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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 1980)
e War Hymn’ author dies Pinky Wilson never thought song would be a hit by BECKY SWANSON Battalion Staff Hie author of “The Aggie War Hymn died Thursday, mues Vernon “Pinky’ Wilson, who wrote the words d the music to the War Hymn, died in Burnet at the age pen Wilson wrote the words to the song, originally p “Good-bye to Texas University,” he never thought Duld be the success that it became, John A. Adams Jr., Suthority on Texas A&M history, said, jwdams, a 1973 Texas A&M graduate, interviewed Wil- Jseveral times, and included a section about him and l“War Hymn” in his book. We Are the Aggies. [he story that Wilson, then a Marine Corps private, fcte the “War Hymn on the front line during World r I while bombs burst overhead is a myth, Adams said. Wilson, a music buff since childhood, wrote the words Ihe back of a letter from home while on guard duty on [Rhine River in May 1918. He committed the song to nory and discarded the letter. fhe song, Adams said, is a combination of several old i yells and some original words written by Wilson. “Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!” and “Saw Varsity’s Homs Off” were A&M yells. After returning from the war, Wilson re-enrolled in Texas A&M as a senior in the veteran’s unit. In 1920, while a senior, Wilson organized a glee club of cadets which made public appearances, most notably those at two Bryan theaters. In return for free passes to see the show, Adams said, Wilson and his quartet would entertain the audience by singing while the cameraman changed the film reels. On one occasion, several of the Aggie yell leaders were at the theater and heard “Good-bye to Texas University” sung slowly, as a ballad, Adams said. They approached Wilson, saying the song should be “jazzed up” and pre sented to the student body. The “War Hymn” was introduced at a yell practice in Fall 1920, Adams said. There were several songs in con tention for the official fight song of the college, he said, but Wilson’s song was officially adopted in 1921. The verse of the song sung by A&M students today constituted the original song, Adams said. The second verse was not written until 1928 at the request of the yell leaders and former students in an attempt to get away from a fight song purely oriented toward the University of Texas. Adams said Wilson told him that he doubted the Aggies would ever adopt the second verse he wrote. Several attempts to promote the verse have been futile, Adams said. “Just as well, the spirit is with the student body — they’ll sing what they want to,” Wilson told Adams in a 1975 interview. One of Wilson’s noteworthy accomplishments while at Texas A&M was becoming a Ross Volunteer as a sopho more, a privilege normally reserved for juniors and seniors. When Wilson was inducted into the Texas A&M Athle tic Hall of Fame in 1979, he was wearing the Ross Volun teer pin given to him in 1917, Adams said. Wilson was born in Florence on Feb. 12, 1897, and was a rancher in Williamson and Burnet counties for 46 years. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge for over 50 years, and a member of the Kiwanis Club. Wilson served as president of the Williamson County A&M Club and organized the Highland Lakes A&M Club. Ji** he Battalion Vol.73 No. 172 6 Pages Serving the Texas A&M University community Tuesday, July 8, 1980 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Dallas no longer recording record heat r ONUEi W >N DOLBY ITUa| ^lao-iosoo Lower temps, no new deaths United Press International 2-week-old heat wave let up sontewhat londay in Dallas — which has been har- jsthit by the searing temperatures — but limed its first fatalities in Tennessee, rais- ig the heat-related death toll in a ninc ite area to at least 198. In Dallas, where 60 of the 84 heat- ]ated deaths in Texas occurred, no new iths were reported Monday, and, for the ;t time in two weeks, the city’s official ;h temperature of 103 degrees failed to iak the daily record. Compared to last week, when it was |3, a 10-degree reduction seems to have idethe difference,” said a Dallas medical examiner. A National Weather Service forecaster said the mercury reached 103 shortly after 4 p.m., but was unlikely to top the 105 mark set in 1914. Experts said the heat in North Texas was being moderated by an influx of moisture from the Gulf Coast, which put some high cumulus clouds above Dallas for the first time in weeks. Besides the 84 deaths in Texas, Arkansas reported 69, with 29 in Oklahoma, five in Kansas, two in Louisiana and one each in Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri. Four elderly people — two of them sisters aged 80 and 90 — were found dead in their ES BAM “•rns-Mi **★★★** The Weather !MA 16-6714 hat days y-tonk niglii I Yesterday Today High 102 High . ... 