DIAL 4-5444
STUDENT TRI WEEKLY
NEWSPAPER OF
TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE
The Battalion
DIAL 4-5444
OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER
OF THE CITY OF
COLLEGE STATION
VOL. 40
122 ADMINISTRATION BLDG.
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, THURSDAY MORNING APRIL 24, 1941
NUMBER 77
Gillis Wins Battalion Editorship With Landslide Victory
Nearing Ag Day Will Be Event-Packed
In Runoff Today
Exhibitions, Review, Cotton Ball
Sports Events Included on Program
For many years the engineers at A. & M. have staged an annual
Engineers’ Day, but never in the past have the agriculture students had
such an event set aside to show what they are doing while at college.
However, this year, under the sponsorship of E. J. Kyle, dean of
the school of agriculture at the college, they will have their fling and
will stage a three-day affair May 1-3, which will be known as Ag.
Day and all departments of the .school will cooperate to make it the
biggest event of agricultural history at A. & M.
The whole thing will get under f-
way with a formal full dress
mounted military review at 3
o’clock, Thursday afternoon, May
1. The entire cadet corps of near
ly 6500 cadets will be on parade
whether they be “ag” students or
enrolled in some other one of the
four schools at the college.
That evening Sterling C. Evans,
a former “ag” student himself, now
president of the Federal Land
Bank, Houston, will speak on farm
credit in Guion Hall. A concert by
the. 85-voice Singing Cadets will
follow the talk by Evans and will
conclude the activities for the first
day.
Friday afternoon will be given
over to sports with the Texas Ag
gie track team taking part in a
triangular meet with the Univer
sity of Texas Longhorns and the
Rice Owls. Both varsity and fresh
man teams will compete in the
preview of the Southwest Con
ference meet. Immediately follow
ing the track meet the Aggie base
ball team will tie into the Southern
Methodist Mustang nine on the
Kyle Field diamond. Meanwhile,
the golfers from A. & M. and the
Texas Christian Horned Frogs
will be matching strokes over the
greens of the Bryan Country
Club.
That evening the annual Cotton
Pageant and Ball will be staged
in the DeWare Field House with
King James T. Anderson, of Mes
quite and Queen Connie Lindley,
of Fort Worth, reigning ovbr the
colo’ful court of duchesses and
their escorts. A fashion show of
latest styles in cotton fabrics and
modes will be part of the pageant.
Following the style show the Cot
ton Ball will be held with the
royalty the honored guests.
Saturday will find open house in
all departments of the school of
agriculture. Displays, shows, ex
hibits, demonstrations and movies
will run continuously all day. The
annual Spring Dairy Show, gen
erally an affair in itself, will be
part of the big program this year,
as is the Cotton Pageant and Ball.
Saturday afternoon the Aggies
and the Mustangs will play a sec
ond baseball game with starting
time set for 2:30 o’clock and the
day’s events will close with a corps
dance that evening.
Four-H club members and their
leaders from surrounding counties
have been extended special invita
tions to attend the Ag Day events,
Ex-4-H Club President J. B.
(Bugs) Tate said yesterday after
noon.
Above, top, is Charles Bab
cock, Beaumont sophomore, and
bottom, Bill Bryant, Stam
ford sophomore, who face each
other in a runoff election to
day for junior representatives
on the Student Publications
Board. Babcock led a field of
four candidates in the primary
election Tuesday.
Stenzel to Address
Geology Club Tonight
Dr. H. B. Stenzel of the Bureau
of Economic Geology, Austin, will
speak before the Geology club to
night at 7:30 in the Geology build
ing.
His subject will be “Sedimenta
tion of the Lower Tertiary of the
Gulf Coast.”
Duke Ellington to
Play for Town Hall
Program Friday Night
Town Hall will present Duke El
lington and his orchestra as its
annual dance band feature Friday
night at 7:30 o’clock in Sbisa Hall.
Every year Town Hall presents
a popular orchestra which has been
selected because of its music and
novelties. The orchestra that has
been chosen this year will present
the most interesting program of
any of the dance bands which
play here, Town Hall manager
Paul Haines said.
Admission for students without
season tickets will be 50 cents
and for adults will be $1.
Haines announced late Wednes
day afternoon that tickets for the
Ellington concert will be placed on
sales in advance to avoid conges
tion which has been evidenced in
former years.
The tickets will go on sale at
one o’clock Friday afternoon at a
booth in the Y. M. C. A.
Engineers Will
Hear Chevalier
On Two Occasions
Col. Willard Chevalier, publish
er of “Business Week,” will be pre
sented by the school of engineer
ing at a joint meeting of all stu
dent engineering societies and the
Scholarship Honor Society at 7
o’clock tonight in the chemistry
lecture room.
Chevalier will speak on “The En
gineer and His Job.”
Graduating from Brooklyn Poly
technic Institute with the degree
of civil engineer, Chevalier has
had much experience in both mil
itary and civilian life.
