t
AS-OLE ARMY
Texas A*M
j
DIAL 4-5444
OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER
OF THE CITY OF
COLLEGE STATION
The B
College
alion
BI-WEEKLY
STUDENT NEWSPAPER
TEXAS A. & M.
DEEP IN AGGIELAND
VOLUME 44
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, TUESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 18, 1944
NUMBER 53
Aggieland Orchestra io Play For Senior Ring Dance
Colonel McNew Here On Terminal Leave
Former C. E. Head Is
Newly Appointed Vice
Pres, of Engineering
By R. L. Bynes
Colonel J. T. L. McNew, newly
named Vice-president for Engi
neering at A. & M., has recently
returned from the China-Burma-
Conner Presented
Watch at Banquet
A beautiful pocket watch, to re
mind him each hour in the years
to come of the esteem in which he
is held by his friends and co
workers, was Arthur B. Conner’s
tangible evidence of more than
forty years of close association
with the Agricultural and Mechan
ical College of Texas.
But in the heart and mind of
the man who held the post of
Director of the Agricultural Ex
periment Station longer than any
other person were the many words
of praise, the emotion-filled out
pourings of love and the good-
natured allusions to his reckless
bridge game and his astute mas
tery of chess—all of them ex
pressed by his associates of many
(See CONNER, Page 3)
Col. J. T. L. McNew
* * * * *
India theatre of operations, where
he was connected with the Avia
tion Engineers.
Former head of the Civil Engi
neering Department, McNew en
tered the armed forces in June,
1943, with the commission of Maj
or in the Corps of Engineers. He
was soon transferred to the Avia
tion Engineers and sent first to
Fort Belvoire, Virginia; then to
Richmond, Virginia, where he took
an intensive course in heavy con
struction equipment operation; and
finally to Orlando, Florida, where
he attended the Air Force School
of Applied Tactics.
At the close of the preliminary
training at Orlando, Florida, he
was then sent back to Richmond,
Virginia, and attached to the staff
of Brigadier General C. B. God
frey (Air Engineering officer of
the China-Burmajndia theater),
as construction engineer, Chief of
(See COLONEL, Page 4)
College Community
Chest Short of Goal
The College Community Chest
Committee reports that it has re
ceived about $11,500 in contribu
tions. This falls by $3,000 to reach
the budget approved for the year,
and as a result all budget items will
have to be reduced by about 20%.
This means that the college com
munity will fall short of its quotas
in the Red Cross and the National
War Fund drives, and that local
charities will receive less than in
former years.
Seventy-five per cent of the bud-
and the National War Fund. The
committee feels that it would be
most unfortunate to fail to meet
these quotas at this time. So a
Christmas appeal is being made.
If you have not contributed to the
Community Chest do so at once. If
you have contributed and can see
your way clear to give more then
by all means do so. Contributions
may be designated to any charity
you prefer and post dated checks
are acceptable. Contributions should
be made through your department
or branch of the college, said Ralph
W. Steen, chairman.
Faculty and Staff
Christmas Dinner
To Be Held Thurs.
Employees Completing
25 Years Service To
Be Honored Guests
The annual Christmas dinner
of the faculty and staff of the
Texas A. & M. College to be held
in the Sbisa Hall Annex at 7:15
p. m., Thursday will pay tribute
to 22 persons who this year have
completed 25 years of service to
the institution, W. R. Horsley,
general chairman of the dinner
committee has announced.
Tickets for the banquet will be
sold at $1.25 each and may be
secured from the head of any
(See FACULTY, Page 3)
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS
Dance To Be Preceded By
Ring Ceremony-Banquet
Orchestra Also to Furnish Music for All-
Service Dance in Sbisa Saturday Night
Hampton, Adriance
Study Rio-Grande
Sub Tropical Fruits
Dr. G. W. Adriance of the De
partment of Horticulture and Dr.
H. E. Hampton of the Department
of Agronomy have recently re
turned from the Rio Grande Val
ley. With \hem on the trip were
members of Dr. Adriance’s class
on sub-tropical fruits. Those
making this field laboratory trip
were Professor R. H. Cintron of
the University of Puerto Rico, Papl
Slud, Cordell Edwards, and T. E.
Wright.
The purpose of the trip was to
From President Gilchrist
The ordinary Christmas greeting seems strange
ly out of place this year. The prayer for peaceful
Christmas to come is as universal now as “Merry 1
Christmas” used to be.
The toughest part of the battle is at hand and
daily we hear of the supreme sacrifice by some fine
boy from this institution. The week commemorating
the birth of our Savior seems to call for reconsecra
tion to our tasks and a stepping-up of home front
activity.
May each and every one of us—the administration,
teacher, student, former student, staff member,
and all who labor in and for this great educational
system be given added strength and courage to
carry on to final, complete, and, we hope, early
victory.
