The Cepheid Variable Science Fiction Club came into being in the period 1967 – 1969, the result of science fiction fans gradually coming together and organizing. Following a trip to the World Science Fiction Convention in 1967, Annette Bristol and Danielle Dabbs started the first known science fiction club, with Annette the President, Dabbs the secretary, and John Moffitt as vice-president. The club was pictured in the 1968 Aggieland, with officers listed there. The club was sponsored by the English Department, with two English professors as advisors.

In 1969, Cepheid was a part of "Science Fiction Week," the immediate precursor to AggieCon. "Science Fiction Week" featured Harlan Ellison as special guest, joined by Chad Oliver. Ellison spoke to many (perhaps 30) English classes. His visit was culminated by a meal function at the Ramada Inn, recalled by many for a "food fight" among other things. Cepheid was dissolved as a club, in part due to issues with the hotel.

In 1970, Gary Mattingly reorganized Cepheid Variable and became the second President of the club. Cepheid held a convention in the spring, referred to as a "comics and trade convention" in the Bryan Eagle. In 1971/1972, the first constitution of the club was written.

In April, 1972, the first named convention, AggieCon III was staged by Cepheid Variable. AggieCon is the most visible aspect of the Cepheid Variable Club, and has been continuously produced from 1969 to 2005 at this writing. It has been a very successful convention, and holds the distinction of being the longest continuously operating convention completely run by a student group. Cepheid Variable and AggieCon have many alumni in science fiction. Among them are Steve Gould, author; Noel Wolfman, currently a production supervisor for Dreamworks; Jayme Lynn Blaschke, author and editor; Martha Wells, author; and Brad Foster, Hugo winning artist.

Over the years, AggieCon has hosted many important names in the science fiction and fantasy field as Guests of Honor. Among them are: Harlan Ellison, Anne McCaffery, Fred Pohl, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Theodore Sturgeon, Bob Tucker, Chad Oliver, Poul Anderson, Jack Williamson, Kelly Freas, Joe Haldeman, C. J. Cherryh, Roger Zelazny, Harry Harrison, L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine de Camp, John Varley, George R. R. Martin, Ben Bova, Spider Robinson, Jeanne Robinson, Walter Koenig, Fred Saberhagen, Lynn Abbey, David Drake, Michael Moorcock, Julius Schwartz, Greg Bear, Charles De Lint, Lois McMaster Bujold, Margaret Weis, Dave Wolverton, Jim Baen, Nancy A. Collins, Joe Lansdale, Bruce Sterling, Robert Asprin, Terry Pratchett, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Todd McCaffrey, and Elizabeth Moon.

AggieCon has also included numerous Texas authors as guests, many who have gone on to establish international reputations. AggieCon has been an important venue for Texas authors to promote their works, and regional guests have included authors such as Neal Barrett, Jr., Rachel Caine, Lillian Stewart Carl, Bill Crider, Carol Nelson Douglas, Steve Gould, Rory Harper, Katherine E. Kimbriel, Tom Knowles, Joe Lansdale, Justin Leiber, Ardath Mayhar, Laura Mixon, Warren Norwood, Chad Oliver, George W. Proctor, Tom Reamy, Nina Romberg, Lewis Shiner, Bruce Sterling, Lisa Tuttle, Steven Utley, Howard Waldrop, Martha Wells, along with many others.

This list of science fiction personalities is impressive, and has afforded the students of Texas A&M University the opportunity to hear them speak, visit with them, and become acquainted with their writings. Few events on this campus have exposed students to as many literary figures than has AggieCon.

Early in the existence of AggieCon, program booklets became standard fare. The first program book in the collection comes from AggieCon 7, 1976. The contents of the program books vary, but typically they include brief biographies and photos of guests, descriptions of movies, lists of committee members, schedules of events, and illustrations by guests or committee members. Bill Page did a brief history of AggieCon in the AggieCon XX Program Book. He noted that AggieCons II and III were small, with no Guest of Honor, and that "AggieCon III was the first to be called AggieCon." Most of the stories of AggieCon remain to be told. The infamous food fight of the 1969 event, featuring Harlan Ellison, remains legendary, but mostly unrecorded, as do most of the events of the following years.

AggieCon evolved over the years, to become a well-regarded event featuring books and authors, soon adding artists, and then later to feature media programming and stars more prominently, and then back toward a more print-oriented convention.

Cepheid Variable and AggieCon served as the focal point for many activities. Science fiction and fantasy has always been the core around which the club and conventions were built. Additional interests reflected in club and convention activities included: motion picture screenings, gaming, comics fandom, anime and manga, music (including performances by "Los Blues Guys"), filk singing, the SCA (Society for Creative Anacronism), fantasy weapons (especially swords and knives), costuming, and others.

