History Committee released its report on Monday, March 9, 2021. The route wasn’t always a smooth one. As with everyone else, the group had to contend with a global pandemic, then work through Thanksgiving break, end-of-semester final exams, and the holidays. By the start of the New Year, the committee had discovered so much material it asked UT President Hartzell for a month extension to organize it all. Then, just as everything was coming together, Texas was blindsided by the “Big Chill” winter storm which closed the University – and much of the state – for a week.

Despite the complications, being on the committee was a wonderful experience, and most of the credit goes to our chair, Rich Reddick. This was not a group where a few labored and most watched; everyone actively contributed to the task at hand. The members were highly diverse in their backgrounds, ages, and relationships with the University community, which led to far-ranging, frank, and substantive discussions. Four of our faculty members were trained historians. While we usually convened on Thursday evenings via Zoom, it was already Friday morning for one alumnus who lived in Singapore. He greeted the rest of us “from the future.” Another on our roster became a parent for the first time.

The committee was primarily charged with documenting a history of “The Eyes of Texas” as accurately as we could muster, so that any conversations about the song would be grounded in historical fact. The group culled through newspaper accounts and Cactus yearbooks, searched the Board of Regents minutes, examined catalogs of historical recordings, combed through feature films and literature, and interviewed student organizations and former student-athletes. While the Briscoe Center for American History – which houses and preserves the all-important UT archives – was closed because of the pandemic, the Briscoe Center staff heroically spent hours scanning the contents of multiple files and made them electronically available to the committee. The Austin History Center also generously contributed research materials.

Our meetings often included guests. We heard from Diane Boddy and Jeanne Klein, granddaughters of Lewis Johnson, who in 1903 encouraged fellow UT student John Sinclair to compose “The Eyes”. Diane and Jeanne shared a manuscript written by Johnson on the origin of the song. The committee also met with: internationally-admired artist Michael Ray Charles, now on the faculty of the University of Houston; ethnomusicologist Charles Carson, an Associate Professor of Musicology at UT’s Butler School of Music; as well as a group of students and student-athletes to better understand their experiences with the song.

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The Eyes of Texas Report wasn’t meant to be exhaustive, but “complete”, in order to best relate the extent to which the song had evolved and traveled. To avoid the curse of being tedious, not all of the information discovered was included in the final draft. Among the anecdotes omitted:

At 33-years old, many thought Major League Baseball pitcher Jim “Tex” Carleton was ready for retirement. From 1932 -1938, Carleton had played for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, but a persistent sore pitching arm dropped him to the minor league in 1939. He thought about returning home to Fort Worth.

At the start of 1940 spring training, Carleton was granted a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers, won a conditional contract, and joined a team with four other Texans on the roster. For the rest of training and after the season opened on April 16, those same Texans began to sing “The Eyes of Texas” each time Carleton jogged out to the pitcher’s mound. The song may have worked some magic. Carleton threw his first and only career no-hitter on April 30 against the Cincinnati Reds. (Image courtesy of the Society for American Baseball Research.)

Early in 1942, just after the United States entered the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a swift campaign to seize control of the Philippines. By April 9, after the fall of Bataan, the final holdout for the Allies was Corregidor, a four-mile long island with a single prominent hill, heavily fortified and strategically located at the entrance to Manila Bay. The remaining U.S. and Filipino forces persevered for as long as possible, which provided critical time for the Allies to prepare defenses for Australia, but were well overmatched. The island was surrendered on May 6.   

Among the U.S. troops stationed on Corregidor were 24 Texas A&M University former students. Two weeks before the surrender, and knowing that the odds for success were slim, “word came back that they bade farewell to home with a song, ‘The Eyes of Texas,’” reported the Odessa American.  John Lomax, who served as UT’s first alumni association director and was internationally famous for his efforts to preserve American folk music, penned a letter to John Sinclair, then in New York: “A bunch of A&M boys led by General Moore, whom I taught at A&M College, lined up at Corregidor and sang [‘The Eyes of Texas’] as a last shout of defiance.” Twenty of the Aggies became prisoners of war.

Two years later, in 1944, Marine Corps pilot Lieutenant Paul Sanders from Pawhuska, Oklahoma was shot down over the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Landing in the water and paddling ashore after nightfall, Sanders survived several days in the tropical forests before finding a local village.

