Monday, December 1, 1986/The Battalion/Page 7
Jack Ruby’s
old employee
plans honor
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DALLAS (AP) — A former
I stripper who worked for Jack
Ruby in the Carousel Club in Dal
las wants to do something special
for her ex-boss, who she says is
misunderstood.
“I want to get together some
money and have a medal or mon
ument or something for Jack,”
said Bobbie Louise Meserole. “He
was a wonderful man.”
Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey
Oswald in the basement of the
Dallas City Jail on Nov. 24, 1963,
two days after the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy.
Meserole hopes the memorial
and the book she hopes to write
»U/ will help set the record straight
on what kind of man Ruby was.
To help gather information for
J the book on Ruby, Meserole, 52,
said she is trying to find some of
the exotic dancers who per
formed with her at Ruby’s club.
Ruby was kind of a mother hen
to the women in his clubs, she
said. She said he often went out to
[dinner with them after closing
time. Sometimes they all went
bowling, she said.
“He was always so nice to the
girls,” she said.
She said if she could get a mon
ument to him, “then maybe we
could finally lay him to rest.”
Ruby died at the age of 55 on
Jan. 3, 1967 in Parkland Hospital
of a blood clot in the lungs.
Ruby always insisted he acted
ifl|alone in killing Oswald. He told
” his family he was motivated by an
angry passion to save Mrs. Ken
nedy from having to return to
Dallas for an Oswald trial. He
maintained that his path crossed
Oswald’s only by an accident of
timing. Ruby’s shooting of Os
wald was witnessed by a nation
wide television audience.
Ajury in Dallas convicted Ruby
of murder with malice on March
14, 1964, and sentenced him to
death.
But the Texas Court of Crimi
nal Appeals overturned the con
viction in late 1966 on grounds
that the trial should have been
moved out of Dallas. The appeals
court also said the trial judge
erred in allowing certain police
testimony that implied malice.
Ruby died before a new trial
could be held.
441
at
n.
ce
Special Corps unit trains future Marines
Recon Company stresses fitness
By Paige Hinkle
Reporter
Development of leadership abilities and physi
cal fitness are the two major functions of the
Texas A&M Recon Company.
The Recon Company is a special unit of the
Corps of Cadets similar to the Ross Volunteers
and the Fish Drill Team, said Tom Marble, the
company’s commanding officer.
Maj. John D. McGuire, an associate professor
of naval science and official adviser to Recon
Company, said the company is considered an ex
tracurricular activity and receives funds from the
University.
“Recon Company is a vehicle for those individ
uals who have an interest in the professional side
of the Marine Corps,” McGuire said. “Recon
Company gives its members a taste for what they
will do as Marines.”
Wayne Harrison, first sergeant of the com
pany, said it stresses physical fitness. The year
starts with activities designed to get the members
in shape.
This part of the program also weeds out the
members who aren’t motivated enough or capa
ble of enduring the full program, Harrison said.
Harrison said Recon Company has about 10
functions planned for the year. He said the com
pany offers field training exercises in which the
members simulate combat scenes to get a feeling
for w hat combat is really like.
Harrison said it also practices hand-to-hand
combat and land navigation exercises. In addi
tion, members run stamina courses and obstacle
courses.
“The whole concept of Recon Company is to
provide a challenge,” Harrison said. “It’s a confi
dence-builder. If you complete the whole semes
ter, you have accomplished something.”
But Recon Company is not all physical, Mc
Guire said.
McGuire said Recon Company also tries to
promote leadership by giving its members re
sponsibility.
“Everything focuses on the leadership nec
essary to accomplish a task,” he said.
Harrison, a junior, said the members of Recon
Company don’t receive any direct orders from
the advising officers. But the officers usually of
fer their opinions, he said.
“The things we do are pretty dangerous,” Har
rison said, “and for us to run them is unique.
There is nothing like this at other universities.”
Since many of the activities the company plans
are dangerous, Harrison said, the members are
instructed on safety before every activity begins.
He said Recon Company is safety-conscious,
and safety comes before anything.
Marble, a senior, said Recon Company is open
to any member of the Corps or the Platoon Lead
ers Class.
The PLC is an organization for students who
are considering joining the Marines but are not
in the Corps, Marble said.