While there is no official connection between AggieCon and the University Library, the two organizations have complemented each other for years. The Cushing Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection has been a tour site for many years, introducing authors and fans to the existence of the collection, and affording them the opportunity to see items they have never had the opportunity of view. Those contacts have fostered later research visits to the collection, and have resulted in donations to the collection.

The convention struggled for years as an independent effort. In the fall of 1972, Cepheid Variable became a sub-committee of the Contemporary Arts Committee of the MSC. A year or two later, it became an MSC Committee.

The successful acceptance of the group as an MSC Committee provide funding, guaranteed access to MSC space for the convention and programming, fiscal handling support, and advice and guidance from the Memorial Student Center administration and staff. The latter was regarded with a jaundiced eye by Cepheids, but, it should be noted, they diligently listened and heeded the advice of the MSC administrators – occasionally. In 2004, "budget restrictions" were cited as the reason the MSC dropped Cepheid Variable from MSC Committee status and support. The student organizers continued their work, and successfully produced AggieCon 35 in 2005.

W. J. Estelle, Jr. was born March 31, 1931, in Henry County, Indiana. Soon after, however, the Estelles moved to California, where Mr. Estelle spent most of his childhood. Following high school, Mr. Estelle attended Sacramento State College and received a B. A. in Police Science and Correctional Administration. He went on to do graduate work in criminology at the University of California-Berkeley and at Sam Houston State University.

Mr. Estelle's first job was with the California Department of Corrections. In eighteen years, his positions ranged from correctional officer to associate warden, and he worked in nearly every area from reception to maximum security. His employment experience also included five years as a field parole officer, two years as Warden of the Montana State Prison, and some experience in teaching correctional administration at two California colleges. Mr. Estelle was also a member of several criminal justice associations and he served as vice-president of both the Association of State Correctional Administrators and the American Correctional Association.

In September 1972, Mr. Estelle accepted a position as Director of the Texas Department of Corrections. In 1983, he left to accept a position as president of a bank in Consol, Texas. A year later, Mr. Estelle returned to California, where he has lived ever since. He is presently working in the Industrial Division of the California Department of Corrections in Sacramento.

Jesse Lawrence Easterwood (1888-1919), known as "Red,"a veteran World War I aviator, and pioneer in military aviation, was born 5 Dec. 1888 in Wills Point, Tex. In 1905, he enrolled in Texas A & M College, now Texas A & M University, as a member of B Company Infantry. Very popular with the other cadets, Easterwood also played second base on the college baseball team.

Easterwood left college in 1909 to become a businessman in Mexia, Tex. In 1917, however, on the day the United States declared war on Germany, Easterwood sold his business and volunteered as an aviator. He received his early training at Pensacola, Fla., and was one of the very first Americans to qualify as a naval aviator. He served as an instructor at Pensacola briefly, then was transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for engineering training.

On 12 March 1918 Easterwood set sail for Europe with the first group of American pilots going overseas to serve in World War I. During his tour with the Royal Flying Service, flying one of the first ten Handley-Page bombers, Easterwood completed 16 missions deep behind German lines. He also served with the French air force and the Italian air force, ferrying the first Caprioni bomber from Italy to France.

Surviving World War I, after many perilous missions, Easterwood remained with the U. S. Navy, flying experimental airmail flights. By 1919, having achieved the rank of lieutenant, Easterwood was transferred to Coco Solo, in the Panama Canal Zone. Preferring to fly the planes in his unit which had the worst mechanical problems himself, Easterwood was killed 16 May 1919 while attempting the emergency landing of such a plane with severe engine trouble.

Easterwood was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously, for his heroism during World War I.

Texas A & M University also sponsored a tribute paid to Easterwood's memory. At the urging of Easterwood's high school friend from Wills, Tex., Gibb Gilchrist, who had established a Department of Aeronautical Engineering during his first year (1937) as dean of the School of Engineering at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, the new college flying field in College Station, Tex. was dedicated as the "Jesse L. Easterwood Airport" 22 May 1941. Developed first as a facility for insituting a flight-training program at Texas A & M University, the airport was later expanded to serve major carriers to and from Dallas/Fort Worth, Tex. and Houston, Tex. airports.

Payne Harrison, Jr., is a writer of several noted technothrillers. He was born in 1949, the son of Payne Harrison, Sr., who graduated from Texas A&M in 1924 at the age of 19 and as the youngest graduate in the history of the university. Harrison, Jr. attended Texas A&M from 1967-1971, during which time he served as a member of the Corps of Cadets. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism and subsequently served for two years in the U.S. Army as a public relations officer.

After completing his Army service, Harrison returned to A&M, where he obtained a master's degree in political science. He also earned an M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University, and worked as a reporter and a financial consultant before beginning his literary career.

Harrison's first technothriller was Storming Intrepid, released in 1989. The book tells the story of a attempt by Soviet agents to hijack the (fictional) American space shuttle _Intrepid._A sequel, Thunder of Erebus, set in Antarctica, followed in 1991. Harrison wrote two additional novels, Black Cipher(1994) and Forbidden Summit(1997), before taking a hiatus from writing. He returned to the technothriller genre in 2010 with Eurostorm.

