FEATURE
Salute to Dick Rubottom Rubottom served as the Fraternity’s seventh traveling secretary, and has continued his service to the Fraternity his whole life. By Tad Lichtenauer (Butler 1987) Retired and living in texas, R. Richard Rubottom (Southern Methodist 1929) served as the Fraternity’s seventh full-time traveling secretary (educational leadership consultant) from 1933 to 1935.
they gave us our grades, and we had to figure out our averages. I was the honor graduate by two tenths of a point. That’s the way I got to SMU — it was a wonderful place for me to go.”
Hired by Clair L. Pepperd (Oregon State 1927) in 1933, Rubottom succeeded Reuben C. Youngquist (Washington State 1928) who had decided to leave the Fraternity staff to pursue his law degree.
While at SMU, a few brothers invited Rubottom to go to the Lambda Chi house, where he met several more brothers, including All-American football player Logan Ford (Southern Methodist 1924) and Jack Hogan (Southern Methodist 1931). Not surprisingly, the brothers liked Rubottom and asked him to join the Fraternity.
Rubottom says that the job as traveling secretary meant a great deal to him. He loved to travel, loved Lambda Chi, and could not believe he was able to put the two together.
“With only the $50 that my mother had given me and my job, I wasn’t about to take on the obligation of a fraternity,” Rubottom says of how he felt at the time. But after further consideration, he decided that if he was going to stay at SMU, he wanted to join a fraternity. Once he joined Lambda Chi, he quickly became a leader and eventually held many offices, including pledge captain, treasurer, vice president, and president.
“I’ve always thought it was probably the best job I ever had,” Rubottom says. “And I’ve been kicking myself now for about 75 years for retiring too soon. It was a wonderful, wonderful job.”
Rubottom also was sophomore class president, sports editor, associate editor, and eventually editor of the SMU newspaper.
As a traveling secretary, Rubottom says he enjoyed his relationship with Bruce McIntosh (DePauw 1916), the Fraternity’s first fulltime, salaried administrative secretary and chief executive. “Bruce was definitely one of a kind,” Rubottom says. “He was always serious, hard working. He had a sense of humor but he didn’t wear it right out in front all of the time. He was a man whom I respected a great deal and looked up to.”
Serving His Country After working as a traveling secretary, a businessman, and spending four years as assistant dean of student life at the University of Texas, Rubottom worried about the possibility of World War II.
Rubottom began as a traveling secretary prior to the Theta Kappa Nu merger in 1939, so there were fewer chapters to visit but the job still required a great deal of travel.
“I was concerned about World War II long before we got into the war,” he says. “So I began a correspondence with the Navy department about a commission. I eventually got a reserve commission, as lieutenant junior grade, in the fall of 1941. And I was called to active duty immediately.”
“Mostly by train, bus if necessary,” Rubottom says. “I never minded to travel. I liked to travel. I enjoyed meeting new people and dealing with new problems.” Scholarship and Lambda Chi In 1928, when Rubottom graduated from high school in Brownwood, Texas, he didn’t have a father and his mother ran a boarding house. Even though they were poor, Rubottom excelled as a student.
Rubottom was put in charge of recruiting and training in New Orleans, Louisiana. He believes his SMU master’s degree in government helped him receive the rank of lieutenant junior grade instead of ensign. After additional assignments in Mexico and Paraguay, he left the U.S. Navy in 1946, at the rank of commander.
“I can remember being called into the office of the principal with three other fellas,” he says. “They gave us a piece of chalk,
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Cross & Crescent
May 2007