103 Low 76 Low 73 Humidity. . . . 40% Humidity . . . . 40% Rain Chance of rain . . . . . None Memphis, Tenn., homes Monday, appa rent victims of the eastward-moving heat wave. Two other deaths in the state have been positively linked to the 100 degree- plus temperatures. “There’s not going to be any substantial relief, like a major break in temperatures, ” said Kermit Keeter of the National Weath er Service’s Fort Worth bureau. “The ma jor system that’s causing the heatwave is still there and it locks out the movement of other systems. “What’s been unusual is that this system came so early — it usually doesn’t come until late July or August — and that it has persisted for so long.” Keeter said the weather service’s 10-day forecast did not include a cooling trend. Reports of the area’s scorching tempera tures have resulted in an international out pouring of advice on how to ward off heat stroke. A Golden, Colo., man even has offered to drop the temperature 20 degrees for $1.1 million. Frank Bosco of the Crop Improvement Institute said his plan involves sending up a chemical cloud that would stimulate cloud development and rainfall. He wants $100,000 up front with a $1 million bonus if he is successul. Bosco blames good ol’ boys who are seed ing clouds in dry West Texas for producing the heatwave. “They’re messing around with the clouds and they don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s cruel the way they’re cooking you people.” Other sympathetic people have sug gested their own surecures, such as drink ing a mixture of mustard and fresh orange juice, a vinegar-pickle concoction and swal lowing tobacco juice. “We’ve had all kinds of wild stories. Some of them get pretty gross,” said Michael Darst of the Dallas County medic al examiner’s office. The heatwave was even blamed for a five-car train derailment near Fort Gibson, Okla., because heat had expanded the rails. East Texas’ 16 million-acre Piney Woods, the state’s most important forest resource, was tinder dry and ready to burst into flames at the slightest spark. Forest Service officials said the only saving point had been that the hot weather kept poten tially careless humans indoors. The Arkansas Health Department also warned of a bat danger, saying many of the rabies-carrying mammals had been forced from their roosting places by the heat. renews two towns’ rivalry limvIUMSB MV, yOlTlMW BKihasniM A IKMU’W low KV.W1NU& WlliayANIlAAII*? :30 5:00 10:00 oiMi'iaK f; United Press International WINK — The citizens of this town of ave revived a 50-year-old rivalry by iming a neighboring burg is unjustly tak- g credit for the West Texas sinkhole that become the area’s only claim to fame. [Although the residents of Kermit, popu- ion 7,884, call the 400-by-360 foot sink- ilethe Kermit Krater, Winkonians point t they are closer to the cavity, and there- e it should be called the Wink Sink. The pression began growing June 3 in the id range of West Texas and attracted tionwide headlines and scores of tourists. Both cities have jumped on the band wagon, producing such fast-selling items as T-shirts and bumper stickers. A hamburger stand in Kermit has started selling Kermit Krater Taters and Wink Sink Drinks. “If it settles down and they make a fitting hole out of it, we ll take it,” said Odie Thompson, former mayor of Wink. But other Wink citizens are more aggres sive in their bid to have the hole identified with Wink, which is 2 miles from it, instead of Kermit, which is 4 miles away. “That’s the way it is around this county — Kermit takes credit for everything,” said Wink welder James Wicker. The Winkler County News published a 40-page booklet entitled “Kermit Crater— The Hole Story.” But the Wink Bulletin — which declares under its nameplate that it’s “The Only Newspaper in the World That Cares Anything About Wink” — has identi fied the bole as a Wink phenomenon. “If this turns out to be our freshwater lake, you can bet Wink will claim it,” said Linda Houston, a Kermit booster. The long-running feud between the two towns goes back to the 1920s when Wink, then an oil boomtown of nearly 25,000 peo ple, forced a county referendum to move the courthouse from Kermit. Kermit voters, the story goes, turned out faithfully to reject the proposition, while Wink voters were reportedly partying and carrying on. The hole, which some say is a result of underlying salt deposits subsiding, was fil led with oily, black water during its nascent period but now has clear, green water that reportedly is better fit for drinking