Pat Mueller Virzi is a Texas-based fan, fanzine writer, and publisher. She has produced a number of fanzines, including Pirate Jenny, Awry/Oblique, Pint-Size Stories, Cactus Clipper(the newsletter for the 1987 Westercon), and, most notably, The Texas SF Inquirer. Virzi won the 1988 Hugo for Best Fanzine for the SF Inquirer, and has been nominated two other times (1987, 1990) for the same award.

Virzi has been a Guest of Honor at multiple SF conventions, including the 1988 CopperCon8 and Lunacon 31, the 1990 NorWesCon XII, the 1991 ArmadilloCon 13, the 1992 Westercon, the 1993 NorWesCon XVI, and the 2010 ApolloCon.

Michael Lee Lanning is a retired U.S. Army liuetenant colonel and author, specializing in military non-fiction.  As of 2015 Lee has written nineteen books and co-authored an additional two.  The majority of his books have focused on military subjects, has recently added sports, health, and biographical reporting to his list of publications.

Lanning was born on September 18, 1946 to James Maurice and Alice Coskey Lanning in Sweetwater, Texas.  Upon graduating from Trent High School in Trent, Texas in 1964, Lanning entered Texas A&M Universtiy.  Lee was a member of the Corps of Cadets in Company D-1 (Spider D).  During his junior year he was a featured writer for _The Agriculturalist,_a publication of technical information concerning agriculture.  Lee married has wife Linda on December 20, 1967.  As a senior he served on the 1st Battalion staff as the Scholastic/Guidence Officer.  Lee graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Lanning was commissioned in to the U.S. Army after graduating from Texas A&M as a second lieutenant and reported to Ft. Benning in Georgia for infantry, airborne, and ranger training.  He then transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina where he became a platoon leader of a rifle company.  Lanning depolyed to Vietnam in April of 1969 with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade.  He served as an infantry platoon leader with C Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry for five months followed by a month as the leader of the Battalion's E Company Reconnaissance Platoon.  After only six months in the war zone and less than 17 months in the Army Lee would be promoted to take command of Bravo Company.  Lanning's tour lasted another six months before he rotated back to the United States.

Lee served only one tour of duty in Vietnam as U.S. started to reduce troops in the country and the turning of the war over to the AVRN.  Over the next few years Lee and his wife would be moved around the United States as part of his service.  In 1974 Lanning was given command of another infantry company, this time in Germany.  During his time in the United States and Germany he served as an instructor in the U.S. Army Ranger School, a mechanized infantry company commander with the 3td Infantry Division, and executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 1st Calvalry Division.  He would go on to serve in a non command capacity as the Public Affairs Officer for the 1st Cavalry Division and I Corps, and the plans officer for the American Foreces Information Service.

While stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington Lee began writing a column for the _Fort Lewis Ranger,_the base newspaper,  called "From the Lee Side" by Michael Lee.  Also as Public Affairs Officer he also in overall charge of the paper.  It was an experience during this time that led him to beginning his first book The Only War We Had: A Plattoon's Leaders Journal of Vietnam. 

In 1988 Lanning retired from the U.S. Army as a Liuetenant Colonel to pursure his writing full time.  His writings would focus on subjects he knew well, the military.

Dr. Roy Craig was the chief field investigator for the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, directed by Dr. Edward U. Condon, published in 1965. Dr. Craig attended Fort Lewis College, Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, and California Institute of Technology before receiving a Ph. D. in physical chemistry from Iowa State University. He served in the U. S. Army in World War II. After working in manufacturing nuclear weapons, teaching physical science at the university level, and technical and environmental consulting, he now raises llamas on the historic La Boca Ranch in Colorado.

Sewell Hepburn Hopkins (1906-1984), a marine biologist best known for his research into the effects of oil spills on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, was born 24 March 1906 in Nuttall, Va., the son of Nicholas Snowden Hopkins and Selina Lloyd Hepburn Hopkins. He received a B.S. in 1927 from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., followed by the M.A. in 1930 and the Ph.D. in Zoology in 1933 from the University of Illinois. In 1930 Hopkins married Pauline Cole and they had two sons, Thomas Johns Hopkins (b. 28 July 1930) and Nicholas Arthur Hopkins (b. 4 Sep. 1936).

Hopkins was appointed as a Biology Instructor at Danville Junior College in Virginia (1933-1935), but in 1935 he transferred to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now Texas A & M University. Hopkins remained on the faculty at Texas A & M University as an Instructor, then Associate Professor until 1947, when he was promoted to Professor of Biology, a position he held until his retirement in 1972.