Chevalier was in the regular
army from May, 1917 to May, 1919,
during which time he saw overseas
duty as captain, major and lieu
tenant colonel in the eleventh U.
S. engineers. He is now a colonel
in the reserve corps.
After coming back to the United
States in 1919, Chevalier took the
job of sales and promotion manager
with the Bitunastic Enamels cor
poration and was soon made gen
eral manager of that firm.
Chevalier entered the publishing
buiness in 1922 as assistant editor
of the “Engineering News Record.”
He later became the publisher.
In 1934 Chevalier became vice-
president of the McGraw-Hill Pub
lishing company and in 1938 he
assumed his present position.
Despite executive activities, Che-
(Continued on Page 6)
As Candidates Sweat
Above are the seven candidates
in the general campus election held
Tuesday to elect The Battalion’s
editor for the coming long ses
sion and the junior representative
on the Student Publications Board.
The picture was taken in the YMCA
lobby just previous to their ad
dresses to the corps at the yell
practice Monday night.
From left to right the candi
dates are: Tom Yannoy, H. E.
Gillis, D. C. Thurman, Charles
Norton, E. M. Rosenthal, Tom
Babcock and Bill Bryant.
At the left is Tom Gillis as he
addressed the corps Monday night
previous to his landslide victory
in the editor’s race.
—Staff Photos by Phil Golman
Higgins Twins to
Head Convention
Byron and Viron Higgins, sons
of Mr. and Mrs. O. Z. Higgins of
Lampasas, will leave A. & M.
Thursday, April 24 for Waco to
attend the third annual Texas
Twins convention, over which they
will preside as presidents.
Features of the program will
be a thirty-minute radio interview
Friday night and a reception in
honor of the Higgins twins and
twins from other states, and a
dance.
In high school the Higgins twins
were selected as the two most pop
ular students. After graduation
from high school they attended
John Tarleton at Stephenville.
They were selected head yell lead
ers their senior year there.
They were graduated from Tar
leton last year and entered A. &
M. last fall. Both are majoring in
animal husbandry and expect to
graduate in the spring of 1942.
Dean Ryle, Aggie Immortal, Is “Only Living Man in
Texas Who Has Confidence of Farmers and Cattlemen”
* v . .v;/ v |||c> :
: y ' ilg
^Babcock and
Bryant in Junior
Runoff Race Today
Inclement Weather
Fails to Keep 1307
Cadets Away from Polls
Tom Gillis, junior editor of The
Battalion, was elected editor-in-
chief of the publication by a land
slide majority in the general elect
ion primary held Tuesday.
Charles Babcock and Bill Bryant
led the four candidates for the
position of junior representative on
the Student Publications Board
and a runoff election will be held
today in the rotunda of the Aca
demic building for the runoff.
The total votes cast in the pri
mary election for the candidates
were:
Battalion Editor
Tom Gillis 914
D. C. (Bugs) Thurman 197
E. M. (Manny) RosenthaL.196
Junior Representative
Charles Babcock 559
Bill Bryant 309
H. EL (Gene) Norton 237
Tom Yannoy —..185
The primary election ended a
week of strenuous campaigning on
the paii of the candidates, end
ing with a yell practice held on
the steps of the Y.M.C.A. Monday
night at which the candidates ad
dressed the corps.
The winner in the junior repre
sentative race will be determined
by the voting today.
“Thanks for the support and
confidence given me,” Gillis said.
“I’ll try to put out a paper that
will help the corps.” Gillis is a
junior from Fort Worth in ‘B’
Coast Artillery, majoring in eco-
(Continued on Page 6)
Infantrymen Ready for
Ellington and Annual Ball
The annual Infantry Regimental^-
Ball, always the last regimental
dance function of the college year,
will be held tomorrow night in the
main dining room of Sbisa Hall
fi-om 9 p.m. until 1 a.m.
Duke Ellington and his interna
tionally famed orchestra will play
for the event and also for the corps
A Battalion Feature
“That’s Ferg’s boy—one of the
fightin’ Kyles. Fact is, they all
came from fightin’ stock.”
The old man doing the talking
took time out to spit a carefully
aimed quid of tobacco over the
rail, leaned back in his chair again
and continued his story.
“Yes sir, them Kyles are the
scrappinest bunch of folks I ever
heard of. Why I can remember. . .”
But you couldn’t stop to listen
to that seory, even if you weren’t
in a hurry. When the people of
Kyle, Texas begin talking about
the town’s namesake, they’re lia
ble to talk for the rest of the day.
“Ferg’s boy,” the fellow the old
man was referring to, was born
Edwin Jackson Kyle. Today, he’s
the dean of Texas A. & M.’s school
of agricultm-e and, as one Texas
legislator recently put it, “The on-
•f-the state’s dirt farmers and its-f-
cattlemen, too.”
The dean likes that phrase—the
one about the fightin’ Kyles, and
he likes better to tell about his
father, Ferg Kyle.
