Loula (Lou Bell) Harris was born Loula Bell in 1889 to Rosa Tennessee Fox and Samuel Slade Bell. In 1914 she married Oliver P. Harris

She was involved with the Texas Club from 1934-1939 and was a socialite and philanthropist. Her interests included cooking, fashion, and parties. She moved to New York and continued to correspond with the Texas Club about social events.

She was also a member of the Peoples Mandate Committee (dating 1935-1975), a campaign for peace and freedom by ending the war and oppressive governments. She was a member of the New York American Homemaker’s Club.

"Doc" W. A. Tolson was born in San Angelo Texas in 1912. He originated and broadcasted the first radio announcement of the A&M College football game (Texas vs. A&M, Thanksgiving Day 1919) while a sophomore electrical engineering student at A&M. Tolson was band "Reg" private in the Corps of Cadets and was recognized for this accomplishment on CBS's AN American Portrait in 1986. He worked with RCA in London, USA, and abroad working on radio communications. Tolson continued to researched radio technology and taught at Princeton University. He served in World War II (WWII) through radio work and was awarded Navy "E" pins for outstanding service in 1942.

John C. Adams, a Vietnam veteran, was born in New Jersey. From 1968-1969, Adams served in the Army in the 5th Special Forces. He was a professor of communications at Texas A&M who compiled a book about the Texas A&M Muster Ceremony in 1985. The Muster Ceremony is a tradition dating back to 1883, honoring Aggies who have died during the past year.

Arne Arthur Jakkula was born in Michigan in March 1904. He graduated in 1926 from the University of Michigan and later received a BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering. He worked on various Minnesota highway projects as well as the Westinghouse Electric Company. In 1937 Jakkula joined the teaching staff at Texas A&M College as a specialist in structural engineering. He worked for both the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. Jakkula was named in 1942 as a member of the Advisory Board of Public Roads Administration to investigate suspension bridges following a collapse of the Tacoma Narrow Bridge in WA. He was serving as chairman of the Committee on Interpretation and Analysis for the Board at the time of his death.

Dr. Jakkula was the first executive director of the A&M Research Foundation. He established a reputation in the field of Oceanography by raising funds for oceanographic research in the Gulf of Mexico. He was a member of many honor societies and was married to Martha Danner. He died on May 30, 1953.

Victor H. Foy was the president of the A&M class of 1902. He served as the class agent to the class of 1902 in the Association of Former students from around 1944-1948. Victor Foy was the 1941 President of the Dallas of 1902. In 1944, he played a large part in organizing the first newsletter of the Class of 1902, called "The Naughty-Two'er". He also helped with gathering donations from his fellow class members for the Development Fund. In 1942 he helped to organize the 40th Anniversary Reunion of the Class of 1902. He attended the 1946 Victory Homecoming. Along with the class of 1902, he helped organize and attended the "Sul Ross Reunion" of 1947. Victor Foy also donated his time in helping with various Musters of both the Dallas A&M Club and A&M as a whole.

Robert E. Stewart (born May 1915) was a leading agricultural engineering researcher and a central figure in the development of agricultural engineering education. He died on November 13, 1983, at the age of sixty- eight. From 1968 until 1980, Dr. Stewart was a professor at Texas A& M University and was named distinguished professor emeritus in 1981.

Dr. Robert D. Chenoweth earned a BS and MS in electrical engineering at TAMU in 1946 and a doctorate from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1955. Dr. Chenoweth was assistant dean of TAMU’s College of Engineering in 1985. He came to TAMU in 1967 and taught electrical engineering for years after attending University of Missouri at Rolla. He served on numerous committees and achieved numerous awards including the Distinguished Achievement Award. He was a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers since 1957 and served on their committees. He retired from TAMU in 1989.

Dr. Louis Brandt was a veterinarian in Germany and migrated to Texas in 1849. In Texas, he continued work as a renowned equine veterinary surgeon. He passed away on January 10, 1897.

Dr. Harold B. Sorensen was born in Lamoure, ND in 1917. He received his Bachlor’s degree from South Dakota State University and a Master’s degree from Oklahoma State University and a PhD at Texas A&M University in 1955. He was an agricultural economics professor at TAMU from 1956-1976 who published numerous papers on global agricultural economics. He passed away in 1982.

Walter Wipprecht [Senior] was born in Sisterdale, TX in 1864. Walter graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Scientific Agriculture in 1885. He was one of the first graduates at Texas A&M University. Walter Wipprecht [Senior] grew up to be a successful businessman who gave back years of service to his community and years of devotion to his family. Walter [Senior] was the President of the Bryan Telephone Company and the Bryan Press President of the Aggie Alumni Organization. Walter served as an instructor in chemistry and physics at Texas A&M as well as the first chemist for the Texas Experiment Station. He served as the Comptroller of Texas.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is widely regarded as one of the best of the science fiction and science writers of the 20th century. He was born in Somerset, England on December 16, 1917. During World War II Clarke served as a radar specialist and instructor with the Royal Air Force, an experience that contributed to his early interest in communications technology. After being demobilized from the RAF after the war with the rank of First Lieutenant, Clarke attended King's College London, where he obtained a first-class degree in mathematics and physics.

Clarke was the Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) from 1946-1947, and it was as a member of the BIS in 1945 that he wrote a paper (later that year published in Wireless World) suggesting the idea that geostationary satellites could be used as telecommunications relays. For this insight, Clarke has been generally credited with inventing the concept of satellite communication. (As a tribute to Clarke's contributions in this field, the International Astronomical Union has officially named the geostationary orbit of 22,000 miles above the equator the "Clarke Orbit.")

Over the course of his career, Clarke wrote a number of works of nonfiction promoting science for a popular audience, especially the idea of space travel, starting in 1950 with Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics. Other scientific works of Clarke include The Exploration of the Moon (1951), The View From Serendip (1977), and How The World Was One (1992).

However, Clarke's fame derives largely from his storied career as a science fiction writer. His first sale as a professional writer was the short story "Loophole", which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in April 1946. This story was the first of over one hundred stories that Clarke produced in the course of his career. The most famous of these was probably "The Sentinel," published in 1948. This story was not only the basis for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey (which was filmed concurrently with Clarke's novel of the same name), but was the first of Clarke's works to display a common theme in his work, that of humanity being watched over by an unknowable cosmic intelligence.

