Tarleton State University Magazine 2013-2014

The Tarleton State University Magazine 2013-2014

The war that never ends Veterans face the demons and pain of PTSD

Where in the world is Tarleton Whether it’s international research or study abroad, Texans are everywhere

Out of this world, too Students, faculty explore the secrets of the universe

The return on your investment Scholarships helped Emily achieve her dream.

Make dreams come true with your gift to scholarships.

(254) 968-9769 | www.tarleton.edu/giving

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Inside The war that never ends For some veterans returning home from foreign wars, the conflict is over. For growing numbers, however, the war never ends.

Recent Tarleton graduate Timothy Lukacz talks about the university’s Military Veterans Services Center.

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Inside a silver dome on Tarleton’s Hunewell Ranch is the university’s connection to the universe, where inquiring minds carry out the ultimate observational science.

14 The Timberlake legacy

Marilynn and Lamar Johanson recently donated their family’s Timberlake Ranch and other land to the university.

Their donation brought a legacy full circle.

30 4 Family matters

Sociology professor Leslie Stanley-Stevens is an enthusiastic parent. In her case however, parenting, family life and her profession intersect and interact, meld and mesh. Plus, Faculty Focus.

8 Shorts

Business Administration graduate with a minor in Communications and Animal Science Manchester, Michigan

Studying hunger issues in South Africa. Gaining a new worldview by traveling overseas. A faculty exchange program that took a professor to exotic India. Tarleton is all over the world.

Out of this world

3 the first word

Emily Noggle

Where in the world is Tarleton

Briefs on outreach efforts; “mathemagician” Jim Kirby; Mike and Rosie Moncrief; remedial math; the soaring rocket team; the ROTC; and the unwelcome guest at the Trogdon House. Plus, a few choice words overheard around campus.

12 Tarleton tweets

Facebook is so yesterday, says freshman Kayla Reid.

sports

Sports briefs, new Hall of Famers and a profile of student-athlete Coleman Furst.

TEXANS 34 Alumni

Profiles of Fort Worth ISD superintendent Walter Dansby, M.Ed. ’78; Fort Worth Stock Yard Herd boss Kristin Jaworski, B.B.A. ’01, M.S. ’07 (below); and Peace Corps volunteer Drew Slattery, B.S. ’11. Plus, updates on dozens of alums.

39 In memoriam Notable passings and Silver Taps.

Back Cover Deja View Dr. Mike Leese, then and now.

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Volume 4

Tarleton State University Magazine

2013-2014

President Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio

Assistant Vice President of External Relations Janice Horak

Editor Joe Michael Feist

Associate Editor, Photographer Kurt Mogonye

Production Manager Alyson Chapman

Contributors Nathan Bural, Alex Holloway, Kari Lewis, Dameon Myres, Office of Institutional Research

Design Molly Murphy Blank Canvas Graphic Design

Division of Advancement and external relations Box T-0415 Stephenville, TX 76402 254-968-9890

Senior Vice President, Advancement and External Relations Dr. Rick Richardson

Assistant Vice President, Development and Alumni Engagement Sabra Guerra

is published annually by the

Department of External Relations Tarleton State University Box T-0730 Stephenville, TX 76402

On the Cover: Tarleton State University ROTC Cadet Patrick Smith Cover photo by Jeremy Enlow

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Tarleton steer wrestler Tim Sparing takes down a steer at the 48th annual Tarleton Stampede. Both Tarleton men’s and women’s teams won third in the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo.

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Tarleton is....

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verywhere!

Our roots are deep in Stephenville, Texas. The community and the university have nurtured each other. The university has brought the world to Stephenville, literally, in our diverse faculty, staff and student body, and through our educational and cultural programs. Stephenville is our home, but we reach well beyond the campus gates.

To better meet the needs of the state and region, Tarleton also offers classes and degree programs in the Southwest Metroplex, Midlothian and Waco. Today, a Tarleton education is as near as an Internet connection. Our E-campus offers nine online bachelor’s degree completion programs and nine master’s degree programs.

You will find Tarleton at more than these instructional centers. Tarleton is anywhere you find our students, faculty and graduates. It is students studying overseas to better understand best practices in other parts of the world. It is faculty research extending to other continents to address global issues. It is the innovations of our graduates that contribute to economic development. It is volunteers giving their time and talent to improve the quality of life for all.