Gibb Gilchrist.
get is pledged to the Red Cross, study soil and crop production in
the valley with special emphasis
on citrus fruits. They visited com
mercial citras groves at Edinburg,
McAllen, Harlingen, and Weslaco.
Dr. Adriance brought back with
him several different varieties of
citrus fruits for use in the sub
tropical fruits laboratory.
While in the valley these men
contacted Leon Miller, W. H.
Friend, W. H. Hughes, E. Gibbons,
J. F. Wood, R. F. Lindsay, A. T.
Potts, and many other Aggie-Exes
who are now making their con
tribution to the Agricultural Devel-
opement of the Rio Grande valley.
Aggie Band Provides Color And Is Significant
Factor In Applause Invoking Aggie Corps Spirit
mm
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■
■
Dr. Lindsay Named
Head Of Local
Sigma XI Chapter
Dr. J. D. Lindsay was elected
president of the Sigma XI Club of
the A. & M. College of Texas when
a local chapter of the National
Society was formed recently at
College Station. Other officers in
clude Di\ W. A. Varvel, president
elect, and A. A. L. Mathews, sec-
cretary-treasurer.
Function of the Sigma XI club
is to stimulate, encourage and sup
port active research in the pure
and applied sciences among teach
ers, advanced students and pro
fessional men. To be eligible for
membership one must have com
pleted some worthwhile research
program, and usually the results
must have been published in a
creditable scientific journal. To be
a member of the local organization,
as now set up, an individual must
have been a member of a Sigma
(See LINDSAY, Page 4)
Banzai—a
By B. J. Blankenship
The Aggie Band under the di
rection of Col. Richard J. Dunn
has just completed another suc
cessful season of providing color
at Aggie football games. Col.
Dunn, who is to retire next year,
has served the band faithfully as
a director for the last twenty years.
In no man could a band find a
better qualified director than Col.
Dunn.
The band has just gone through
the football season performing at
all the games except three, these
being impossible to get to because
of transportation difficulties. Each
colorful formation that was made
at the various football games
showed that the band had spent
hours of work in preparation.
Every member of the band
worked hard and diligently to get
each formation into shape before
each game and to get these for
mations perfect, the band drilled
consistently every afternoon. Rain
did not stop the bandsmen. They
drilled up and down in the mud
and proved themselves a part of
the Twelfth Man.
The formation used at the T. u.
game proved to be the hardest of
all to prepare. Weeks were spent
getting in preparation for the
large map of Texas that was
formed.
The band as well as the other
(See AGGIE, Page 3)
Sam Law Represents
College aj; Student
Confab at Texas u.
Sam Law, secretary and treas
urer of the senior graduating class
here at A. & M., attended an all-
' student conference of representa
tives from colleges and universi
ties in Texas and several surround
ing states, which was held at the
Union, Saturday, December 16.
The meeting was called by Mac
Wallace, president of the Univer
sity of Texas Student Association,
for the purpose of outlining the
program and objectives for a re
gional all-student conference to be
held on February 9th and 10th.
This conference will bring at least
six representatives from each of
forty or fifty schools to discuss,
define, and suggest remedial action
on mutual problems of college and
university students.
Principal function of the two-
day meet will be a series of forums
on subjects tentatively selected in
the four-hour conference at the
Union on Saturday, December 16.
Entertainment for the ten out-
of-town students attending Satur
day’s meeting included a supper at
a Mexican restaurant, attendance
at the All-University Navy Dance,
and an outdoor breakfast at East-
wood Park Sunday morning.
Entomology Head
Elected President
At Academies Meet
Dr. S. W. Bilsing, head of the
Department of Entomology, was
re-elected president of the Con
ference of State Academies of
Science at the recent meeting of
the American Association for (he
advancement of Science in Cleve
land, Ohio.
For many years Dr. Bilsing has
represented the Texas Academy of
Science at the Conference of State
Academies of Science, which is
regularly held in connection with
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science meeting
each year.
The Academy Conference con-
(See ENTOMOLOGY, Page 2)
Civil Air Patrol-
Texas Forest Patrol
Members Confer Here
Members of the headquarters
staff of the Civil Air Patrol-Texas
Forest Patrol, met Monday in the
offices of the Texas Forest Service,
A. & M. College Administration
building, to plan further expansion
of the area patrolled by the planes,
according to Capt. S. L. (Jack)
Frost, commanding officer of the
patrol.
The Texas Forest Patrol is oper
ating exclusively in East Texas,
flying to help protect the piney
woods from fire in* cooperation
with activities of the Texas Forest
Service. It is the plan of CAP how
to also use its personnel and planes
for a system of aerial type map
ping which will cover the entire
forested area in Texas in con
nection with postwar conservation
plans of the Texas Forest Service.