Clarke's first novel was Against the Fall of Night (1948), which had originally been serialized in Startling Stories, appeared in book form in 1953, and was later expanded and revised as The City and The Stars in 1956. Childhood's End, probably his most famous novel, was published in 1953. It tells the story of a future Earth in which peace and order have been instituted after a friendly invasion by the mysterious alien race nicknamed the "Overlords". Over time Overlord rule results in the accelerated evolution of humanity into a new, transcendent form of life.

Clarke's other novels include, among others, the 2001 sequence: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), 2061: Odyssey Three (1987), and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997); the Rama sequence: Rendezvous with Rama (1972), Rama II (1989), The Garden of Rama (1991), and Rama Revealed (1993), the last three co-written with Gentry Lee; The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), and The Hammer of God (1993). His novels and stories earned Clarke a lasting literary reputation that has placed him in many eyes as one of the "Big Three" of Science Fiction, together with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein.

Clarke was married to Marilyn Mayfield for six months in 1953, their divorce was finalized in 1964, and he never remarried. He moved from Great Britain to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1956. where he lived until his death on March 19, 2008, in Columbo, Sri Lanka.

Over the years, Clarke gathered numerous honors, including a Hugo Award in 1956 (for the short story "The Star") and again in 1974, the 1961 UNESCO-Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science, the Nebula Award, the SFWA Grand Master award in 1986 and the 2004 Heinlein Award. He was named a Science Fiction Grand Master in1985 by the Science Fiction Writers of America, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2000 Clarke received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

Harry Harrison is a highly regarded writer of science fiction, most prolific in the 1960-1990 period, and was an editor for a number of anthologies. Harrison is best known for his "Deathworld" series and his "Stainless Steel Rat" series of novels.

William Perry Clements, Jr. (Governor of Texas 1979-1983 and 1987-1991) was born April 13, 1917, in Dallas. He is the son of William Perry and Evelyn Cammack Clements and the grandson of Oliver B. and Louise Norwood Clements. He had one sister Betty Clements. Grandfather Oliver came to Texas from Indiana to help prepare the roadbed for the Texas and Pacific Railroad into Dallas. He stayed in Texas when the railroad was completed and opened a livery stable in a community originally called Brooklyn but later changed to Forney. The business gradually expanded to include producing hay and trading in horses and mules, some of which he shipped back to Indiana where members of his family still resided. By the middle 1880s, Forney claimed to be the biggest hay market in the world.

William Perry Clements (usually called Perry) graduated from Forney High School at age 18 and decided to move to Dallas rather than stay in his smaller hometown. His first job was selling insurance for Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. Perry was active socially and met Evelyn Cammack whom he married in June 1912. By that time Perry had become interested in oil and became a broker in early Texas oil fields selling oil leases and participating in oil wells. By the early 1900s, Dallas was a rapidly growing city, and housing developments were begun within as well as outside the city limits. Perry and Evelyn Clements built their first house in what was to become Highland Park in 1912. A year later their daughter Betty was born. Highland Park was incorporated that same year with William Perry Clements, Sr. as one of the incorporators. Before long Perry and Evelyn built a second and larger home. It was here that their only son William Perry Clements, Jr. (called Billy during his childhood) was born.

William Perry Clements, Jr. (usually referred to as Bill during most of his life) attended school in Highland Park from which he graduated in 1934. He played guard on the football team that won the state quarterfinals but lost to Dallas Tech in the semifinals during his senior year. Clements was named to the All-State team. Throughout his youth, Bill Clements developed his love of reading, his interest in history, and his participation in Boy Scouts. He earned his Eagle Scout rank in August 1930 and has long been a strong supporter of scouting and has made large financial contributions to scouting in Texas. Because of his excellent football skills, colleges recruited him to play football at that higher level, but family financial setbacks during the depression beginning with the Wall Street crash in 1929 wiped out most of the family's money.

Thus, instead of playing football at Southern Methodist University or some other university the fall after graduating from high school, Bill Clements left Highland Park two days after graduating from high school and headed for the south Texas oil fields to work as a roughneck. He earned $150 per month, two-thirds of which he sent home to support his family. His father got a job a year later, so Bill could leave the oilfields and go to college. He enrolled at Southern Methodist University to study engineering and play football under coach Matty Bell.

An attack of appendicitis kept him off the team for the 1935 season. Clements and Bell did not get along, so in 1936 he transferred to the University of Texas. There he met Pauline Allen Gill, whom he married on April 6, 1940, and encountered more conflicts with a coach who wanted him to play in the backfield instead of the line. By then Clements had lost his interest in football and had become tired of college life. As graduate engineers could earn only $110 a month while oilfield roughnecks could earn $180 a month, Clements chose to start living in the oilfields at that level. Many years later he told his biographer that going to the oilfields was like getting a Ph.D. in life.

Trinity Drilling Company sent him to Edna near Victoria, Texas where they had 10 rigs working. He worked initially with driller Z. A. "Boliver" Sloan and Bruce Shanklin who taught him all about running a drilling rig. This was the beginning of a long-term relationship for the three men.

After a short stint with Trinity Drilling Company, Clements took a job with Oil Well Supply to learn more about the technology of drilling and the machinery used. After a brief period, he became a field engineer at Jennings, Louisiana. Soon thereafter the company sent him to Jackson, Mississippi where it appeared a boom was in the making. There he met I. P. "Ike" LaRue with whom he developed a long friendship and working relationship. When World War II broke out, Clements wanted to participate in the military, but he was kept from doing that when Oil Well Supply named him one of the six deferments it was granted by the federal government. Oil Well Supply completed numerous construction projects during World War II in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico with Clements as a construction supervisor.

During the first decade of their marriage, Bill and Pauline Clements moved thirteen times. Their two children, Ben Gill and Nancy were born in 1941 and 1942. They moved to several places in Texas as well as to Alberta, Canada. This marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Clements later married Rita Crocker Bass.