It is our mission to prepare today’s graduates to be global citizens. Beyond the curriculum and enrichment opportunities, we believe understanding and living the core values of the university readies each of us for success. These core values are: tradition, integrity, service, civility, leadership and excellence. Understanding tradition gives us common bonds and builds community. Integrity asks us to do the right thing. Service challenges us to make a difference.

Civility calls for respecting others. With leadership, we step up and show the way. Excellence encourages us to choose greatness. Together, these values surely define good citizenship.

Where in the world is Tarleton? You will find it in this issue and beyond the campus gates.

Tarleton is found where innovation is valued. Where tradition is respected and change welcomed.

Wherever people of goodwill gather to solve problems or simply to celebrate community.

We are proud of today’s Tarleton. Come discover it.

F. D o m i n i c D o tta v i o , P r e s i d e n t

texan facts foreign student enrollment

5 64 87

in fall 1992 in fall 2002 in fall 2012

Female faculty percentage

13.8 50.8

in 1992 in 2012

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Faculty Focus Dr. Joe Gillespie, professor of kinesiology, was named a Regents Professor by the Texas A&M University System. The Regents Professor Award is given to outstanding faculty from the Texas A&M University System who excel in teaching, scholarship and service. Gillespie received his award in College Station in January.

Gillespie has been with Tarleton since 1973 serving in a variety of leadership positions.

Dr. Linda Schultz, professor of chemistry, was selected to receive the Piper Professor Award for her dedication to the teaching profession and for outstanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement. The Piper Professor Award was established by the San Antonio–based Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation in 1958 to annually recognize outstanding college professors across Texas. Schultz is the sixth Tarleton professor to receive the award.

Kelli C. Styron, J.D., is the new dean of Tarleton’s College of Liberal and Fine Arts. Styron earned both her juris doctorate (1994) and bachelor of business administration (1990) from Baylor University. Her prior administrative service roles include executive director of compliance, evaluation and institutional reporting, department head for Social Work, Sociology and Criminal Justice, and Faculty Senate president. In addition to her role as interim dean, Styron has served as an associate professor of criminal justice at Tarleton since September 1998, and received a tenured position in the fall of 2006.

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Family Matters Sociology professor focuses on basic unit of society J eremy E nlow photo

Family photos surround Dr. Leslie Stanley-Stevens at her Stephenville home.

Faculty Focus Dr. Jason Sharp, assistant professor of computer information systems, recently published two papers: “An Exploratory Study of the Use of Video as an Instructional Tool in an Introductory C# Programming Course,” appearing in the Proceedings of the 29th Information Systems Educators Conference , and “Facebook’s Use in Higher Education,” appearing in the Proceedings of the 18th Americas Conference on Information Systems.

Dr. Moumin Quazi, associate professor of English, was elected president of the international South Asia Literary Association for a 2013-2015 term. The association promotes knowledge of, and scholarly interest in, the languages, cultures and literature of South Asia. It is allied with the Modern Language Association. Quazi, who began teaching at Tarleton in 2006, was also recently named presidentelect of three organizations: The Conference of College Teachers of English, for which he has served as editor of its journal, CCTE Studies, for 10 years; the Texas College English Association; and the Stephenville Rotary Club.

Dr. Michael Wade, professor of horticulture at Tarleton, recently published his first textbook, Learning About Plants, A Quick Reference in Pictures. Wade joined the faculty in September 1973. The book is published by Fountainhead Press. It is a miniencyclopedia with over 460 full color pictures, many taken on the Tarleton campus.

Dr. James Vardalis, criminal justice department head, Dr. Kendra Brown, assistant professor, and Shannon Waters-Bland, instructor at Tarleton’s

L

B y J o e M i c h a e l F e i st

ike countless others, Dr. Leslie Stanley-Stevens is an enthusiastic parent. In her case however, parenting, family life and her profession intersect and interact, meld and mesh.

Stanley-Stevens, a professor at Tarleton since 1995, specializes in the sociology of the family, an area she finds challenging and vital. In dozens of articles, book chapters and scholarly presentations, Stanley-Stevens has explored aspects of parenting, gender roles, economic stress, balancing work and family and, most prominently, the expectations of first-time parents. 

Southwest Metroplex Center in Fort Worth, are the authors of “Opportunity Crime and the Great American Garage Sale,” published in March 2013 in the Journal of Safer Communities. Vardalis said the research suggests that criminal behavior is more frequent at the weekend homesite sales than originally thought.

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Faculty Focus Drs. T. Wayne Schwertner and Jeff Breeden were recently awarded a $107,000 research grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The research will address habitat utilization of the White-tipped dove in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in order to develop better techniques for understanding the distribution and abundance of this species, which reaches its northernmost limits in South Texas.