Perhaps the highlight of Hopkins' career was when he was appointed Director of Research Project 9 with the Texas A & M Research Foundation (1947-1950). His research interests included parasitology; taxonomy, morphology and life history of trematodes; life history of crabs; oyster biology; and ecology of estuaries. Hopkins was made Professor Emeritus of Texas A & M University in 1972. He died 15 Nov. 1984.

Edwin Jackson Kyle was born in Kyle, Tex., 22 July 1876, the son of Fergus Kyle and Annie E. Moore Kyle. E. J. Kyle graduated in 1899 with a B. S. in agriculture from Texas A & M College (later Texas A & M University), and, in 1902 he received an M. S. in agriculture from Cornell University.

Upon graduation from Cornell University in June 1902, E. J. Kyle returned to Texas A & M College as an instructor in Horticulture. In 1905 Kyle was promoted to Head of the Department and made full professor. Then, in 1911, when Texas A & M College created the School of AgricultureE. J. Kyle was appointed Dean of the School of Agriculture.

During this time, Kyle also served as President of the Texas A & M College Athletic Association, resigning in 1911 when he made Dean of the School of Agriculture. Kyle was then called back to the post of President of the Athletic Association, after Bruce LaRoche retired on account of unrest among the former students. Kyle did not retire again from serving with the Athletic Association until 1934, was called back briefly to use his diplomatic skills again, and finally left the post for good in 1943, after the Aggies became National Champions , winning three successive bowl games. Due to Kyle's accomplishments leading the Academic Association, Kyle Field was named after him.

Not only was E. J. Kyle accomplished as a leader of the Texas A & M College Athletic Association, but, in his own field of Agriculture, founded and was the head of the Farmer's Short Course for several years. Smith-Hughes Day at Texas A & M College was also supported by Kyle, and he was successful in getting legislature through to increase the amount of land owned by A & M College . As an educator, E. J. Kyle was the senior author of a text book for public schools, and he also co-wrote a book on pecan cultures with H. P. Stukey titled Pecan-growing ( New York : Macmillan,1925).

After retiring from Texas A & M College, E. J. Kyle was elected Dean Emeritus. Although Kyle had retired, President Roosevelt appointed him as ambassador to Guatemala. This area of the world was not new to E. J. Kyle because he had been there before with his activities in Inter-American Education. E. J. Kyle was the only man in the history of the United States trained in technical agriculture and education to be appointed an Ambassador. E. J. Kyle was so successful in Guatemala that upon leaving he received that country's highest decoration "The Order of the Quetzal".

Along with the rest of E. J. Kyle's honors are that he was in Who's Who, Who's Who for American Authors, Who's Who for American Men of Science, Who's Who in Latin America, Biographical Encyclopedia of the World, Leaders in Education, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, International Who's Who, and Who's Who in Federal Administration.

On 21 Dec. 1904, Kyle had married Alice Myers and they had one daughter. After many years of service to Texas A & M College, E. J. Kyle died 26 December 1963.

Clyde McQueen (b. 1926 ), a native of Lufkin, Tex., received a B.S. in Agriculture in 1950 from Prairie View College, a M.S. of Education from Pairie View A & M University in 1957 and a M.U.P. in Urban Planning from Texas A & M University in 1970. For most of his career, he worked for the U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service. From 1965 to 1972 he worked as a Soil Conservationist in Brazos, Burleson and Waller counties, Tex. In 1972, he was transferred to Temple, Tex. with an assignment to work in the rural development area. It was during this time that he "became a student of Texas history and the growth and development of its economy." He retired from the Soil Conservation Service on 3 July 1984 after thirty-one years of service to the federal government. Later, as an independent researcher, McQueen published the results of a survey he had conducted from 1988-1997 of African American churches in Texas, titled Black Churches in Texas. A Guide to Historic Congregations (Texas A & M University Press, 2000).

The Poem of the Month Club was founded in 1970 by Jack H. Clark and Winston Fletcher. The mission of the club was to publish a "substantial and characteristic" original poem by a leading British poet. Among the poets published by the club were W.H. Auden, Robert Graves, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, Cecil Day-Lewis and Stevie Smith. The poems were printed on fine quality broadsides, suitable for framing, and signed by the author.

Roy Fuller, poet and Professor of at Oxford, and Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate, were the club's professional advisors who helped to solicit and select poems for publication. From 1970-1977 the club published four folios of twelve poems each. (The last two poems of the fourth folio were not published until 1977, although the folio is dated 1973-1974.) The Poem of the Month Club ended in 1977, a victim of declining interest and increased difficulty in finding new material.

Born in Alabama in 1944 to a middle class family, Davis was the oldest of three children. She attended the segregated schools of Alabama until the age of 15, when she received a scholarship from the American Friends Service Committee to attend Elizabeth Irwin High School, a progressive private school in New York City.