By the end of the war in 1945, Clements was well on his way up the company ladder of Oil Well Supply, but that changed quickly when his old friend "Ike" LaRue called in late November 1946 to ask Clements to join him in starting a drilling company. He had made similar calls before, but this time he succeeded in persuading Clements to join him. Although neither of them had any money, LaRue was sure he could get funding from Toddie Lee Wynne, whom Clements also knew. Both men knew Wynne was wealthy. Wynne had been in partnership with Clint Murchison for many years, but that partnership ended about the same time that LaRue and Clements began plans for their drilling company. Wynne agreed to guarantee $100,000 with Oil Well Supply to make down payments and supplies for two used drilling rigs and another $100,000 at the First National Bank for working capital for the rigs. For this, he was granted a third interest in the company. Clements, LaRue, and Wynne each received a third interest. The company was officially created on January 1, 1947, as Southeastern Drilling Company (later to become SEDCO) with two used rigs. They got a drilling contract in Mississippi for two wells and completed the contract on both of them. Over the next several decades the company developed into a large and highly respected drilling contractor around the world.

In 1950 Clements moved his family back to Dallas and bought a house in University Park. That same year he and LaRue bought Toddie Lee Wynne's one-third interest in the company for $83,000. Five years later Clements purchased LaRue's half interest for $1.2 million. By this time Southeastern Drilling was operating in India, West Pakistan, and East Pakistan. Three years later they had expanded in Iran and the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In 1960 they began a project to drill 1,000 wells in Argentina and completed the project in three years. In 1965 Southeastern Drilling became publicly owned and was listed in the national over-the-counter market. That same year they decided to specialize in deepwater drilling. Over the next five years, they acquired other companies and worked on designing new types of deepwater drilling rigs. In 1969 the company changed its name to SEDCO and its stock began to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Two years later it moved its offices to the restored Cumberland Hill School building on North Akard Street in Dallas. Over the next decade, SEDCO continued to work at developing new and better deepwater drilling rigs for use around the world and to acquire other companies. An economic downturn for the entire country in the early 1980s turned the oil business from boom to bust. In 1984 SEDCO was sold to Schlumberger Limited for $1.2 billion.

Among the companies acquired by Southeastern Drilling and later SEDCO were Baylor Company, a Houston company specializing in sophisticated electrical equipment for offshore drilling; Earl and Wright, a San Francisco engineering firm; and Houston Contracting Company, the largest cross-country pipeline company. SEDCO also acquired an investment position in Delhi International Oil Corp. and Marathon Oil Company. Those stocks were sold after only one year at a profit of $316 million.

For much of its history SEDCO was at the forefront of developing new and more sophisticated drilling rigs to drill deeper and in deeper water for use all over the world. The list of new rigs developed and constructed is long and impressive. Shortly before SEDCO was sold to Schlumberger Limited, it contracted to the Texas A&M University Research Foundation for a dynamically positioned drillship to be used in an ocean drilling program to explore the ocean basins and study how the earth was formed and developed. The program was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Two decades before Clements left the oil drilling business he made his first entry into the political arena. Peter O'Donnell, Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas asked him to run for the U. S. Senate. Clements recruited George Bush to run instead and served as Bush's state finance chairman in 1964. Four years later Clements raised money in Texas for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign. In1969 Nixon appointed him to the Blue Ribbon Defense Panel. In 1972 Clements co-chaired the Texas Committee to Re-Elect Richard Nixon. In January 1973 Nixon appointed Clements Deputy Secretary of Defense, a post he held until January 1977. In November 1977 Clements became a candidate for the Republican Party's nominee for Governor of Texas. He won the Republican primary in May 1978 and defeated Democrat John Hill in November of that year.

Clements election as the first Republican Governor of Texas since Reconstruction was a major boon for the Republican Party. Now for the first time in a century, loyal Republicans had hopes of being rewarded for that loyalty by appointment to a vast assortment of posts filled by appointment by the governor. Applications and nominations for appointment flooded in as soon as Clements won the election in November 1978 and continued to come in through most of his four-year term. Files were generated on nearly 9,000 people who were considered for appointment as judges, members of licensing and regulatory boards and commissions, regents and boards of directors of universities, branch pilots, and members of numerous other boards, commissions, and task forces. Clements took a very active and strong personal role in this entire process. He had run a very active campaign and had met thousands of individuals all over the state in those campaign events and seemingly has the ability to remember those people. Of course, he also had a broad base of friends and acquaintances around the state from previous efforts to raise money for other candidates.

Before the end of Clements' first term as Governor of Texas, he was re-nominated by the Republican Party for a second term in 1981. The campaign against his Democratic opponent Mark White, who had served as Attorney General during that term, was a bitter one. There was a controversy between the two men during the term, and that strife carried on throughout the campaign. White's campaign was part of the re-election campaigns of U. S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby. Thus Clements was running against major figures of the Democratic Party. Clements had been led to believe by advisors that he would win easily. Consequently, he did not campaign as hard as he did during the previous campaign. As a result, White won the election in November 1982, and Clements packed up his belongings and his records and moved back to Dallas. Texas Governors had been taking their records with them rather than placing them in the State Archives for more than two decades.

In 1986 the Republican Party once again nominated Clements as its candidate for Governor. The Democrats nominated Mark White again. It was once again a heated battle between the two party leaders. This time, however, Clements defeated White and moved back into the Governor's Mansion in Austin. Much effort during this term was devoted to solving the problem of overcrowded prisons. The legislation was passed to permit issuing bonds to begin a massive project of prison construction. The concept of privatization of prisons was explored and a program was begun to open such prisons in Texas. Additional effort was devoted to reducing crime and to carrying out the Texans' War on Drugs. By 1987 the economy of Texas and the nation had taken a serious downturn, which in turn led to the loss of many jobs statewide. Consequently, Clements devoted much time and effort to bring new business and industry to Texas in order to create more jobs for Texans. These efforts were quite successful. Many thousands of jobs were created, and the overall economy improved considerably by the end of Clements' second term in 1991. The Texas Department of Commerce was created to help coordinate the efforts to improve the economy of the state. Creating a new method of financing public education in Texas required much energy by Governor Clements and his staff. A federal district had declared the old system of financing education unconstitutional. Because of the many issues and the difficulties in finding solutions to the many problems, Governor Clements called six special sessions of the 71st Legislature in 1989.