“For some reason, the natives wanted to give me presents,” Sanders recounted, “so about 50 gathered around and gave me a quantity of beads, sea shells, and the like. . . They sang a lot of songs and I taught them ‘The Eyes of Texas.’ I had to sing it to them six times, but they got it pretty well. We had a great time.”

The song was evidently passed along to other communities. Later the same year, a second U.S. pilot, this time from Texas, was downed over a different part of the Solomons. He was rescued by a group of islanders and fed yams and breadfruit, before a group of local children gathered around and – to his great surprise – serenaded him with “The Eyes”.

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After the committee’s report was released, several questions were raised. Let me try to answer some of them. This is meant to be informational; neither the Eyes of Texas Committee nor I want to tell people how they should feel about the song.

• Why did the committee believe there was no “racist intent”?
• After the report was released, a UT professor wrote what he claims is the “true” origin of the song. Was “The Eyes” – as the professor asserts – created from scratch early in the morning of May 12, 1903 as simply a minstrel song for a minstrel show?

The answer to the last question is, emphatically, no. Let’s look at a chronicle of events using the resources seen by the committee, which includes the UT archives:

1902: Lewis Johnson dearly wanted UT to have its own college songs and convinced his friend and fellow student John Sinclair to collaborate on what became known as “We are the Jolly Students.” It used the music from a popular tune at the time – “The Jolly Students of America” – with Sinclair having re-written some of the lyrics. (This is important, as it set a pattern Sinclair would use for “The Eyes.”) Composed in 6/8 time, “The Jolly Students” was well-received and would probably have made a good beer drinking song, but it didn’t take off. Johnson wanted to try again and asked Sinclair for a new song.

February 18, 1903: Johnson authored an extended editorial titled “A College without a Song” for the Texan student newspaper. Part of it read: 

“There is no activity of college life that is so characteristic of its vivacity and spirit as singing its songs – songs that represent the whole gamut of its feelings, from the nonsensical jollities to its whole-souled reverence and devotion to the university itself. There is nothing that so completely serves as a bond of union to all within its walls, not even the treasured yells. It has been said that there is between the old graduates and the new students no bond of union like the college song. It is the one thing that can be carried with you, and at any and all times will bring up the dear memories of the alma mater.”

Possibly March, 1903: On campus, John Sinclair gave Johnson a scrap of brown laundry paper with the original version of “The Eyes of Texas,” already set to the tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” that is now on display at the alumni center. According to Johnson’s manuscript, where Johnson described himself as the “director” (the student manager of UT’s musical organizations) and Sinclair the “author”: 

“With the added responsibility and flushed with enthusiasm over the reception of “The Jolly Students” another conference was held by the director and the author at which time the latter was reminded that he had been there longer than the director and knew conditions fully as well and especially the needs of more college songs; that he was at liberty to select the tune to suit his fancy and to write the words likewise but was requested to confine his efforts to another type of song, preferably a patriotic hymn to the dear old alma mater.

“On many occasions after such request, the author was asked how his muse was coming along; how much courting of it he was doing and when he would hand in another composition. Weeks passed and one day he pulled from his pocket an irregularly shaped piece of yellow wrapping paper from a laundry bundle and handed it, with one of his cunning Scotch smiles, to the director without comment. When the latter read it over, another thrill came, and with the reply, ‘That will live and endure here long after you and I are dead and forgotten.’ That prophetic forecast seems to have come true for that was the original manuscript of ‘The Eyes of Texas.’

“Copies were made for use in the Glee Club and put into rehearsal at once. It met an enthusiastic response from the Club members thereby giving it an auspicious start in the world.”

Johnson’s manuscript is partly confirmed by a letter from John Sinclair to Johnson found in the UT archives:

“In tribute to your perspicacity, I may say that I remember your predicting, as soon as you had given the words the once-over, that they would last as long as the University, and be there to represent us when you and I are gone.“ (Sinclair to Johnson, June 8 1925)

We don’t know when the “conference” between Johnson and Sinclair took place. A likely time would be near February 18, when the Texan editorial was published, as the issue would have been on Johnson’s mind. If so, that would mean Sinclair wrote the original version of “The Eyes” in mid-March. It could have been earlier or later, but it’s clear that the intent was to create a UT song in the spirit of Harvard’s “Fair Harvard.” The exchange took place between the two, not with others present, and there’s no mention of it being for a minstrel show.