After graduating from high school Davis won a scholarship to Brandeis University, where she majored in French literature. She spent her junior year (1962) at the Sorbonne in Paris, witnessed firsthand the Algerian conflict being waged in the streets there, and attended the Communist Youth Festival in Helsinki which had a significant impact on her political development. In 1965 she graduated from Brandeis with honors and went to Frankfurt, Germany to study philosophy at Goethe University. At the University she continued her activism and joined a socialist student group opposed to the war in Vietnam. In her autobiography, Davis notes that she spent time in East Germany, which served to deepen her commitment to socialism.

Upon her return to the U.S. Davis joined the Black liberation movement and the struggle against the Vietnam War in San Diego and Los Angeles.

According to her autobiography, Davis first became aware of the Soledad Brothers after reading a February 1970 article in the Los Angeles Times. She accepted the co-chair of the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee and as a result of her activities and subsequent visits to Soledad Prison, Davis befriended the families of the Soledad Brothers and corresponded with the three men.

On August 3, 1970, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson's seventeen year old brother, tried to assist James McClain, on trial for an alleged attempt to stab an officer, escape from the courthouse. During the escape attempt the judge and Jackson were killed in a shootout with the police; one juror and the district attorney were wounded. The guns used in the kidnapping were allegedly traced to Davis, implicating her in the escape attempt. A California warrant was issued for Davis' arrest in which she was charged as an accomplice to murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. She fled Los Angeles and evaded arrest by seeking refuge in several places including New York City. A federal fugitive warrant was subsequently issued and she was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ten most wanted list.

Two months later Davis was captured in New York City. While awaiting trial, and after a few joint court appearances, Davis separated her case from Magee's and their cases were tried separately. Magee wanted his trial held in a federal court while Davis wanted her trial held in California's state court. Davis' trial was moved from Marin County, a primarily white upper middle class community to San Jose, California which was an ethnically and racially more diverse city, in an effort to secure a fair trial with a less biased jury.

Almost immediately a groundswell of support developed in favor of Davis' release. Davis in particular, received widespread national and international support from the black community, liberals and the progressive left. The Communist Party mounted a major political campaign and held rallies in the United States and abroad, published articles, pamphlets and posters, issued petitions, distributed postcards, and requested that the public mail cards and letters on Davis' behalf.

After a trial by jury, consisting of eleven whites and one Latino, Davis was acquitted of all charges. Following her acquittal Davis taught at San Francisco State University for several years. From 1973 until the early 1990s she served on the board of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, an organization she helped found with Charlene Mitchell. In the Fall of 1995, she was appointed to the University of California at Santa Cruz Presidential Chair and became a consultant to the Ph.D program at UCSC where she continues to teach. Davis has written several books on gender and class issues, the prison system and its impact on minority populations, and is a major figure in the orthodox Communist Party.

Lionel Garcia was born in San Diego, Texas, on August the 20th, 1935, deep in the barren brush country. He was raised in an extended family filled with colorful characters which included his parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles and transient relatives-close and distant, who came in and out of his grandmother's house without warning. He was affected deeply by the Hispanic story telling tradition. Most of his work is about the Mexican American experience in deep south Texas brush country, an area so different and unique that is still part United States and Mexico, an area of a mixture of Catholicism and witchcraft in which nothing thrives except plants with thorns and animals with fangs.

During his early years he was sent to live with his grandfather who worked on a remote ranch far in the scrub. There they tended goats and a few cows and struggled to raise whatever little crops the weather would allow. To this day he can hear the cowbells ring at night, hence the title of his fictionalized autobiography, I Can Hear the Cowbells Ring.

He began writing in grammar school. His first published stories were in 1956 in a literary magazine at Texas A&M University, from which he graduated. His award winning stories have dealt mostly with Mexican American life in the United States.

As a child of the Great Depression, his philosophy and attitudes are shaped by the strength, love and loyalty he experienced in the face of extreme poverty and prejudice. He inherited his sense of humor from his strong family who managed to confront and solve problems of monumental proportions with common sense and total acceptance.

In 1983, he was asked to read from his works at a bohemian coffee house in Houston. The response was so positive that he is now in demand nation-wide as a reader and speaker before a wide range of audiences--from literary and corporate groups to kindergartners. He captures audiences with engaging stories laced with generous helpings of humor and wisdom which makes for an immediate connection with his audience.

He is married to Noemi Barrera and has three children, Rose, Carlos and Paul. He has one son-in-law, Robert Filteau and a grandson, David, a daughter-in-law, Judi, and a grand-daughter, Jamie. He is a practicing veterinarian and devotes his night time to writing.

Founded in 1991, the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI) was established to highlight Texas A&M University's strengths and academic leadership in research relating to the study of race and ethnicity and their various dimensions (e.g., intersections with class, gender, and sexuality; past, present, and future relevance to issues of education, immigration, politics, culture, and health).