Joseph “Joe” Utay was born on May 2, 1887, in St. Louis Missouri. He attended A&M College (AMC) in 1905 and played on the football team as a halfback from 1905-1907. He was a student member of the Athletic Council and helped organize the "T" association on campus during his time as an undergraduate at AMC. Utay graduated in 1908 from AMC with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

Utay received a Bachelor of Law degree from Stanford University Law School in 1912. He was commissioned as a Major in the North Texas Regiment and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1918. He was also a member of the National Guard Cavalry Regiment during World War I (WWI).

Joe Utay was the assistant coach of the AMC football team in 1912-1915 and later served under the AMC Board of Regents from 1934-1941. He served as president of the Texas Officials Association from 1912-1936 and was instrumental in the formation of the Cotton Bowl. He also organized the Southwest Football Officials Association that formed the Southwestern Conference (SWC) and served as chairman of the group for over 20 years. In addition, Utay was an attorney in Dallas for 55 years.

Joe Utay won numerous achievements during his lifetime. He was inducted into the Texas A&M Athletic Hall of Fame in 1972, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974, and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1984.

He passed away on November 24, 1977. Joe Utay has a Texas A&M dormitory named after him, in honor of his contributions to the University.

Eugene W. Carter was born in Tennessee in 1875. He received his Mechanical Engineering degree in 1893 from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. Carter lived in Dallas County, TX during the 1920s.

Barry N. Malzberg (born July 24, 1939) was born and raised in New York City, NY, and graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University (where he also held a Schubert Foundation Playwriting Fellowship from 1964-1965) in 1960. Before embarking on his literary career he worked for the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, the NYC Department of Welfare, and the Scott Meredith Literary Agency (the last from 1965 intermittently through the next few decades). He also worked as the managing editor of Escapade in 1968, and as an editor for both Amazing Stories and Fantastic Stories from 1968-1969. in 1969 he was editor of the Science Writers of America Bulletin.

Malzberg's first work of published science fiction was the story "The Sense of the Fire", which was published in January 1967 by Escapade. This novelette launched Malzberg's career, which grew over the subsequent decades to encompass over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories (some written under the name K. M. O'Donnell), as well as numerous edited anthologies. His most famous novel was Beyond Apollo (1972), the story of astronaut Harry Evans, the lone survivor of a failed expedition to Venus. Evans is revealed as a so-called unreliable narrator, and in fact, may actually have been driven insane by his travails. The novel won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1973 and was both praised and blasted by critics upon its publication. Like much of Malzberg's work, the novel is caustic, pessimistic, and intensely conscious of the dehumanization caused by advancing technology and oppressive bureaucracies.

Malzberg could be highly critical in his approach to science fiction, ready to point out what he saw as problems with the U.S. space program, space colonization in general, and the subculture of science fiction itself. Critical reactions to his work encouraged Malzberg to announce his retirement from science fiction writing in 1976, although since then he has continued to write in the field.

The famed British science fiction magazine New Worlds had a long, though erratic publication history. It began life in 1936 as the fanzine Novae Terrae, and in 1939 the editorship passed to John Carnell, who renamed the publication New Worlds. He wanted to transform the magazine into a professional publication, but World War II and Carnell's Army service intervened. In 1946, he began publishing the revitalized magazine with the help of Pendulum Publications. However, after only 3 issues the company went bankrupt, leaving New Worlds without a publisher.

London-based fans of the magazine took up the cause and created a new company, Nova Publications, that would relaunch the journal. Carnell was one of the company's board members, and it was chaired by author John Wyndham. In June 1949, Nova produced the first issue. New Worlds went on to enjoy a good deal of success through the 1950s, publishing works by such authors as J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke, and Brian Aldiss, as well as Wyndham himself. However, declining circulation in the early 1960s nearly caused Nova to close down the magazine; instead, it was bought by publisher Roberts & Vinter.

The publisher hired author, Michael Moorcock, starting with the May/June 1964 issue, as New Worlds' new editor, a post he held until 1969. In 1967, Moorcock rescued the magazine from cancellation (due to R&V's bankruptcy) by obtaining grant funds from the British Arts Council to continue publishing. Moorcock himself contributed many stories to the magazine, his work causing New Worlds to become known as one of the mainstays of the so-called experimental "New Wave" in British science fiction. In addition to his own stories, Moorcock published stories from a number of authors both famous and up-and-coming, including Clarke, John Sladek, Thomas M. Disch, Vernor Vinge, and Terry Pratchett.

Unfortunately, funding issues forced Moorcock to cease publication of New Worlds in April 1970. He did convince Sphere Books (and later Corgi Books) to continue it as a quarterly paperback anthology series, but it ended in 1976 after the tenth issue. From 1978-1979 New Worlds was revived again by Moorcock in a fanzine format, and it ran for four issues. Between 1991-1994, it again began publication as a paperback anthology series by Victor Gollancz, Ltd.

Rita Joan Crocker, daughter of Mason and Florabel Crocker, was born in Newton, Kansas on October 30, 1931, and moved to Brady, Texas with her parents in 1941. She began school in Newton, Kansas and then attended school in Texas after father sold his ranch in Kansas and bought a ranch in Texas. Her father served as Republican county chairman in McCulloch County for an undetermined time that included 1963. She graduated from Hockaday School in Dallas in 1949. After attending Wellesley College, she enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin where she majored in Spanish and minored in government and history. One has to wonder if even then she had an idea that she would spend so much of her time and effort on politics and history.

In 1952 Rita Joan Crocker married Richard Daniel Bass of Fort Worth at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brady. The couple met while they were students at the University of Texas. They had four children, two sons, and twin daughters. This first marriage ended in divorce in 1974. On May 5, 1975, she married William P. Clements, Jr. who was then Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Rita’s long and active political career before she married William P. Clements Jr. As well as the major role she played in each of his three campaigns for Governor of Texas as well as in his leadership role as Governor of Texas 1979-1983 and 1987-1991 is documented in her papers. Her political activities began in the fall of 1952 while she was a junior at the University of Texas when she rang doorbells to seek support for Dwight Eisenhower who was seeking re-election as President of the United States. She remained active at least through the end of William P. Clements's second term as Governor in 1991.