April 1, 1903: A minstrel show was announced in the Texan, initially scheduled for May 1 as a fundraiser for the track team to compete in Atlanta. Of note here is that the newspaper emphasized the show would be a rare opportunity for the students to poke some fun at the faculty:

“One specialty will be jokes on members of the faculty and parodies on songs wherein incidental references might be made to some of them. As one of the northern college papers said recently, “a college minstrel show is the only occasion for the students to get even with the faculty. The faculty has its time the rest of the year; this is the student body’s time.”

The idea of a minstrel show originated with Homer Curtiss, the director of men’s physical education at UT, as well as the track coach. Lewis Johnson, as the student manager for all of the campus musical organizations, was naturally included in the planning.

April 12 – 20, 1903: The Glee Club and Mandolin Club went on their third annual concert tour through North and Central Texas. Glee Club Director Dan Penick – who was also a classical languages professor and the University’s tennis coach – convinced his fellow faculty members to allow the groups to miss a week of class.

During the tour, John Sinclair missed the train twice – once allegedly because he was talking to a young lady – and had to purchase his own ticket aboard a freight train to catch up. The Texan had some fun with Sinclair’s mishaps (Texan, April 29, 1903):

“There was a young man named Sinclair, who paid for his own railroad fare. Twice left at the station, causing great trepidation; hereafter he’ll always be there.”

An important note here is that the Glee Club’s concert program included either “The Levee Song” or “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Newspaper sources mention both titles. Since the Glee Club was rehearsing for the concert tour all spring, this is likely why Sinclair was recently familiar with the music when he composed “The Eyes.”

April 29, 1903: A second Texan article about the upcoming minstrel show reiterated the theme of poking fun at the faculty:

“All students will enjoy the occasion immensely. This is the only time they get even with the Faculty; local hits and jokes on all the professors will be leading features of the evening.”

The article also stated that the date of the show would be announced soon.

May 5, 1903: The earliest mention of the minstrel show date as May 12 in the Austin Statesman. The date must have been decided as early as May 4, which left only about a week to get everything ready.

Early May, 1903: Several events happen here, and we have evidence to help us piece it together. 

•  The program: Unlike today, when a concert program can be designed and hundreds of copies printed in an afternoon, a minimum of several days would have been required in 1903. A copy of the minstrel show program is in the UT archives, and the first part of the show is listed as: 

Overture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Varsity Band

Opening Chorus . . . . . . .  “Oh, the Lovely Girls”

Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Old Kentucky Home”

Song “The Castle on the Nile”  . . . . . Mr. Harris

Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Varsity Quartette

We know from the post-show newspaper reviews that the “selection” by the quartet was “The Eyes of Texas.” This tells us that when the program went to be designed and printed, the ‘Varsity Quartette didn’t yet know what song they would sing. “The Eyes” hadn’t yet been included in the show.

And, as an aside, the term ” ‘varsity ” with an apostrophe is simply a contraction of the word “university.” Think of university -> ‘versity -> ‘varsity. In 1900s Texas, a student attending the “College” was understood to be at the A&M College of Texas, while someone enrolled at “‘Varsity” was at the University in Austin.

• The show deadline: There would have been a deadline to finalize the content of the show so that full run-through rehearsals could be held. Some of the cast members had multiple parts and the stage crew at the Hancock Opera House needed to become familiar with the performance. The Austin Statesman mentioned on May 12 there had been a week of rehearsals and at least one full run-through.

We have several reminiscences of there being a last-minute or late-night dash to finish one more song for the show. The deadline, though, wasn’t the show itself, but to finalize the program. The original version of “The Eyes” was already available and known to the Glee Club, but its lyrics – comparing “eyes of every hue” to stars in the Texas nighttime sky – wasn’t in line with the well-advertised theme of the show to poke fun at the faculty. Sinclair revised the lyrics to be specifically about President Prather, a “Prather Parody” version.

Some of the better-known versions on the origin of the song have come from then Dean of Engineering Thomas “T. U.” Taylor and Fannie Prather, President Prather’s daughter, who authored an article for the Dallas Morning in 1926. Both claim the song was written entirely the night before the minstrel show. But neither were actually present, and we also have a letter from Lewis Johnson to Dan Penick dated December 7, 1928 in the UT archives:

“You have read dear old T.U.’s long write up of [“The Eyes”], Fannie Prather’s page in the Dallas News etc. and know that none of them have been able to give the authentic history of its conception and birth.”