RESI was founded by Dr. Gail E. Thomas (1991-98) and Dr. Mitchell F. Rice (1999-2004). Dr. Thomas is Professor of Sociology, Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, California and Dr. Rice is currently Professor of Political Science in the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University. In 2006 Dr. Joseph Jewell was named interim director until his departure in 2008. RESI current interim director is Dr. Sarah N. Gatson, Associate Professor in Sociology.

The Santa Rosa Ranch Papers (1890-1910) take the researcher into a time in Texas history when acres of land, head of cattle, and sums of money were counted in minimum denominations of thousands. Furthermore, it was a time when fortunes were made, lost and regained in often very short spans of time by men and women whose formidable legacies remain quite visible in the twenty-first century.

The story of the Santa Rosa Ranch begins with a pioneering trail-driver named Dillard Rucker Fant, born 27 July 1842, in South Carolina, son of W. N. Fant and Mary Burriss Fant. When D. R. Fant was 11 years old, his family moved to Goliad, Texas where his father set up a merchant enterprise and eventually served as county judge.

D. R. Fant began his career freighting with ox teams in South Texas and, during the Civil War, enlisted in Col. George Washington Carver's 21st Texas Cavalry, seeing duty in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and eventually achieving the rank of orderly sergeant. After the war "Colonel" Fant returned to Goliad, where he married Lucy A. Hodges on 15 October 1865, and became a farmer and rancher.

Fant soon began driving cattle to Rockport, Texas and selling them to packing houses (1867-1869). Learning that some North Texas cattlemen drove small herds of cattle through Indian Territory to Kansas at good profit, Fant decided in 1869 to redouble the effort by taking a large herd from Southwest Texas to Kansas. So successful was this adventure, that others eagerly followed Fant's lead.

In 1874, Fant began improving his own cattle stock with Durham and Hereford breeds. For fourteen years he held government contracts to supply thousands of beeves to various military posts and agencies in Dakota and Indian Territory, and wintered herds on pastures in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Idaho. During the fifteen years he was in business, Fant herded between 175,000 and 200,000 cattle up the trail, reportedly never losing more than three percent.

So extensive were D. R. Fant's operations that he had several tremendous herds on the trail in a single season. In 1884, he employed 200 cowboys to drive one of the largest herds on record—42,000 cattle, requiring 1,200 saddle horses to keep the cowboys in mounts—to Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming, selling them for almost $1 million. D. R. Fant was still driving cattle as late as 1889, long after rail service has been extended northward from the Texas interior.

Fant is credited with extending the Chisholm Trail to Corpus Christi, Tex. and financing the construction of Texas public schools and railroads. By the 1890s he was regarded as one of the barons of the Texas cattle industry, and his extensive ranch holdings totaled more than 700,000 acres, including the 225,000 acre Santa Rosa Ranch in Hidalgo county.

D. R. Fant died 15 January 1908 and his widow, Lucy Fant, died soon afterwards in March 1909. The Fants are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Goliad, Texas.

The Office of Continuing Education open December 1973 to assist the academic colleges of Texas A&M University coordinates of their continuing education activities. The first annual report is a summary of the information reported to this office about activities conducted from September 1, 1973 through August 31, 1974.

Mercurio Martinez, school teacher, rancher, legal researcher, public spirited citizen, and authority on the history and genealogy of Zapata County, Tex., was born in San Ygnacio, Zapata County, Tex. on October 27, 1876, and died in 1965. He descended from Spanish-Mexican pioneers who had settled on the banks of the Rio Grande Riverin the mid-eighteenth century.

Don Mercurio's great-great grandfather, Bartome Martinez was one of the original settlers of Revilla, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 1750. He served as Alcalde of this frontier ranching settlement for 30 years. Revilla, the town of origin for many Zapata County families, was renamed Guerrero in honor of General Vicente Guerrero after Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821.

Luis Uribe, another of Don Mercurio's great-great grandfathers, was one of the founding settlers of Laredo, Tex., but moved from there to Revilla about 1755. A third ancestor, Juan Jose Gutierrez, was the owner of San Jose Ranch, an extensive holding on the banks of the Rio Grande near Revilla. Don Juan Jose had three daughters, each of whom either married or mothered a successful south Texas pioneer. Mercurio Martinez was descended from the families established by all three of Don Juan Jose's daughters.

Viviana Gutierrez married Jesus Trevino, an ambitious young man who had migrated to Guerrero from Marin, Nuevo Leon. Between 1830 and 1832, Don Jesus Trevino purchased lands on the north bank of the Rio Grande from the heirs of Jose Vasquez Borrego. The Borrego Grant was made in 1750, but the area had remained sparsely settled partly because of Indian raids and the fact that Borrego and his heirs also had enormous holdings in Coahuila where they spent most of their time. Jesus Trevino became acquainted with Jose Maria Marfil Vidaurri, the grandson of Jose Vasquez Borrego, when Don Jose Maria came to Guerrero in 1828 in order to clear the title to the Borrego lands located in what was to become Zapata County, Texas. The titles to these lands had been lost or destroyed during the Mexican War for Independence, but the claim of the Borrego heirs was declared valid by the Guerrero city council, of which Trevino's father-in-law, Juan Jose Gutierrez, was a member.

