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winner at All-Aggie Rodeo
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By LIZ BAILEY
No discussion about old rodeo
Aggies is complete unless it men
tions Fred Dalby.
Dalby was in Snook, Texas, during
October to compete in the All-Aggie
Rodeo. That isn’t very unique in it
self because there were many Aggies
competing. What is unique is that he
is an Aggie from the class of 1943 and
is 62 years old.
This year, all Aggies that have gra
duated and were members of the
Rodeo Club and those now enrolled
were invited to participate in the
rodeo.
Rodeoing is not a hobby that Dal
by took up to pass the time during
old age. He’s been at it quite a while.
He was a member of the first rodeo
team Texas A&M University ever
had. Four Aggies, including Dalby,
went to a big college rodeo in Arizo
na in 1943. “We had two riders and
two ropers that went out there. The
two riders rode and because the two
ropers didn’t take any horses, they
borrowed some to use in the roping
contests.
“We done pretty good. We lacked
five points winning the show.”
Dalby said he thought they could
have won instead of placing second if
they had been able to rope off of
horses whose habits they knew. As it
was, Dalby won the cow milking
contest and came in third in calf
roping.
That wasn’t the first time he ever
went to a rodeo. While he was a
student at A&M, he was the All
Around Champion at the All-Aggie
Rodeo in both 1940 and 1942. Then
the rodeo was put on by the Saddle
and Sirloin Club instead of the
Rodeo Club in those days, he said.
Since then, he has continued to
compete in rodeos. He competes
almost exclusively in the tiedown
calf roping. Occasionally, he heads
and heels, but not much because,
“It’s too late in the day to lose my
fingers in the dallying,” he said.
His expertise in roping has won
numerous awards. So far, he has won
eight saddles. He won the first one at
a rodeo in 1950 at Furr,Texas, in calf
roping. He said he is proudest of the
saddle he won in 1955 in the “Old
Man’s Calf Roping at the Texas Cow
boy Rodeo.”
His roping ability is apparently
known far and wide. In 1976, it
earned him a trip to Washington
D.C. He was invited to put on a
roping demonstration at the Smith
sonian Institution in Washington,
D.C. He said he didn’t have any idea
how he was chosen.
He said he tie-down roped in a
pen that was “kind of small. ” Many
people who stopped to watch had
never seen calves roped before and
wanted to “take pictures of their kids
holding the rope. ”
At Aspermont, the West Texas
town where he was born and now
owns a ranch, he gives many youths a
chance to do much more with a rope
than just hold it.
For many years, so many that he
doesn’t know just how many, Dalby
has hosted a roping school for youths
every summer at his ranch. The
youths usually come from all over
the area. Because of problems get
ting gasoline last summer, all of the
students who participated in the
school lived in the immediate vicin
ity of Aspermont. Since he started
the school he has taught about 15
students every summer.
“From ones that have never pick
ed up a rope, to more accomplished,
ones,” he remarked.
He teaches youths to rope because
he likes to, not to make money. “We
charge ’em a little. So much a day.
Not no big amount like a lot of these
places now,” he explained.
One thing he really enjoys is
teaching children whose parents he
taught when they were young. Be
sides his roping school, he is in
volved with youth in 4-H activities.
He has been a leader of the Stone
wall County 4-H Club for so long he
can’t remember when he started,
but he puts it somewhere around 20
years.
Even though he is 62 years old
and is older than ” most who rodeo,”
he isn’t ready to retire to a rocking
chair yet. He doesn’t rodeo as much
as he used to, but, “I make a few old
timer’s rodeos,” he said.
At the All-Aggie Rodeo, he en
tered what was called the Old Tim
er’s Calf Roping. Instead of a roping
contest, it could have been called the
“Learn-All-About-Roping-in-One-
Easy-Lesson-From-Fred-Dalby”
event because he put on a roping
demonstration good enough to win
the event.
Former student Fred Dalby sits on his favorite horse Funkin’
and reminesces of his college rodeo days at Texas A&M. At age
62, Dalby gave some of the students a run for their money in
competition at the All-Aggie Rodeo.
New human milk bank
research opening doors
By SHERIE KELLER
A premature baby has been bom
to a mother who cannot produce her
own milk. The baby needs human
milk to receive colostrum, a subst
ance in the milk which prevents in
testinal diseases.
The only place the baby could re
ceive human milk, other than its own
mother, would be if another woman
was willing to give up some of her
milk for this child, said Dr. Charles
W. Dill, professor of dairy science at
Texas A&M.
Finding a substitute mother is dif
ficult even in large city hospitals and
there is no other place to get the
human milk, he said.
Now, however, a team of resear
chers at Texas A&M University is
looking into the possibilities of start
ing human milk banks in the United
States which would make human
milk available to premature babies
whose mothers cannot produce
milk.
The research is based on evidence
that premature babies need human
milk during the early months of their
lives to receive colostrum which pre
vents intestinal diseases, said Dill,
one of the team researchers.
Premature babies, born before
the normal nine-month gestation
period for humans, have no col
ostrum in their bodies, he said.
Human milk banks would store
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components in a stable frozen form.
The milk then could be shipped to
doctors who would administer it to
premature babies after birth so they
could receive the colostrum, he said.
This system works similar to the
blood bank system that stores and
ships blood to hospitals, he added.
The U.S. government requested
the research, which is being funded
by the Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston, with sub-contracts going
to Texas A&M University, the Uni
versity of Texas at Galveston and
NASA.
Texas A&M s research is con
cerned with processing the human
milk for storage and shipping, Dill
said.
The processed human milk is sent
to the University of Texas at Galves
ton where the protein and colol-
strum levels of the milk are
analyzed.
Most of the niilk used by Texas
A&M research is collected from
women in Houston at the Baylor
College of Medicine.-
These women donors cannot have
been taking drugs, such as antibio
tics because they are transmitted
through the milk to the baby, Dill
said.
Since babies are smaller than
adults, the effect of the drugs is grea
ter on the infant and a high level of
some drugs can be harmful, he
added.
Dill said, “Very little research has
been done on human milk, while
cow’s milk has been tested to death.
Maybe the reason for such little re
search is that people consider human
milk to be perfect.
“All through man’s existence, hu
man milk has been a main food
source, sometimes the only food
available in the infant years. People,
therefore, feel that because of the
quality of human milk, man has been
able to survive.
“Human milk may be perfect, this
we do not know yet. However, we do
know there is a definite need to have
it available for premature babies so
they can receive colostrum to pre
vent diseases that threaten their
health ”