• Horace Whaling letter: Once the lyrics were revised into the “Prather Parody” version, Sinclair brought a handwritten copy to fellow UT student and friend Horace Whaling, Jr., who had been editor of the Texan in the 1902 spring term. Sinclair sought Whaling’s feedback on the song and then left the copy with his friend. Whaling kept the sheet for almost half a century, mailing it to the University Libraries in 1950, along with an explanatory letter that Sinclair had visited Whaling at his student residence on Lavaca Street. The lyrics and the letter are now in the Texas Composers Letter File in the UT archives at the Briscoe Center.

A close inspection of the lyrics shows that one line is different than what was actually sung at the minstrel show. The chorus begins with the now-familiar “The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the live long day,” but continues with, “However hard you try (dog-gone you!) you cannot get away.” Apparently, there were first and final drafts of the “Prather Parody” version.

•  The May 11 newspaper ad: An ad for the show appeared in the Austin Statesman on the morning of May 11 that announced “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” would be sung. The ad would have been ordered no later than May 10. And so, we know the “Prather Parody” version of “The Eyes” was in the show by May 10. Sinclair may have also visited Whaling on the same day.

• “Contest of Colleges” Baseball Game: A baseball game between the University of Texas and Southwestern University was scheduled for the afternoon of May 11. A sizable contingent UT students planned to make the trip to Georgetown, as did the Glee Club and Mandolin Club, who were set to perform a concert on the Southwestern campus that evening. At the last moment, heavy rains cancelled the contest.

The Austin newspaper reported that there was a full rehearsal of the minstrel show on the night of May 11, but had the weather been clear, the Glee Club – including the quartet – the Mandolin Club, and Lewis Johnson as a soloist, would all have been in Georgetown. Since no one knew the baseball game would be rained out, it’s likely there was a full run-through May 10 (thought to be the last), and then an unexpected opportunity for an additional rehearsal May 11.

May 12, 1903: The Austin Statesman morning newspaper claimed that the students were ready for the show, and explained:

“The jokes and grinds are all original and local, and hit off well known people in town and in the University. This is the only chance the students have to take a rap at the faculty, and it is said they have made the most of it.”

“The rehearsals have been going on all the past week, and all the details have been watched so that the entire performance goes off smooth and without a hitch. At the rehearsal last night Mr. Walker and the opera house staff pronounced the performance the finest thing of its kind ever given in Austin.“

May 12, 1903: “The Eyes of Texas” debuted in a minstrel show at the Hancock Theater downtown. Coach Homer Curtiss and the track team actually left before the show was over to board the train for Atlanta as the track meet was that Saturday.

January-February 1936: On page 31 of the Eyes of Texas Report, as UT student Ed Nunnally corresponded with John Sinclair in order to obtain a copyright on “The Eyes”, Sinclair sent Nunnally additional lyrics he hadn’t shared before. They were meant to replace the second verse because what was sung at the 1903 show was “to be of too limited interest for general use.” –  

“For though we may wander, here our hearts remain; Texas bids us welcome, when we come again. Still in kind remembrance we hold the days of yore, and those to come we pledge anew to Texas, evermore.”

While the original version of “The Eyes” had been revised into the “Prather Parody” for the minstrel show, Sinclair still considered the song as something for the University in the long term, and crafted a verse that didn’t simply make fun of the president. As we know today, only the chorus became popular, and there was never a need to replace the second verse.

In all, we know of four versions of lyrics to “The Eyes of Texas. (Click on the image above for a larger version.)

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Given the evidence from newspaper reports, the Lewis Johnson manuscript, and documents in the University archives, the committee found that the song was initially intended to be a “patriotic hymn to the dear old alma mater.” An opportunity to perform it came with the minstrel show, but the lyrics needed to be revised to fit the show’s underlying theme of having fun with the faculty. Sinclair, concerned the song might forever be thought as a joke on President Prather, penned what he believed to be a more appropriate verse for the song’s original purpose.

Today, we would certainly never approve of the venue – the minstrel show – in which “The Eyes” was first performed, but the committee saw a difference between the setting and what Johnson and Sinclair intended with the song.

I’ll try to answer more questions about the report in a second part to this post. Jim

The tradition has held fast for more than a century. On March 2^nd, Texas Independence Day, some 40 Texas Exes chapters will gather for dinner, sing college songs, reminisce about their days as UT students, and learn something about the current goings on at the Forty Acres. It’s a time to celebrate everything and everyone connected to Texas and strengthen the bonds with the University.