During the late 1950s, she served as a precinct chairman in Dallas. Beginning in 1962 she was a delegate to every Texas Republican State Convention until at least 1975. In 1963 she was named National Chairman of Campaign Activities for the National Federation of Republican Women and held that position for a few years. She co-chaired the Texas Goldwater for President Committee in 1964 and also served as door-to-door canvas chairman for the Republican National Committee. She was also an alternate delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1964 and again in 1972. In 1968 she served as a Delegate to the Republican National Convention. The Texas State Republican Committee named her to its Executive Committee in 1971 and in 1973. In 1971 Rita was also appointed to the Finance Committee of the Republican National Committee. She was chosen Texas National Committeewoman in 1973 and served until 1975.

Mrs. Clements also had numerous other public interests including historical preservation, improvement of education, providing training for and employment of women, and the promotion of tourism in Texas. Her private interests included her family, tennis, golf, skiing, and the arts.

Her most important historic preservation project was the restoration of the 1857 Texas Governor’s Mansion, and there is a considerable amount of information in her papers on this major effort. She was deeply involved in research about what changes had been made to the house over time, in the raising of funds to supplement the one million dollars the Texas Legislature appropriated toward the restoration project, in monitoring the progress of the restoration, and in acquiring the appropriate furniture to fill the house when the restoration was completed. The fundraising was done through the Friends of the Governor’s Mansion which Mrs. Clements helped establish.

Mrs. Clements was also involved in the celebration of the centennial of the Texas Capitol building and in the early stages of the planning for the total restoration of that building and the construction of the underground expansion of that building to preserve both the interior and exterior integrity of this historic structure. Thus one can say that Mrs. Clements was involved in varying degrees in the restoration of what may well be the two most important state-owned buildings in Texas.

The Main Street Program to restore the historic downtown areas of small to medium-sized cities was inaugurated while Governor Clements was in office. This was a program in which communities competed for grant funds to assist with the restoration of their downtown areas. Each year new cities were selected based upon competitive applications for grants to help fund the cost program administrators. Business owners in the selected cities restored their buildings. Mrs. Clements also played a significant role in overseeing that program by helping to promote the concept of historical preservation and by visiting each of the cities chosen for the program. She participated in each annual Main Street Tour and spoke briefly at each of the newly chosen cities.

Throughout both of Governor Clements’ two terms in office, Mrs. Clements was in demand as a speaker at a wide variety of functions including Republican and other types of women’s organizations, educational groups or activities, tourism events and conferences, drug prevention conferences and events, men’s professional organizations as well as women’s auxiliary groups, building openings, historical marker dedications and other historical events, and many Republican party groups.. She typically spoke about those topics that were of particular importance to Texas at the time or to her own special interests. Thus she spoke often of historical preservation (especially of the Governor’s Mansion), education, voluntarism, various women’s issues, women in politics, the changing role of women, the Texas economy, and the drug problem. During each of her two terms as First Lady of Texas, Mrs. Clements spoke on over 200 occasions. For most of her speeches, there are full texts, but on some occasions, she spoke from an outline or from brief notes. Most speeches were prepared to be particularly relevant to the audience she was addressing rather than being the same speech on a single topic given to every group. Copies of most of her speeches are included in her papers.

Between 1969 and 2000 Mrs. Clements served actively on over a dozen local, state, and national boards, committees, and task-forces that included the Center for Human Nutrition at Southern Methodist University, Crystal Charity Ball, Dallas County Heritage Society, Dallas Heritage Society, Dallas Historical Society, Dallas Woman’s Club, Junior League, Junior League of Dallas, President’s Task Force on International Broadcasting, St. Michaels and All Angels Church, State Department Fine Arts Committee, Texas State Aquarium, White House Endowment Fund, and Willis Tate Distinguished Lecture Series at Southern Methodist University. She also served between 1970 and 1999 as a board member and a member of several committees of the Hockaday School which she and both of her daughters attended.

J. R. R. Tolkien was a professor, linguist, and the author of, most famously, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. He is regarded as one of the greatest figures of modern fantasy literature, and his works have been an inspiration to millions of readers and authors alike.

Symmes Chadwick (Chad) Oliver was born on March 30, 1928, in Cincinnati, Ohio, residing there until his family moved to Crystal City, Texas during World War II. He discovered science fiction at age 12, as he recovered from a bout of rheumatic fever, and never lost his love for the genre. Oliver attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning a B. A. degree in 1951, and a Master's degree in English in 1952. His thesis, "They Builded a Tower," was one of the earlier critical studies of the genre. His letters reveal an early attraction to anthropology that culminated in 1961 with a Ph. D. in anthropology from UCLA, and field study in Kenya. Oliver sold his first science fiction story in 1950 and remained active as a writer for the rest of his life. He is credited with being the first writer to insert an anthropological slant into a body of work. In addition to his science fiction, Oliver wrote three western novels, two of which won awards from the Western Writers of America.

Chad Oliver taught anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin from the early 1960s through 1992 and received awards for teaching excellence in 1980, 1982, and 1989. A liberal arts scholarship bears his name at the University of Texas at Austin. Chad Oliver died on August 15, 1993, in Austin, Texas. He is survived by his wife, Betty Jane (Beje), and two children, Kim and Glenn.

Alexei Panshin was born on August 14, 1940, in Lansing, Michigan. He has a B. A. from Michigan State University and A Master's in Librarianship from the University of Chicago. Panshin is a well-known writer and critic of science fiction. His first published story appeared in 1963. His best-known work is Rite of Passage, published in 1968. His critical studies, Heinlein in Dimension, Science Fiction in Dimension, and The World Beyond the Hill, are well-regarded in academic circles. Panshin died in August 2022.

