1970 marked by changes in Texas A&M’s leadership
Texas A&M University’s growth and diversification during 1970
was marked by sadness in the death of Earl Rudder, the institution’s
president for more than a decade.
The 94th year of the state’s first public institution of higher
learning was climaxed by the selection of its 17th president, Dr. Jack K.
Williams.
Other milestones this year included record enrollment of 14,406
students and start of construction on the first two buildings at the
university’s new Mitchell Campus in Galveston.
Texas A&M also experienced unparalleled expansion of facilities
at its College Station campus, with contracts awarded for an
oceanography-meteorology building, a 1,000-student residence hall,
chemistry building addition and an auditorium complex-continuing
education tower.
The 15-story oceanography-meteorology building will be the
second tallest facility between Houston and Dallas and will contain 121
highly specialized research laboratories. The continuing education
tower will be 11 stories.
In addition to a record number of students in 1970, Texas A&M
attracted a large number with top academic standing. The freshman
class, for example, included 47 National Merit Scholars—approximately
twice as many as entered any other institution in Texas.
Rudder died March 23 in a Houston hospital after an extended
illness. His funeral on campus was attended by thousands of persons,
including former President Lyndon B. Johnson and Texas Gov. Preston
Smith.
During Rudder’s illness, the Texas A&M board of directors named
Dr. Horace R. Byers, Tom D. Cherry and W. C. Freeman to share
responsibilities for operation of the university and its system. All three
men are vice presidents.
A. R. Luedecke, a classmate of Rudder’s, was named acting
president March 30 and later selected for the newly created position of
executive vice president. Luedecke, who was associate engineering dean,
returned to his alma mater in 1968 after leaving the Air Force to serve
as general manager of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and later as
deputy director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Williams took office Nov. 1 and promptly was greeted by several
thousand sign-carrying students-all bidding him a warm, friendly
welcome.
Williams is no stranger to Texas. He was the first commissioner
for the Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System.
Named to the post in 1966, he directed the development and
publication of long-range academic planning for Texas’ public institu
tions of higher learning.
He came to Texas A&M from the University of Tennessee where
he had served two years as academic vice president.
Other highlights of the year included the start of telecasts by
KAMU-TV, the university’s educational television station, and acquisi
tion of an additional oceanographic research ship, the 86-foot R/V
ORCA. ■ ■ > ' ,
Texas A&M continued to provide leadership in research. Its
annual research budget grew to approximately $26 million for hundreds
of different projects, ranging from highway safety to pollution control.
The year of 1970 at Texas A&M was not without its milestones
for the record 1,233 women enrolled at the once all-male school. Mrs.
Patricia Self was named the institution’s first counselor for coeds. Texas
A&M coeds also gained the right to compete with Texas Woman’s
University students for selection as Aggie Sweetheart.
Texas A&M also gained its first woman graduate to be commis
sioned into the armed forces-Army 2nd Lt. Shirley Oates, daughter of
Residence Hall Programs Director Eugene Oates.
Cbe Battalion %
Vol. 66 No. 60 College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 6, 1971
Thursday—Clear, with north
erly winds 12-18 m.p.h. High in
the high 40s-lower 50s, low 25.
Friday—Clear to partly cloudy
with northerly winds 12-18 m.p.h.
High near 50, low around 28.
Weekend—C 1 e a r to partly
cloudy with continued cold tem
peratures.
845-2226
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1
BILLBOARD MESSAGE is Georgia State Revenue Cbm- come tax returns filed on form 500R and having no errors,
inissioner John Blackmon’s way of calling attention to his The billboard is being posted statewide. (AP Wirephoto)
department’s new policy of processing first all state in-
Singing Cadets ready for tour
Sounds of Aggieland will ring
in Corpus Christi, Refugio, Alice,
McAllen and Del Rio Jan. 9-15
while the Singing Cadets are on
tour.
The lower Gulf Coast and Rio
Grande Valley tour by the all
male glee club will be made en
tirely during the university’s in
tersession period, said Director
Robert L. Boone.
“Not only are the fellows not
missing any classes to make this
goodwill tour for Texas A&M,
they are giving up a week of the
between-semester vacation for
it,” Boone pointed out.
The 40 Cadets, Boone and pia
nist-accompanist Mrs. June Bier-
ing will make five major two-
hour performances, a “Sermon in
Song” and two high school as
sembly program presentations.
Due to cancellations in Laredo,
the troup will lay over Wednes
day in McAllen. The director said
it is possible another major con
cert in Harlingen, or a series
of high school performances or a
church service will be scheduled
for the open date.