Jesus Trevino moved his family to Texas and established the settlement of San Ygnacio in 1830. His holdings of approximately 125,000 acres included the entire San Ygnacio sub-division of the Borrego Grant.

Another of the Gutierrez daughters, Ignacia, married Jose Dionicio Uribe, the son of Luis Uribe. She was widowed early and moved across the river with her young sons. One of these sons, Blas Maria Uribe, married Juliana Trevino who was his third cousin and the daughter of Jesus Trevino and Viviana. Don Blas Maria eventually acquired more than half of his father-in-law's holdings and became a highly successful rancher and merchant. His daughter, Maria de Jesus Uribe, was Don Mercurio's mother.

The third daughter of Juan Jose Gutierrez married Antonio Martinez, son of Don Bartome, the original Alcade of Revilla. Their son, Cosme Martinez was born in Revilla in 1811. He married Magdalena Gonzales in 1829 and the couple remained in Tamaulipas while their children were growing up. However, in 1859, Don Cosme purchased one quarter of the Dolores subdivision of the Borrego Grant and, together with his children and their families, established the small settlement of Dolores. Rancho Dolores was located near the river a short distance from the ruins of the hacienda de Dolores which had been established by Jose Vasquez Borrego in 1750, but abandoned by 1814.

One of Cosme's seven children, Proceso Martinez, had moved to Nuevo Laredo as a young man. Proceso helped his father establish the settlement of Dolores in 1859, but moved to Laredo during the American Civil war. There he prospered while running a store and operating a ferry boat. In 1869, however, he married his distant cousin Maria de Jesus Uribe, and settled in San Ygnacio. He was a storekeeper there and was also active in long-distance trade along the border. Among his contributions were the introduction of the first steel plow, kerosene lanterns, corn planting machines and cotton cultivation to the San Ygnacio community. He was also active in local politics.

Mercurio Martinez was one of six children born to Don Proceso and Maria de Jesus. He grew up in San Ygnacio were he attended the local school, helped his father in the mercantile business, and assisted in tending the family crops and herds. His mother died when he was ten years old, and his father did not remarry.

At the age of twelve, Mercurio began to study guitar and violin. Within three years, he was frequently employed as a musician at dances, weddings, and other local fiestas. Music remained an avocation throughout his long life, and he wrote numerous "corridos" or ballads which were based on historically significant events in the Zapata County area.

In July, 1894, young Mercurio left home to work as the assistant foreman of a group of three hundred cotton pickers employed in the fields near Hearne, Texas. He returned home in December and assisted in his father's various enterprises until August, 1895. He then enrolled at St. Edward's College in Austin, Texas where he studied business and telegraphy. In addition, he continued his study of music during his college years (1895-1898). While in college, Mercurio received some financial aid from A. M. Bruni, an Italian immigrant who had achieved wealth and power in Laredo.

Mercurio graduated from St. Edwards in June, 1898, with a degree of Master of Accounts which is equivalent to a B. S. degree in Business Administration. At the age of 22, he returned to Zapata County where he passed the examination for a teaching certificate. Between 1898 and 1907, Mercurio taught school in the Dolores settlement where many of his paternal kinsmen lived. According to autobiographical accounts, he moved to the county seat of Zapata in 1908 in response to a written petition from local parents that he come there as a teacher.

Before this move, however, tragedy entered his life. Although not mentioned in any of Mercurio's accounts of his own life, some of the genealogical records he compiled show that his first wife, Maria Christina Uribe, died about 1907 and that an infant daughter soon followed her mother to the grave. Nearly 30 years were to pass before Mercurio Martinez was blessed with the two children who brought joy to his old age.

Upon moving to the town of Zapata in 1908, Martinez was appointed principal of the local schools by County Judge A. P. Spohn. He served as principal and teacher from 1908 until 1911 when he resigned to become Zapata County treasurer and the administrator of the County School Depository. Martinez held this position through 1916. By this time he had married his second wife, Guadalupe Uribe, a sister of his first wife, she was nearly 15 years his senior. No children were born of this marriage.

In 1917, Martinez was appointed Sanitary Inspector of Zapata County by the State Health Department. During his two years term, he actively attempted to reduce conditions which led to the spread of contagious diseases. From 1919 until 1921, he devoted his time to farming and ranching. Although he continued to supervise his lands and rental properties throughout his life, Martinez accepted a position with the Laredo law firm of Hicks, Hicks, Dickson and Bobbitt in 1921, and moved to Laredo.

This firm changed names several times during Martinez's tenure as the active partners changed. Martinez's duties included work as bookkeeper, cashier, auditor, translator, interpreter, abstracter, and investigator. His knowledge of kinship networks and histories of land ownership in Zapata County was an especially valuable asset to the firm. He also served as a Notary Public and remained active in politics, primarily as a supporter for various candidates among the Zapata County electorate.