Lloyd Alexander was born in Philadelphia, PA on January 30, 1924, and was raised in Drexel Hill, PA. During World War II he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Wales, where he first encountered the region's myths and legends that would go on to influence his fantasy novels. At the end of the war, he worked in counterintelligence in Paris, where he met his future wife Janine Denni. The two married in 1946. Denni died in May 2007, shortly before Alexander's own death at his home in Drexel Hill on May 17, 2007.

Alexander was a renowned fantasy writer whose career spanned over 4 decades. His most renowned work was the cycle of five novels "The Chronicles of Prydain", published between 1964 and 1968, and which was set in a mythical kingdom inspired by the images and stories of Welsh mythology and Arthurian legend. The Prydain books include The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), and Taran Wanderer (1967). The last book in the series, The High King (1968), won the 1969 Newbery Award. The first two Prydain books were adapted into the Disney animated film The Black Cauldron in 1985.

Alexander, whose career has been compared by some to that of J. R. R. Tolkien, wrote over 40 books, starting with the semi-autobiographical And Let The Credit Go (1955). Other notable works of his include Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth (1963); The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian (1970), which won the 1971 National Book Award; the Westmark trilogy, Westmark (1981), which won a National Book Award in 1982, The Kestrel (1982), and The Beggar Queen (1984); and the Vesper Holly novels (1987-2005).

William Harrison Mays was born a slave on March 22, 1845. His mother, Susan May, was owned by Josiah S. Doakes of Nueces County, TX, and died when W. H. Mays was fourteen years old. After the Civil War, Mays moved to Corpus Christi, TX and on August 4, 1869, married Alice Sinclair (1854-1934), who belonged to a prominent family in the local African American community (her mother, Clara Sinclair, was one of only two black women in Corpus Christi listed as property owners in the 1870 census; her brother, Moses Sinclair, was the second pastor of St. Matthew Baptist Church, the first black Baptist church in Corpus Christi).

Though a brick mason by trade, Mays was a cowboy for much of his life. In 1870 he worked on the King Ranch and later was in charge of cattle shipments for Mifflin Kenedy (for whom he would later name his youngest son, James Mifflin Mays). When Mays died in 1909, his obituary stated that he was "one of the oldest Negroes living in Corpus Christi…[he] was well-liked by both white and black and had many friends who regret to learn of his death. He was an upright, honest, and hard-working citizen."

Mays' granddaughter, Alclair Mays Pleasant, was born on May 6, 1906. The daughter of James Mifflin Mays (1880-1925) and his first wife, Annie Garcia Bohman (1887-1982), Mrs. Pleasant spent much of her life as an active member of the African American community in Corpus Christi. A teacher, historian, and community advocate, Mrs. Pleasant served her community and family until she passed away in 2011 at the age of 105.

• Alford, Steven. "Alclair Mays Pleasant, community activist, teacher, black historian, dies at 105," The Corpus Christi Caller-Times. June 23, 2011. Accessed at http://www.caller.com/news/alclair-mays-pleasant-community-activist-teacher
• "W. Harrison Mays," Bay View Cemetery Association List of Interments. Accessed at http://www.cclibraries.com/localhistory/oldbayview/index.php/list-of-burials/488-w-harrison-mays
• Wood, Rue. "The Forging of the African American Community in Corpus Christi, Texas, 1865-1900." African Americans in South Texas History.Ed. Bruce A. Glasrud. College Station, TX, USA: Texas A&M University Press, 2011.

Henry Tin Chin Loo came to the United States in 1913 and died 1991. His grandniece Mary Yee provided this information on his life "although not formally schooled, he was an avid reader, wrote some Chinese poetry, and did some brush painting. Some of his restaurant menus and place settings were featured in an exhibit about Chinese restaurants that traveled here to Philadelphia's Atwater Kent Museum."

Cat Ramos has been a Star Trek fan since The Original Series(TOS), the movies, and The Next Generation (TNG), and has been especially enamored of the Klingons and Klingon culture. She was inspired to begin writing Klingon fanfic in 1989, after reading John M. Ford's 1984 Star Trek tie-in novel The Final Reflection (TFR). Final Reflection was a complex exploration of Klingon culture and society, and has been well-received and cherished by fans (though it is considered non-canonical in the overall Trek universe).

Ramos' stories feature original characters created from her "trekkified" family and friends, and based mainly on TFR and the FASA "Starfleet" RPG materials (and canon sources when they do not conflict.) Ford was one of her major creative inspirations. As Ramos traveled for work, she gradually met new friends in Klingon fandom ('klinfandom') who liked her stories, so she continued writing a multi-part Klingon space opera, Citizen of the Empire, along with companion tales.

Ramos learned to speak Klingon and was honored to translate the handfasting vows of "our epetai John M. Ford and his Lady Lioness." Most recently, she completed a companion fanfic trilogy , Choosers of the Slain, about a Romulan destroyer and a Betazoid healer, written for some of her friends in fandom.

Cat Ramos is married, and has one daughter, Tigerlily, and four granddaughters.

Joseph F. Pamilia was born in Houston, TX on March 10, 1945. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Houston in 1967, and graduated from the UH School of Journalism in 1970. A reporter, copywriter and typesetter, he began his science fiction writing career in 1971 with the story "Niggertown", which was published as part of the 1971 anthology Black Hands on a White Face. Some of his other stories include "Willowisp" (1974), "Hung Like An Elephant" (with Steven Utley, 1974), "Forever Stand The Stones" (1975), "The Case of James Elmo Freebish" (1976), and "Myth of the Ape God" (1978).

Pamilia also wrote a number of stories and poems under the name M. M. Moamrath, which were deliberate lampoons of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard.

A.M. Dellamonica

Alyxandra Margaret (Alyx) Dellamonica was born on February 25, 1968, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. A creative person from her earliest years, as a child and a young woman, Dellamonica did a great deal of work in local and community theater before she embarked on her writing career in earnest. She published her first short story, "Lucre's Egg" in the Autumn 1994 issue of Crank! Magazine. in 1995 she attended the storied Clarion West science fiction writers workshop in Seattle, WA, and began writing numerous short stories. (Some were mysteries written under the name 'Ashley Craft'.) She has published over 40 stories to date in numerous periodicals and anthologies, along with numerous essays and book reviews.