than the nearby city of Midland’s water supply. Staff photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. James V. “Pinky” Wilson is pictured here being inducted into the Texas A&M Letterman’s Association Hall of Honor in 1979. Wilson, the author of the “Aggie War Hymn,” died in Burnet Thursday. F ree-bleeding Ags donate 254 units by DEBBIE NELSON Battalion Staff Student Government and Wadley Cen tral Blood Bank collected 254 units of Aggie blood last week, despite excessive heat and equipment breakdowns. Around 70 people were deferred from donating blood during the July 1-2 drive, John Joyce, Student Government co- chairman of the blood drive, said. The blood drive was still more successful than the last summer blood drive, which was held two years ago. Janet Golub, the other Student Government co-chairman of the Blood Drive, said barely 100 units (a unit is almost a pint) of blood were collected during that drive. Joyce said students are usually deferred from donating blood when they have re cently recovered from an illness or if they could be done medical harm by donating. Due to high temperatures both outside and inside the collection center during the blood drive, Joyce said, any student with any chance of an adverse reaction or with a histoiy of fainting was deferred from donat ing blood. Golub said they would rather defer donors this time and not collect as much blood than for students to have a bad ex perience and not donate again. “At least they’re trying,” Golub said. Nelson fans brave heat “It’s kind of funny. The first-time donors are so disappointed when they’re deferred because they finally got up the nerve to donate.” There were also problems with the bloodmobiles. The generator on one of them blew out because of the heat, and the other one broke down on the second day of the drive, Golub said. People who went to the Commons plan ning to donate blood were taken by van to the donation center at the Memorial Stu dent Center. Golub said few businesses want to have blood drives right before holidays. The amount of blood coming in drops almost to zero. Although doctors don’t schedule much surgery for holidays, the demand for blood remains high, because of the large number of holiday accidents. Because Wadley Central Blood Bank holds drives on the Texas A&M University campus, it assures all Texas A&M students, faculty, staff, former students and their families blood when needed, in any United States hospital. No suspects in gold theft from lab Country music entertainer Willie Nelson held his last annual Fourth of July Picnic at the Pedernales Country Club last weekend. Those who braved the traffic and the unseasonably (even for July in Texas) heat were enter tained by a host of country celebrities. Below, a county sheriff gazes skeptically at one of the thousands of revel ers at the picnic. Right, fans of every shape, size and description loaded their ice chests and sun suits for the long hike from wherever they could park their cars to the picnic site. Some enterprising landowners near the country club were charging up to $25 per car for parking. Staff photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. • film. JLWY0R KTlMf:S ( Texas A&M University police had no f further information Monday on approxi- ( mately $30,000 worth of gold stolen from a (laboratory during the weekend of June 28- i/29. The gold, in the form of hollow tubes, was taken from the Geosciences Building, Detective William Scott said. The gold was kept in a small wooden box on top of a cabinet in the lab, Scott said. Whoever took the gold apparently knew about it before hand, he said, “because to the untrained eye the tubes would appear to be made of brass.” The theft was discovered the morning of June 30 morning by Assistant Professor Robert K. Popp, who shares the lab office. When he came to work at 8:30, Popp found that while the main door to the four lab rooms was locked, the door to the lab itself was not. The blinds were also closed, in dicating that someone had wanted to avoid being seen. Scott said he suspects that the thief used a key to enter the room. He plans to inter view all employees who have keys to the room, he said. Many of the people in the department are not in town right now, which is holding up the investigation, Scott said. There are a few leads in the case, Scott said, but no suspects now. Popp said the gold was used by the de partment as a container for rocks and min erals in experiments done to determine their stability with regard to heat. Gold, silver or platinum can be used in these experiments because they can be heated to high temperatures without melting, and without reacting with the substances being tested.