The second Mrs. Martinez died in 1935. Two years later, Mercurio married Cristina Trevino, originally of Guerrero, Tamulipas. His only son, Mercurio Martinez, Jr., was born to this marriage in 1937. A daughter, Rosa, was born a few years later.

Mercurio Martinez retired from the Laredo law firm in 1942 at the age of 66 but continued to work with local lawyers on occasional cases having to do with land ownership. Interests in the history of the region his forebearers had pioneered led him to cooperate with Virgil Lott of Roma, Texas, in writing a county history, The Kingdom of Zapata, which was published in 1953. Active participation in the work of the Laredo Historical Society and the Texas State Historical Association occupied some of his time.

One of the great achievements of Mercurio's long and vigorous life was his role in the salvation of the community of San Ygnacio. The decision to build the great Falcon Dam in 1949 marked the doom of the ancient towns along the river south of Laredo. Guerrero in Mexico and Zapata, Lopeno, Falcon and other communities in Zapata County, Texas, were to be lost forever under the waters of a reservoir which would bring life to dry soils farther down the valley. The lands, the old stone homes, the churches, the places familiar to six generations of men and women, and even the cemetaries where the ancestors lay buried were to be inundated by the waters of the river which had beckoned the first pioneers. Men fought this fate and were accused of blocking progress. In the long-run "progress" won, and the dam was built. What this meant to the people of the region is clear in their words which describe the filling of the reservoir. Among them it is known as the Great Flood.

San Ygnacio, then a community of about one thousand, was far enough upstream from the dam to be spared submersion in a watery grave; however, the town-site had been condemned as part of the federally administered area around the new lake. Bull-dozers rather than water were destined to destroy the last remnants of an ancient heritage. The community united, and in April, 1951, the 75-year-old Don Mercurio Martinez was appointed chairman of the "Committee for the Preservation of San Ygnacio." He communicated the passion of his people to the lawyers who worked with him and the other committee members. A petition was drafted in eloquent language befitting the circumstances and signed by the people of San Ygnacio. Through the good will of men like Congressmen Lloyd Bentsen and Senators Tom Connally and Lyndon B. Johnson, the order to destroy San Ygnacio was rescended.

With this victory behind him, Don Mercurio turned to the task of helping the stricken people of the towns whose doom remained sealed. He worked as a key agent of the International Boundary and Water Commission in contacting the many citizens of Zapata County who were resettled on higher ground. His notes reveal that he attempted to convey their requests to the authorities.

When this work was completed, Don Mercurio retired again to the maintenance of his scattered farms and ranches and the administration of his numerous rental properties in Laredo, San Ygnacio, and New Zapata. He corresponded frequently with those of his tenenats who worked part of the year as crop-pickers in the north, as well as, with his children who went away to college. He located Zapata County landmarks for his associates in historical societies and wrote accounts of family history so that these things would not be lost to time. Assisting friends and relatives in the preparation of wills and other legal documents and taking people on tours of San Ygnacio occupied many hours. During the tours he pointed with pride to the stone houses with ancient beams which had been floated down the Rio Grande from New Mexico so very long before when his grandparents were young.

At last he was in his late eighties and must not have had much energy left for his papers. Very few are dated past 1963, when he was 87 years old. Yet, even in 1965, the year of his death, he was still planning and dreaming. His last papers are the plans for the construction of a small dam on one of his ranches in Zapata County. They are dated 1965.

Mercurio Martinez, 1876-1965, as revealed in his papers, was a complex and fascinating man. His autobiographical accounts, written in stilted legal English, reveal only parts of the framework of his life. Since his prose in Spanish flows with great freedom it is regretable that he did not leave the story of his life in his mother tongue. He was a man of two worlds. That which is revealed about him in the papers written in English conveys primarily the legal mind, the businessman with expertise in accounting, the efficient face presented to the larger society in which he lived. In the relatively few documents preserved in Spanish, he is a different man. His "corridas" are songs of the heart as it wonders about man's destiny. It is hard to believe that the beautiful Spanish ballad of the doomed Zapata was written by the same man who wrote the official notes in English on the property holdings and expectations of Zapata residents for the International Boundary and Water Commission. With very few exceptions, it was only in the Spanish language that Mercurio Martinez revealed himself as the emotional, human person that he was.

As a man of two worlds, Mercurio Martinez has left scholars of the future a rich heritage for the understanding of a time and a place. There is a loss because he did not come to terms completely with his bilingual heritage. He tried to leave his written heritage primarily in English, but, in spite of his technical mastery of the language, he apparently did not accept it as a language for expressing the feelings and emotions which make history truely comprehensible. He left us too little in Spanish, possibly because he thought that he had to leave his record in English for it to count in his native land. His papers reflect this, and that is also an historical lesson.