Dr. Julie A. Chappell, associate professor of English, has her monograph, Perilous Passages: The Book of Margery Kempe, 1534-1934 , forthcoming this summer from Palgrave Macmillan. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology, Elegant Rage: A Poetic Tribute to Woody Guthrie. She also has become the poetry and pre-modern literature editor for Lamar University Press and an editor for Inkbrush Press.

Dr. James Gentry was inducted into the Chancellor’s Academy of Teacher Educators in March. The academy recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of teacher education and highlights the role of the A&M System in producing K-12 teachers for the state of Texas. Gentry, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, joined the Tarleton faculty in 2006. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in special education and reading.

Dr. Kayla Peak, assistant professor of kinesiology and director of the kinesiology graduate program, was named the 2012 University Physical Educator of the Year by the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, a state organization promoting excellence in teaching in those four areas.

Drs. R. Michael Haynes and T. Wayne Atchley co-authored “The impact of a camp orientation program on first-year academic engagement and persistence” in The Journal of College Orientation and Transition, 20(2), 78-93. The journal is published by the National Orientation Directors Association.

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After receiving a bachelor’s degree in education from Texas Tech in 1983 and a master’s in religion from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., in 1985, Stanley-Stevens thought she’d devote her career to campus ministry or educational ministry of some sort. Indeed, she worked for the Methodist Church in western Kentucky for two years, overseeing educational ministry in hundreds of churches.

But that began to change when she heard a minister who was also a sociology professor. Seeing religion filtered through sociology and vice versa “just really clicked” for Stanley-Stevens.

In 1989, after her marriage to Christopher Stanley-Stevens, now a counselor at Tarleton, Stanley-Stevens found herself enrolled in the doctoral program in sociology at the University of North Texas. And in 1993, she gave birth to twin sons, Parker, now a Tarleton student, and Forrest, now at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

“My interest in sociology of the family deepened after having children,” she recalled, “and I realized that some of my experiences as a parent were not what I expected.”

Her work in family sociology culminated in the 2010 release of a book, What They Didn’t Expect When They Were Expecting, reissued in 2012 as What They Didn’t Know When They Were Expecting: And How They Became Better Parents.

The book reports on real people, women and men expecting their first child. Stanley-Stevens interviewed close to 100 parents-to-be on what they expected of work and parenting. She later re-interviewed many of these people when their first child turned 5 years old.

Not surprisingly, she found that couples facing parenthood often don’t have a clear understanding of how their lives and roles will change once the baby arrives. Many have children almost automatically.

“I don’t think everyone should be a parent,” she said. “People should think about it long and hard. And that’s one of the things the book does.”

Her book, Stanley-Stevens said, “for people who don’t have children yet, it makes them go ‘wow.’ There are a lot of ways that parents of newborns are thrown in flux, and they’d be better off if they thought about these aspects. One of these is work. So many people change their work situations once they have kids, and that throws the whole family into flux. Also, a lot of people move once they have a child because they need to be closer to family or they need a bigger house. This book allows people who are about to have a child to anticipate some of these things and plan better.”

The book also discusses family systems theory, she added, and teaches new parents how to improve their marriages.

“We each have a need to be an individual, but you also need time as a couple, and you have to balance those things out,” Stanley-Stevens said. “A child requires so much of your time,

and so much of your money, that there’s an imbalance that happens and you have to regain balance. One thing that happens with parents of young children is they can actually get in a competition with each other for free time. That causes conflicts in the marriage.

One of the things the book talks about is how to work together as a team rather than turning on each other.”

Another aspect of Stanley-Stevens’ work concerns economic stress, some of it brought on by ourselves, and the family.

“I don’t think everyone should be a parent.

People should think about it long and hard.

And that’s one of the things the book does.”

— D r . L e s l i e S ta n l e y- st e v e n s

“We live in the most materialistic culture on earth,” she said.

“Instead of keeping up with the Jones’, we’re trying to keep up with all of the images we see in the media. Combined with the easy availability of loans and credit cards, our desire to have all of the good stuff we see is leading many people into debt. Having debt is stressful on marriages and families. When you have financial problems, it can lead to lots of fights about nothing in particular, and marital dissatisfaction.”

Her research also points to the incredible stress families feel because of what she sees as inadequate family leave policies.