Marble said members of Recon Company w ho
aren’t in the Corps still must follow the Corps’
appearance code and have a regulation haircut.
He said the company also helps to prepare ju
niors for Officer Candidate School.
OCS is a six-week course that potential Marine
officers attend after they complete their junior
year in college, Marble said.
Marble said Recon Company was formed in
the early 1970s at Texas A&M. He said that until
the last few years, the company was very small,
with an average turnout of about 40 people for
activities.
He said Recon Company has about 70 active
members this year. Participation is up because
the members like the more challenging program
that the staff has made, he said.
According to McGuire, Recon Company at
A&M is similar to the Semper Fidelis Society that
is present at about 60 places in the nation.
Semper Fidelis, which means “always faithful,”
is the motto of the Marine Corps, McGuire said.
However, Recon Company is more of a mili
tary organization than the Semper Fidelis So
ciety, McGuire said. Recon Company is run by a
commanding officer and his staff, whereas the
society is run by a president, McGuire said.
Dallas, Fort Worth no longer at odds
DALLAS (AP) — A quarter of a
century ago, representatives of Fort
Worth and Dallas probably could
have put a cock fight to shame if
pitted together in public.
For example, if Fort Worth Star-
Telegram publisher Amon Carter
Sr. had no choice but to go to Dallas,
he’d carry a sack lunch w'ith him to
avoid spending money in a Dallas
restaurant.
But the two cities once known na
tionally for their intense rivalry are
now close chums.
It’s no secret that Dallas Mayor
Starke Taylor Jr. and Fort Worth
Mayor Bob Bolen meet frequently to
discuss problems concerning both
cities and to lend each other a help
ing hand.
When Taylor started a task force
earlier in the year to write a legis
lative crime package, Bolen offered
statistics gathered in Fort Worth.
They announced the resulting crime
package in a joint press conference
last month.
When Fort Worth battled to raise
funds for a robotics research center,
Taylor hosted a fund-raising break
fast in Dallas. After Dallas failed to
make the final cut for a currency
printing plant, Taylor wrote a letter
to the Treasury Department en
dorsing Fort Worth’s proposal.
While no one was looking, the two
cities have formed a mutual admira
tion society.
“I can’t say enough good things
about Dallas,” Bolen said.
Taylor said, “When Bob Bolen
calls and ask me to do something,
there is no discussion. I do it.”
The two mayors recently shared
the podium at a Fort Worth Rotary
Club where they bragged about co
operation. Taylor said the two cities
have “bragging rights” because “to
gether they offer the best opportuni
ties in Texas.”
But leaders of the two cities were
not always so high on each other.
Fort Worth Rotary Club member
Jim Nichols said, “Twenty-five years
ago, it would have been impossible
to have the mayors of Fort Worth
and Dallas at the same podium.”
Some say the Texas Centennial
celebration got the spat going when
Dallas eclipsed Fort Worth during
the World’s Fair exposition in 1936.
Carter, Fort Worth leaders said,
never forgot the defeat of having the
event in Dallas, or forgave Dallas for
its victory.
During the next 40 years, city
leaders worked together only when
they absolutely had to, and then
usually it was on transportation is
sues. The turnpike opened in 1957,
drawing the cities closer in travel
time, if not in spirit.
Fort Worth Chamber of Com
merce president Bill Shelton told the
Dallas Morning News,“l guess old
civic pride fueled the feud. They
were strong, independent, entrepre
neur types in both cities.”
The two cities began to see the
need to cooperate in 1968 when
bank deposits in Houston pulled
ahead of those in Dallas for the first
time, Shelton said.
The two cities then convinced the
federal government that the Stan
dard Metropolitan Statistical Area,
set up as two reporting units in 1949,
should be combined into one. In
1970, the SMSA became one report
that included the entire Dallas-Fort
Worth area.
“The (federal) government was
surprised that we (the two cities)
could cooperate that well,” Shelton
said.
It was a beginning.
Word is slowly spreading that the
two cities have buried the hatchet.
Shelton said he hasn’t received a call
from a California or New York re
porter in at least two years about the
rivalry.
“At one time, reporters tried to
stir up a fight because the feud was
notorious,” Shelton said. “Our repu
tation now is that we work together.
We don’t want to be identified as
twin cities, but as partners. We coop
erate much more than we fight.”
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