Don’t forget, though, to thank Bob Saner.

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Robert Edward Saner (photo at right) hailed from the wilds of southwest Arkansas, born in 1871 on a farm near the small town of Washington, about 40 miles from Texarkana and the state border. He grew up attending public schools in one-room schoolhouses, and then won a scholarship to Searcy College in Arkansas. Bob stayed a year before he went on to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. For the next three years, he alternated between working various jobs and attending classes full-time, slowly making progress toward a law degree.

In the fall of 1895, when his family had relocated to Dallas, Bob elected to transfer to the University of Texas. At the time, aside from a $15 “matriculation fee,” tuition for in-state students was free. By then, Bob was only a year away from graduation, and the move to UT made financial sense. Bob’s younger brother, John, also registered, as a first-year law student.

With an enrollment of just under 500, and sprawled on a 40-acre campus with a Victorian-Gothic Main Building that was only two-thirds complete, the infant University of Texas was still very much a work in progress. Bob divided his time between law classes and assisting Professor Robert Batts with several legal publications, including Batts Annotated Statutes of Texas. John, meanwhile, found time to join the Athenaeum Literary Society, volunteer part-time at the law library, and pitch for the baseball team. For both, the highlight of the academic year turned out to be March 2^nd, Texas Independence Day.

Above left: Only two-thirds of the old Main Building had been completed in 1895.

As Bob and John were newcomers to the Lone Star State, neither had experienced the unique swell of public Texas pride that accompanies the second day of March, but it was soon to make a deep impression on both of them. In 1896, Texas Independence Day was a state-wide holiday, except at the University, where classes were to be held as usual. For years, students had petitioned for the day off to celebrate their state, but their requests were always refused.

This time, the first-year law students, including John, decided to take matters into their own hands. Despite articulate and insistent pleas from Professor Batts, the group voted to skip classes en masse. Instead, they repaired to Scholz’ Beer Garden and spent the afternoon imbibing refreshments and waxing eloquent upon the virtues of everything Texas.

Though Bob didn’t participate, he’d certainly taken notice. He graduated in June with an LL.B. – a Bachelor of Laws and Letters, as law degrees were then called – and then returned to Dallas to prepare for the state bar exam and seek employment.

The following year, 1897, John’s law class again decided to celebrate Texas Independence Day, but this time legally borrowed a cannon from the Capitol, pulled it more than a mile to campus, and then fired it in front of Old Main. University President George Winston was persuaded to address the students, and claimed that while he’d been born and raised in the land of liberty, “Texas University students take more liberty than anyone I’ve ever come in contact with!” (see How to Celebrate Texas Independence Day) The decision to use the cannon was a hit, and a new University tradition was born.

Above right: The 1897 senior law class fires a cannon in front of Old Main to celebrate Texas Independence Day. Click on an image for a larger view. 

John completed his LL.B. that spring, and then stayed an extra year to earn a master’s degree – an LL.M. – before joining Bob in Dallas where they soon founded their own law firm.

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While Bob’s tenure as a UT student was brief, his relationship with the University was just beginning. Coming to Austin in June to see his brother graduate, Bob sat in on the alumni association meeting, which was then held annually the day before spring commencement. After a couple of years, Bob was hooked, and became a regular attendee for the rest of his life. At one point, he served as the association’s vice president.

In 1900, the alumni gathered in the auditorium of Old Main, where a serious discussion arose on how to increase membership and participation in the association. At the time, the University was less than two decades old. The alumni association, founded in 1885 by the first two graduating classes of ’84 and ’85, was observing its 15^th anniversary. With very few exceptions, the oldest alumni hadn’t yet reached their 40^th birthdays, and the majority of UT graduates were still in their 20s.  They were busy with new families and building careers. What was needed was an additional event, another excuse for alumni to gather, and something that was nearer to their homes rather than in Austin.

Above: Some UT alumni living in New York City gather on a chilly March 2, 1913.

Bob had an idea. In just a few years, Texas Independence Day had become a popular tradition on the Forty Acres. Might it be extended to the alumni?

In the middle of the discussion, Bob penned a brief resolution, and then passed it to the front to be reviewed by the officers and read to the group. It stated: “Whenever two ex-students of the University of Texas meet on March Second, Texas Independence Day, they shall sit and break bread together and pay tribute to the founders of the Republic of Texas, who made our education possible.”