In his slow, typical Texas drawn,
he’ll tell you how his father went
to San Antonio 12 years after the
fall of the Alamo.
“Why, all there was in that
country then wnre Indians, wild
cattle, bear, panther and a cinch
to die young,” he’ll tell you.
His father and four brothers
were Confederate soldiers with the
Terry Texas Rangers, his father
being captain of Company ‘D’
which was the only mounted unit
in the Confederate Army.
“Fourteen hundred of those men
left Houston,” the dean said, “but
only 444 surrendered at the end of
the war. One of my uncles had
ly living man in Texas who has nine horses shot from under him.”
the complete confidence of both j People who ask the dean about
his early life always get the same4-fair and just.
answer—“I was just a country
boy, and always in trouble,” he
tells them.
Raised in a small country town
(Kyle), the dean was the leader
of a gang of boys who “did ev
erything known to boys in those
days except robbin’ a bank.”
Watermelon patches, chicken
x'oosts and half a dozen other
things were at the gang’s mercy.
“I was a boy myself,” the dean
said with a chuckle, “and I know
well what a boy will do and the
kind of trouble he’s going to get
The dean doesn’t mind admitting
that he didn’t care much for
school at first. As a matter of
fact, after spending four years in
the third grade he decided that he
had enough education and he went
to work in a local confectionery
for a year.
A year later he return to school
and from then on it seemed as
though he might have had an !
aladdin’s lamp. From a boy who j
spent four unsuccessful years in ;
in the third grade, he grew into ;
a man who became corps com- |
into. I covered a little ground my-! mander and valedictorian at Texas
self and was in more than my A. & M. College and an honor
share of devilment.” i graduate student at Cornell Uni-
That’s the reason that the dean i versity.
is a popular member of the A. & “That old blueback speller was
M. disciplinary committee. His own I the toughest hump I had to get
experiences have made him a wiz-1 over,” the dean said, half serious-
ened councilor and his decisions ly.
in disciplinary matters have a rep- j Dean Kyle is the only man in
utation with the corps for being: (Continued on Page 6)
Duke Ellington
dance Saturday night between 9
and 12 o’clock.
Ellington’s orchestra, composed
of 15 instrumentalists and vocalist
Ivie Anderson, will appear at A.
& M. for the second time, having
played here five years ago for a
Town Hall program and a regimen
tal dance.
As is customary, the Infantry
Ball will be one of the most im
portant social functions of the
year in point of attendance. More
than 2,000 persons are expected
to attend the function, Chairman
A. J. Landua said Wednesday after
noon.
With Landua as general chair
man, the committee includes V.
E. Barnes and V. J. Loeffer, gen
eral committeemen; the programs,
favors and invitations committee
consists of chairman B. C. Brady,
R. M. Criswell, G. E. Douglas,
and R. L. Oliver: the decorations
committee is comprised of chairman
W. M. Pena, D. S. Hammonds, and
L. T. Camp; the orchestra com
mittee is composed of chairman
J. B. Hervey, B. F. Bolton, T. W.
Leonard, and M. M. Philips; and
on the finance committee are Chair
man W. W. Clark, J. W. Jennings,
and J. L. Lamberson.
The programs are of a glis
tening blue with dazzling white
letters while the favors are gold
pins consisting of crossed rifles
between which is suspended a
polished gold medallion with A. &
M. in the center.
Landua announced that there is
(Continued on Page 6)
Non-Graduating
Collegians May
Receive Deferment
Cadets Who Wish to
Continue Education
May Possibly Do So
Students enrolled in the college
and registered under the Selective
Service Act and who will need
further time in which to complete
their college courses, may, under
certain conditions, apply for de
ferment beyond the statutory scho
lastic exemption date of July 1,
1941, Dean F. C. Bolton, vice-pres
ident of the college, stated Wed
nesday afternoon.
This relates only to students not
enrolled in the advanced ROTC
course.
Dean Bolton, who has been desig
nated to handle matters pertain
ing to deferment from the Selective
Service Act for students, received
this information yesterday after
noon.
Students who wish to request
this deferment may do so at Dean
Bolton’s office.
The requests will be considered
entirely on an individual basis, and
consideration will be given to the
course the student is taking, the
progress he is making in the course,
and the quality of the work he is
doing.
This possible deferment for the
completion of their education will
effect a possible 1500 Aggie stu
dents. The original provisions of
the Selective Service Act stated
that college students should be
allowed exemption from the pro
visions of the act only until July
1, 1941.
Under these provisions non-mili
tary students over the age of 21
would be subject to draft for mili
tary service at that date regard
less of their educational status.
Such students as are granted de
ferment on the basis of this new
information received will be allowed
additional time in which to take
further schooling.
Students who have already been
classified in Classes 1-D or 1-E
and others who have registered but
| not yet received their question-
! naires may get further information
on their individual status from
I Dean Bolton’s office.