Col. Earle L. Johnson, national
commander of CAP and a member
of the U. S. Army Air Forces,
last week pointed to the Texas
Forest Patrol operations unit of
CAP as the “model and the best
unit in the United States”. He
made this statement at a meeting
in Dallas where the third anni
versary of CAP was observed.
Those at the staff meeting Mon
day included, besides Capt. Frost,
Capt. Larry J. Fisher, executive
officer; Lt. W. T. Hartman, oper
ations officer; Lt. Ken Hallaran,
communications officer; and Lt.
Guy Deaton, acting administrative
officer. Lt. J. B. Clark, intelligence
and supply officer, did not attend
because of illness. All members
of Capt. Frost’s staff are local
residents except Lt. Hartman of
Lufkin.
The meeting was expected to
end late Monday after completion
of the plan for expanded activity.
y Charles Haenisch, Chairman of
the Senior Ring Dance Committee,
announced today that the Senior
Ring Dance will be held on Jan
uary 12 in Sbisa Hall. The Aggie
land Orchestra, under the direc
tion of W. M. Turner, will furnish
music for the occasion. Haenisch
said that the dance will be pre
ceded by a banquet which will al
so be held in Sbisa. Harold Borof-
sky, one of the members of the
committee, said that no final ar
rangement has been made as to
the speakers at the banquet, but
they will be announced in the near
future.
The Formal Ring Ceremony will
follow the banquet, and the dance
is to follow the Ring Ceremony.
Though no definite time has been
set for the dance, it is expected
that it will begin around 9:30 and
end about 1:00.
Haenisch also announced that
the plans for the banquet and
dance had been made entirely by
the Senior class, and that there
were no faculty members on the
committee. The committee, com
posed of Joe Atlas, Epp Brown,
Larry Gore, Jimmy Vaughn, Har
old Borofsky and Larry Rogers, is
trying to determine how many Sen
iors wil be present at the banquet
so that final arrangements can
be made.
Saturday, January 13, the night
following the Ring Dance, there
will be a Corps Ball, and music
will be furnished by the Aggieland
Orchestra.
Tickets for the Senior Ring
Dance and the banquet are $2.75.
Separate tickets for the Dance are
$1.50 and $1.25 for the banquet.
Tickets for the Corps Ball are
$1.20. These prices include the
present federal tax.
Noted Journalist Attended School Here
H. R. Knickerbocker, Pulitzer Prize
Winner, On Town Hall January 12
By Eli Barker
H. R. Knickerbocker, Pulitzer
Prize winner and holder of other
famed newspaper awards, will be
presented here January 12 under
the sponsorship of the committee
of Student Activities.
One of the leading journalists of
the day, he has been referred to
as “the Richard Harding Davis of
our times” by Alexander Woolcott.
Twenty years of reporting has
brought him great fame, but he
has recently become known as a
prominent lecturer. Forums, col
lege audiences, service clubs, con
ventions, women’s clubs and other
types of audiences throughout the
nation have been fascinated by his
clear, vivid and authoritative in-
terpreations of current world
events and his keen explanations
of their repercussions in America.
Born in Yoakum, Texas, the son
of a Methodist preacher, H. R.
Knickerbocker wanted to be a phy
sician, a psychiatrist. After study
ing at Southern Methodist Univer
sity and Texas A&M he went to
New York to take journalism in or
der that he would have some way
to pay for his medical training. Fol
lowing this, he had several jobs on
some of New York’s largest news-
H. R. Knickerbocker
papers and earned the necessary
money to continue his training in
Europe.
Knickerbocker was in Munich on
November 9, 1933, when Hitler’s
Beer House Putsch temporarily
overthrew the existing German
government and first brought the
future fuehrer into prominence; he
was in Moscow when Trotsky was
dismissed from the Russian war
ministry and banished from the
U.S.S.R.; in Vienna when Chancel
lor Dollfuss was assassinated; in
Dessye when Italian airmen bomb
ed that Ethiopian city, in 1935; in
Buros three days after the out
break of the Spanish Civil War; in
Shanghai when that city was cap
tured by the Japanese in 1937; in
the Sudetenland when the Ger
mans marched in as conquerors
and in Paris in the autumn of 1939
when World War II began.
During the summer of 1940 he
returned to Europe for Internation
al News Service. He was in the
thick of the fighting between the
Allies and the Nazis on the West
ern Front. Following a lecture tour
in America, he went to the Far
East for the Chicago Sun, cover
ing Hawaii, the Philippines, Java,
the Dutch East Indies, Australia,
and New Zealand. Following this,
in late 1942 and early 1943, he
went to North Africa where he
witnessed the invasion of the Al
lied forces and the historic confer
ence in Casablanca and then to
Italy.
Knickerbocker will interpret all
this experience with respect to
present day news during his per
formance here.