In 2009 Dellamonica published her first novel: Indigo Springs, an intense fantasy chronicling the fallout from the introduction of magical substance first into a small Oregon town, and then into the larger world. The novel won the 2010 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. It was followed by a sequel, Blue Magic, in 2012. In 2014 Dellamonica embarked on a new series, which takes place on the island-dotted oceanic world of Stormwrack. The three novels in the series, Child of A Hidden Sea(2014), A Daughter of No Nation(2015), and The Nature of A Pirate(2016) tell the story of Sophie Hansa, a marine biologist from San Francisco who is swept into Stormwrack and its complicated variety of cultures and nations and the political and religious intrigues that drive them. The middle work won the 2016 Prix Aurora for Best English Novel. She also wrote several stories set in the same universe, "Among The Silvering Herd" (2012), "The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti" (2014), and "The Glass Galago" (2016).

Under the pseudonym L.X. Beckett, Dellamonica has written a near-future novel Gamechanger, set on an Earth emerging from a long period of environmental collapse and political unrest into a brighter, virtual reality-driven collective future (the "Bounceback"). Gamechanger was a finalist for the 2020 Sunburst Award, and was followed by a sequel, Dealbreaker, in 2021. Beckett has also published two novellas set in the Bounceback universe: "Freezing Rain, a Chance of Falling" (2018), a finalist for the 2019 Theodore Sturgeon Award for Best Short Science Fiction; and "The Immolation of Kev Magee" (2020). Most recently as Beckett, she has written the 2022 story "Salvage Blossom".

Dellamonica had a James Bond story, "Through Your Eyes Only", published in the anthology Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond(ChiZine, November 2015). She was also the co-editor of Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction. She has published a number of other works of short fiction, including "A Key to the Illuminated Heretic" (2005), which was nominated for the 2005 Sidewise Award for Alternate History for Best Short Form; "The Town on Blighted Sea" (2007); "The Color of Paradox" (2014); "The Boy Who Would Not be Enchanted" (2016); and (as Beckett) "The HazMat Sisters" (2021), nominated for the 2022 Asimov's Readers Award for Best Novelette. As Beckett, she also writes poetry: her 2021 poem "What The Time Travellers Saw" was nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem.

Dellamonica is married to author Kelly Robson, and lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Austin Mardon (June 25, 1962) was a doctoral student in Geography at Texas A&M who attended a Canadian expedition to Antarctica in fall/winter of 1986-1987 lead by TAMU professor John Wormuth.

Bernard Sbisa was born in Austria and raised in New Orleans. In 1864, he opened a commercial hotel in Matamoras, Mexico, and four years later opened the Washington Hotel and Restaurant in Galveston, TX. In 1874, Bernard Sbisa opened another hotel, the Grand Southern Hotel in Galveston, TX. He met his wife while operating the Grand Southern Hotel. In January 1878, he accepted a position as manager of the Sustenance Department (food services) at Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas (TAMC) and was later made Steward of the Mess Hall.

Bernard and his wife lived on campus in an apartment in the Mess Hall building. The Sbisas were beloved by the campus and praised for their culinary and social skills. Their daughter, Rita Sbisa, was very active in campus social life and help found a Bicycle club that promoted healthy living and social activities through bicycling. Bernard Sbisa passed away in 1928. Rita Sbisa married Eugen W. Kerr (Class of 1896), and they both lived in Cuba with their three children.

Sbisa Dining Hall, built after a kitchen fire destroyed the original mess hall, was named in honor of Bernard Sbisa in 1926.

Cassandra Rose Clarke was born on September 21, 1983, in south Texas. She graduated from the University of St. Thomas in Houston with a B.A. in English in 2006, and received an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. In 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in Seattle, where she was a recipient of the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund.

In 2009, Clarke produced her first published work, the short story "The Cowboy's Wife", which was published in the Summer 2009 issue of Zahir. She published several additional short stories in the next few years, and in 2012 published her first novel, the young-adult fantasy The Assassin's Curse. Curse was named one of the Best Teen Books of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews. Clarke wrote two sequesl to the novel: The Pirate's Wish (2013) and Magic of Blood and Sea (2017) as well as additional novels and short fiction in the Assassin's Curse universe.

Clarke published her first novel for adults, The Mad Scientist's Daughter, in early 2013. It tells the story of Cat Novak, a young woman tutored by an android named Finn, acquired by her scientist father and with whom Cat eventually falls in love. The novel was nominated for the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. In 2015, Clarke released her second adult novel, Our Lady of the Ice, a science fiction story with steampunk elements and a definite noir flavor, set in an alternate Antarctica which has been colonized chiefly by South Americans. Our Lady was nominated for the 2015 Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award in Science Fiction. In 2017 she released the space opera Star's End, and a YA fantasy, Forget This Ever Happened in 2020. Her latest novel, a paranormal romance titled Singing With The Devil, and its sequel Demon Song, were released as e-books in 2022. Another fantasy novel, The Beholden also came out in 2022.

She has written several tie-in novels for media universes, including two novels set in the world of Halo (Battle Born and Meridian Divide, both 2019), and one set in the world of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Shadows Have Offended (2021). Clarke is also an accomplished genre poet. Her 2018 poem "For Preserves" was the runner-up for the 2018 Rhysling Award for Long Poem. Her poetry collection Sacred Summer (2020) was a finalist for the 2021 Elgin Award for Best Book.

Kevin Bailey started out as a Chemistry major at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in the mid-1980s.  He was elected secretary of Gay Student Services (GSS) in 1984 and later became the organization’s historian and archivist.  In the late 1980s, Kevin took some time off from school to work and travel, returning to complete his MIS degree in 1993.  After the 1976 GSS lawsuit for campus recognition bounced through the courts and the District Court’s pro-TAMU decision was overturned, the case in August 1984 was bound for the Supreme Court.  In the wake of the Appeals Court’s decision to overturn the District Court’s ruling, Bailey, and newly elected GSS president, Marco Roberts, mobilized a publicity campaign for the organization.  GSS had grown and matured by the mid-eighties with most of its founding members graduated.  Internal tensions and personality conflicts were rife in the GSS during this time.