The resolution was well-received and immediately passed, but nothing further was done to help alumni to contact each other, much less organize an event to “break bread.”

Later that summer, the University’s Board of Regents appointed Bob as UT’s Land Agent. While he continued to practice law in Dallas, Bob had to familiarize himself with the more than two million acres of University-owned lands in West Texas. Provided by the Texas Legislature when UT was created in 1881, it was the basis for the Permanent University Fund. At first, income was generated primarily through grazing and farming leases, but once oil was discovered in 1923, royalties exponentially grew the fund and forever changed the campus. Bob served as UT Land Agent for 30 years, a position that only strengthened his affection for the University.

Above: The Fort Worth alumni held their 1914 banquet at the Westbrook Hotel. At the bottom of the program cover is the Rattle-de-Thrat yell, which was then popular at UT sports rallies and games. 

While the alumni association had seemed to not follow through on Bob’s resolution, he persisted, and decided to do something locally. He helped to found the University Club of Dallas – among the first UT alumni chapters – and at its December 31, 1901 meeting to elect officers for the following year, Bob suggested an annual banquet be held on March 2^nd, both to celebrate Texas Independence Day and the University. The idea was carried unanimously, and a five-person committee, with Bob as chair, was appointed and charged with “getting up the banquet.”

The idea was reported in The Dallas News the following day, and a month later, surfaced in The Texan student newspaper. “The Texan wishes to lend its hearty approval to this plan,” wrote the editor, “and insists that the alumni of the counties all over the state profit by the example.”

The Texan continued, “Nearly every county is represented by the student body, and the students should urge upon the alumni the necessity and wisdom of falling into line with this movement.” The 1902 Dallas banquet was a rousing success and quickly became the focus of spring activities.

The alumni association, though, continued to sputter and stall, much to the frustration of a small group of ex-students, including Bob, who saw alumni at other colleges and universities grow more active. It wasn’t until association president Ed Parker issued his seminal letter to alumni in December 1910, plainly stating that the association had no complete records, no funding, no headquarters, “no really effective organization,” did the outlook begin to improve. (see The Alumni Room)

Above left: The alumni association published an information booklet for Texas Independence Day in 1924. It included a brief history of how March 2nd came to be celebrated on campus, information about the association, and words to UT songs. 

The following June, at the 1911 annual meeting, the association made great strides to reorganize itself. Bob followed up his decade-old resolution with the suggestion that 31 vice-presidents be appointed, one for each state senatorial district, “whose special duty should be to bring University men and women in the district together for a University celebration on Texas Independence Day.” The association found 31 volunteers, along with two more for New York City and Mexico City. Success wasn’t immediate, but within three years, 14 cities were hosting annual banquets, and the number continued to grow.

To promote the March 2^nd events, the Alcalde alumni magazine, which debuted in 1913 as part of the association’s reorganization, provided ample room for detailed reports from each banquet. Along with New York and Mexico City, groups in Boston, Saint Louis, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle joined the out-of-state list, which grew further to include London, Paris, and Tokyo.

Above right: The 1931 program for Boston’s March 2nd banquet included a performance of cowboy songs.

In 1916, UT President William Battle addressed both the Dallas and New York groups from the Austin banquet at the Driskill Hotel via long distance telephone. The “conference call” was a first for AT&T, which loaned a substantial amount of equipment for the effort. (see UT’s First Conference Call)

Above: On March 2, 1932, sculptor Pompeo Coppini, who created the Littlefield Fountain and the George Washington statue on the South Mall, hosted UT alumni in New York at his Manhattan studio. Coppini is standing in the back, fourth from left. Look close. Along the wall to the right is a plaster copy of one of the servicemen seen on the Littlefield Fountain. Click on an image for a larger view. 

As the popularity of the March 2^nd banquets increased, so did the demand by alumni for news from the Forty Acres. A speakers bureau was created by the association and volunteer professors, deans, and UT administrators were dispatched around the state. To provide still more substance, the banquets included fundraising activities to support local scholarships to the University.

In the meantime, all of the activity and fun surrounding Texas Independence Day led directly to the formal establishment of local alumni clubs, what today are Texas Exes chapters. The banquets provided a venue for an annual meeting, where business was discussed and alumni officers elected.

Happy Texas Independence Day, y’all. And thanks, Bob.

Above: On March 2, 1980, the Texas Exes sponsored a parade of students and alumni from the Capitol to the Main Mall, there to observe Texas Independence Day at noon.