An 8 p.m. Saturday concert in
Del Mar Auditorium at Corpus
Christi will initiate the eight (or
more) performance, 1,200-mile
tour. A 3 p.m. Sunday concert
at Refugio High School will be
followed by the Singing Cadets’
famed rendering of a “Sermon
in Song” at Refugio’s First Bap
tist Church that evening.
Arrival in Alice Monday morn
ing will be in time for an Alice
High School assembly program
performance. The Maroon and
black-clad cadets headed by pres
ident Larry W. Altman of New
Ulm will eat lunch at Alice High
and “stick around for awhile an
swering questions about Texas
A&M,” Boone said.
The Monday evening concert
at Alice High, like Refugio’s ma
jor performance, is sold out.
Concerts also are scheduled
Tuesday and Friday nights in
McAllen and Del Rio, respective
ly, with a Thursday afternoon as
sembly presentation in Del Rio.
The group will board buses at
Del Rio the morning of Jan. 16
for their return trip.
Known for their ability to han
dle a broad variety of music, the
Singing Cadets will dip into their
ample repertoire for program se
lections on the tour. Music will
include sacred numbers, school
songs, folk and spiritual selec
tions and patriotic songs for
which the three-quarter century
old group is famed.
“The only pointed part of the
program will be a tribute to Irv
ing Berlin,” Boone said. “We’ll
also do popular pieces, including
some by Burt Bacharach.
“The programs will include a
little bit of this and a little of
that, but we think it will be a
good program,” he added.
The tour continues a busy sea
son for the Singing Cadets, who
trace their history at Texas A&M
to 1894. In addition to perform
ances for A&M-visiting groups
ranging from junior college jour
nalists to rocket engineers, the
organization has sung before na
tional conventions of dairymen
and highway engineers in Hous
ton and perfromed for the sev
enth year on the annual Miss
Teenage America Pageant (CBS-
TV) at Fort Worth in early De
cember.
MSC employe has
‘sound’ job
If a sound gets amplified at
Texas A&M, chances are A1
Thielemann will be the man to
put electrons to it.
The dynamic, 5-foot-4 Me
morial Student Center building
superintendent has set up public
address systems for the annual
Thanksgiving bonfire and famed
Aggie Muster for 11 years.
Commencement and commis
sioning in G. RoUie White Coli
seum feel his touch, as do bas
ketball games. Complex sound
systems required by Town Hall
performing groups fit right into
the MSC specialist’s circuits.
From field-wide sound for
Corps of Cadets reviews to look
ing after an array of six to 18-
inch-long, eighth-inch diameter
metal bars and associated elec
tronics that sound the time every
quarter hour through the MSC
chimes system, he has his finger
to the socket all around the cam
pus.
“He’s a handyman’s handy
man,” observed Sanders Letbet-
ter, MSC assistant director. “In
addition to being a top-notch
electronics technician, A1 knows
air-conditioning, carpentry, up
holstering and plumbing.”
An auto mechanic in Brenham,
Thielemann was transferred to
Cade Motor Co. in Bryan in 1935.
He was also a full-time electron
ics and TV serviceman and movie
projectionist before joining the
MSC staff in 1959.
His son is in electronics school
at the Texas A&M Annex and
works part-time for the Ocean
ography Department. His daugh
ter was graduated from Texas
A&M last June with a degree in
accounting and works in Bryan.
AI Thielemann checks the MSC’s chime system. A
wireless hand microphone allows the system to be used
as a PA for corps reviews.
Nixon will try
to keep nation’s
wheels moving
WASHINGTON <*») — Presi
dent Nixon will press vigorously
for early enactment of a law to
prevent emergency strikes such
as the still-threatening nation
wide railroad walkout, his labor
secretary said Tuesday.
“Such strikes become some
thing like an industrial H-bomb,”
said Secretary of Labor J. D.
Hodgson in announcing the White
House is putting top priority on
the first new antistrike legisla
tion since the Taft-Hartley Act a
quarter century ago.
“They cause hardship, mass
inconvenience, danger and a
threat to the nation’s health and
safety,” Hodgson told newsmen.
“Decisions are going to be re
quired of the nation whether we
will enact a realistic law to deal
with national emergency disputes
in the transportation industry or
limp through repeated crises with
a wornout crutch,” Hodgson said.
Congress halted a 24-hour na
tionwide rail strike last Dec. 10,
imposing a partial 13.5 per cent
pay hike for some 500,000 work
ers involved. But the special law
expires March 1 and the strike
could resume if there is no settle
ment.
Key congressional committee
chairmen told The Associated
Press three weeks ago hearings
will be held early this year on
emergency strike legislation.