Silverberg is one of the 20th-century's most well-known and important American writers and editors of science fiction. His writing career started in the mid-1950s, with short stories to science fiction magazines. For a period, he concentrated on children’s books, the returned to writing science fiction.

Robert Silverberg was born on January 15, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York. Silverberg attended Columbia University and graduated with a BA in English in 1956. During his time at college he wrote and published the juvenile science fiction novel Revolt on Alpha C (1955), it was to be the first of his long and storied career. Following his graduation from Columbia, Silverberg began writing over the next few years hundreds of science fiction stories, many of which he wrote under a variety of pseudonyms.

By the end of the 1950s, many science fiction magazines, which had been the mainstay of published output for the genre, went out of business, obliging Silverberg to turn to new kinds of writing such as popular science and other nonfiction. At the same time, he continued to write a number of well-regarded and popular science fiction novels. In the 1960s Silverberg averaged nearly 2 million words per year, marking him as one of the most prolific science fiction writers of the age. However, this punishing pace was slowed near the end of the decade by both a hyperactive thyroid gland and a house fire, both of which took a toll on Silverberg.

This slowdown resulted, however, in a more polished and experimental phase in Silverberg's writing. Science Fiction scholar Thomas Clareson notes that from 1969 to 1976 Silverberg "conducted his most deliberate experiments and attained the most command of his material." Barry Malzburg wrote that "in or around 1965 Silverberg put his toys away and began to write literature." Perhaps the most important work of this period was the 1967 novel Thorns, which was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1967 and a Hugo Award in 1968. Other significant novels by Silverberg wrote at this time include The Masks of Time (1968), Nightwings (1969), Tower of Glass (1970), Downward to The Earth (1970), and Son of Man(1971).

In 1972 Silverberg moved from New York to California. Ongoing poor sales for his newer, bolder, and more experimental work caused him to announce his retirement from science fiction in 1975. However, in 1980 he returned to the genre with the publication of Lord Valentine's Castle, a mixture of science fiction and more traditional heroic fantasy that was the first of his famous Majipoor cycle of novels and stories. Majipoor is a planet much larger than Earth, populated by a rich diversity of alien cultures. The success of Lord Valentine's Castle relaunched Silverberg's literary career, and he has gone on to write a number of well-received works, including Sailing to Byzantium (1984), To the Land of The Living (1990), and Kingdoms of the Wall (1993), among many others. He has also continued to write numerous short stories as well as edit and co-edit a number of anthologies, all of which have contributed to Silverberg's reputation as one of the most significant writers in the genre of the last decades.

Silverberg has won a number of awards in the course of his career, including multiple Hugos and Nebulas, as well as numerous nominations for these and other awards. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1999 and was made a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2005. He has been married twice, once to Barbara Brown (1956-1986) and to Karen Haber (1987-present). He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (1981-) was born and raised in Mexico. Since 2008, she has written some 40-odd short stories, many of which have been collected in the anthologies This Strange Way of Dying (2013, a finalist for the 2014 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic), and Love and Other Poisons (2014). In addition, she has edited or co-edited a number of genre anthologies, including, among others, Future Lovecraft (2011, with Paula R. Stiles), Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction (2013), Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse (2014), and She Walks In Shadows (2015, with Paula R. Stiles, winner of the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology).

She has written several novels: her debut, the Mexico City-set fantasy Signal to Noise (2015), was nominated for the 2016 Aurora Novel for Best Novel (in English), the 2016 Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the 2016 Sunburst Award. It won the 2016 Copper Cylinder Award. Her second book, the vampire novel Certain Dark Things was released in 2016. The Beautiful Ones, was published in 2017, the year in which she also published a science fiction novella, Prime Meridian.

Moreno-Garcia's 2019 fantasy novel Gods of Jade and Shadow, based in the legends and myths of Mesoamerica, received critical and popular acclaim (including a nomination for the 2010 Nebula Award), and it won the 2020 Sunburst Award. Her latest genre novel, Mexican Gothic, is a critically-acclaimed horror novel that has been picked up by Hulu for a limited TV series. 2020 also saw the publication of Moreno-Garcia's first nongenre novel, the thriller Untamed Shore, set in 1970s Mexico. Another noir thriller set in Mexico, Velvet Was The Night, was published in August 2021. She published a Mexican reworking of H.G. Wells, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, in July 2022, and in July 2023 released her latest novel, Silver Nitrate, a dark occult thriller based heavily in Mexican horror movies.

Moreno-Garcia is the publisher of the small press Innsmouth Free Press, and co-edits the Jewish Mexican Literary Review with Lavie Tidhar. She also co-edits The Dark Magazine.

Moreno-Garcia has an MA in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia; her thesis was entitled "Magna Mater: Women and Eugenic Thought in H.P. Lovecraft". She currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

James Russell Couch was born on June 10, 1929 in Alvarado, TX. He grew up on a farm and participated in 4-H extracurricular activities in school which sparked his interest in agriculture. He attended John Tarleton Agricultural College for his freshman and sophomore years of college from 1928-1929. He transferred in 1920 to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas [TAMC] and finished his B.S. Degree in Agriculture in June 1931. James Russell Couch was employed at the Texas Agricultural and Experiment Station in September 1931 as an assistant poultry husbandman. He continued with his education through TAMC and received a M.S. in chemistry in June 1941.

In June 12, 1941, James Russell Couch was enlisted into active duty as a First Lieutenant in the Infantry in the Organized Reserve Corps. He was assigned to the Military Training Division of the 5 thService Command from 1941-1945 and was a military instructor for infantry units and officers.

In 1946, James Russell Couch went back to school at the University of Wisconsin and earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Poultry Nutrition in August 1948. He was hired at TAMC and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station [TAEX] as a Professor of Poultry Husbandry and Biochemistry & Nutrition in September 0f 1948. He taught at Texas A&M [TAMC] for 26 years and retired in 1974. He died on January 23, 1991, leaving his wife, Velma Couch, and two sons.

*extra biographical information and photographs found in “Remstar Clippings Biographial file: Couch, James Russell” found at Cushing Memorial Libraries and Archives.