Hodgson said Nixon will re
submit a strike law proposal
similar to the one that languished
in Congress last year. That pro
posal would have junked the 45-
year-old Railway Labor Act
which now covers rail and airline
disputes and replaced it with
one covering all transportation
strikes.
The earlier Nixon bill would
have given the White House sev
eral options including the power
to order strike delays of up to
110 days, instead of the current
90 days, to permit partial strik
ing of a major industry, or to
appoint a neutral board to choose
either management’s or labor’s
final contract proposal as a bind
ing settlement.
Hodgson said Nixon’s new bill
will be much like the earlier one.
Both rail labor and manage
ment opposed the initial Nixon
proposal, and Hodgson said “I
doubt if we can get something
both sides will like.”
Hodgson said Nixon will put
high priority also on a reintro
duced version of his family-
assistance plan of welfare reform
to put a $1,000 floor under the
annual income of an indigent
urban family of four. It will be
revised to meet some of the objec
tions that caused it to become
bogged down in the Senate after
House passage last year.
“Reform of the nation’s run
away welfare system remains at
the center of the New Federal
ism,” Hodgson said.
“This program will be a boon
to working people in this country
and to all citizens who feel that
work is the way out of poverty
and dependency,” he said of the
welfare - reform proposal that
would require recipients to regis
ter for work or job training and
provide a network of child-care
centers for working parents.
He said the administration also
will continue to seek labor bar
gaining based on real productiv
ity growth, and curb what he
called unreasonable wage settle
ments in some industries such as
construction.
“The number of strikes and
the astronomical level of the wage
settlements in this industry (con
struction) are ruinous. It is in
everyone’s interest that we find
better answers to the problems
that have marked bargaining in
that industry in the last two
years,” he said.
Auto licensing time is here
AUSTIN—If you own one or
more of the more than seven mil
lion motor vehicles in Texas,
there is some important mail
coming your way early in Janu
ary.
It is your registration renewal
application.
This is the second year of op
eration fofr-lJifi^fiomputerized reg
istration procedure devised by the
Texas Highway Department.
Last year the system greatly
reduced waits and long lines
which plagued vehicle owners at
county tax offices and substa
tions in years past.
Prospects are that the system
will work even better this year.
Also, it is not necessary to pre
sent .last year’s registration re
ceipt of the certificate of title.
The renewal application you will
receive in the mail is all you will
need.
Registration begins Feb. 1 and
continues through April 1.
The renewal application will
arrive in the mail in a slendor
envelope marked, “Important—
This is Your License Plate Re
newal Application.”
The application is a three-part
form with instructions printed
on it. One important thing to re-
GREAT SAVINGS PLAN made
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FIRST BANK & TRUST. Adv.
member is the card should not
be torn apart.
After the registration period
begins, each vehicle owner can
take the renewal application and
the fee to his county tax office,
Elmendorf gets
mere honors
All-American safety Dave El
mendorf continued to he honored
for his football prowess over the
Christmas break.
The senior from Houston was
named Most Valuable Player for
the South in the North-South
Shrine game in Miami Christmas
Day. Elmendorf’s selection was
an indication of his overall con
sistent play from his safety po
sition, because he did not inter
cept a pass and it is a rare event
when a defensive back can re
ceive an All-Star game MVP
award when he doesn’t intercept a
pass.
He was also named—along with
32 other college athletes including
Bill Zapalac of the UT-Auslin
and Bill Burnett of Arkansas
from the Southwest Conference—
to receive a $1,000 scholarship
from the NCAA for post-graduate
work. Already named Academic
All-SWC, Elmendorf has a 3.84
GPR in economics.
or he can order his plates by mail.
If the owner wishes to register
his vehicle by mail he should send
the entire three-part renewal ap
plication, the fee and an addition
al $1 to the local county tax of
fice as early as January with the
understanding that his license
plates may not be mailed until
Feb. 1.
The additional $1 charge cov
ers the cost of handling and post
age.
If owners are to receive their
plates by mail before the April 1
deadline then they must send the
renewal form, fee and $1 for each
vehicle to be registered to the lo
cal county tax office by March 1.
This allows 30 days for delivery
of the plates before the April 1
registration deadline.
If the owner decides to go to
the county tax office or substa
tion, he will find shorter waiting
lines.
All he needs to take with him
is the renewal application and
the fee. He will then receive his
new plates and part of the form
as his receipt.
Another part of the form is
retained by the county and the
third is sent to the Motor Vehicle
Division of the Texas Highway
Department in Austin.
University National Bank
“On the side of Texas A&M.”
—Adv.