“The U.S. ranks last in maternity and paternity leave policy in the world,” Stanley-Stevens said. “We’re the only industrialized country that does not have paid maternity leave. Many countries not only have paid maternity leave but paid paternity leave as well. In the U.S. we put so much pressure on individuals to take care of themselves. People need to pressure their congressional representatives and employers for the kind of paid family leave that is standard all over the world.”

The professor also is an advocate for other family-friendly work policies such as on-site daycare, flex time and flex place.

“From an employer’s point of view it’s a good idea to have policies in place that will attract good workers and have those workers stay with you, because you’ll have lower turnover. So that’s what’s in it for them—higher profits,” she said.

The age-old concept of a family consisting of a mother, father and child is changing, Stanley-Stevens said.

“The definition that the U.S. Census Bureau uses is fairly limiting, because it’s looking at the number of people in a household that are related by blood, adoption or marriage…. But people in general tend to have a broader understanding of who they include as family, and sometimes those people aren’t even related by blood or marriage, but they’re still incorporated in the family because of the commitment they have to each other.”

Likewise, parenting roles are changing. Moms going to work appears to be a permanent change, she said, a result of both economic necessity and the need for self-fulfillment. Fathers are now “more involved in the life of the child, not just in financially providing, but nurturing emotionally.”

Stanley-Stevens loves teaching and research, saying her work “has informed church leaders, parishioners, parents and business leaders, which empowers them to empower others.” And the students she’s taught over the years have gone on to make a difference as social workers and counselors, youth ministers and pastors, and market researchers.

Families matter to Stanley-Stevens, personally and professionally.

Family Matters

Faculty Focus In 2011, Dr. Sandy Graham, professor of agricultural and consumer sciences and development, and Nikki Jackson, senior project and policy director of the Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research, developed a partnership with a faith-based group to enhance awareness and education of water quality in Ethiopia, as well as provide treatment to those who have experienced illness as a result of poor water quality. The team identified and developed this partnership and, in return, executed the first Tarleton Study Abroad Trip to Ethiopia in 2012.

Today, Jackson continues the leadership and research for the second Study Abroad Ethiopia Trip, which will aid in the education and treatment of over 9,600 Ethiopian patients.

Dr. Donald G. McGahan, assistant professor of environmental and agricultural management, received a Teaching Award of Merit from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture. He also received a Certificate of Appreciation from United States Department of Agriculture—Natural Resource Conservation Service for contributions to the completion of the Initial Soil Survey of Texas.

McGahan has been at Tarleton since 2008.

Tarleton’s top teaching awards included the Barry B. Thompson Service award to Dr. Syed Jafri; the inaugural Faculty Excellence in Student Success Award to Dr. Allan Nelson; the Faculty Excellence in Scholarship Award to Dr. Linda Schultz; and the Jack and Louise Arthur Faculty Award to Dr. Steve Simpson. Winners of the O.A. Grant Excellence in Teaching Awards were Dr. David Snyder from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Dr. Jason Sharp from the College of Business Administration; Dr. Pam Winn from the College of Education; Dr. Kathleen Mollick from the College of Liberal and Fine Arts; and Dr. Carol Thompson from the College of Science and Technology.

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overheard around campus

The Great Kirby

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“There were clearly two bullets fired from different directions….”

— Dr. Robert McClelland, one

of the attending surgeons at Parkland Hospital in Dallas who treated President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in disputing the lone gunman theory, during a Speaker Symposium lecture, Nov. 7, 2012

“If Democrats can get their act together, and Republicans continue to alienate Hispanics, Texas could become a purple or someday even blue state.”

— Dr. Mark Jones, Rice University political science professor, at a Nov. 8, 2012, election seminar

“You know how they say the gates are always open? Well, it’s not true. I remember a night when it was close to curfew, about 10 minutes before 10, and a bunch of girls were walking back from town toward the east gate. And a bunch of us boys ran down and padlocked the gates! You should have seen those girls panic.”

— Bela M. James,’61

“I think the No. 1 problem that America has today is not what’s happening in the Middle East…. It’s not the high jobless rate, which is certainly too high, or the fact that it hasn’t rained in Texas, and we need rain. It’s this period of bitter partisanship that has grabbed ahold of the country…. We could very well lose our system of government because of this very partisanship.”

— Tarleton alum and former speaker of the Texas House Ben Barnes, April 16, 2013

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ith a deck of cards and a coin purse in his pocket, math professor Dr. Jim Kirby can take his magic show anywhere, including straight into the classroom. The jovial “mathemagician” has a folder of tricks in his desk that he uses in algebra and trigonometry classes.

“It’s just a skill. That’s all it is,” says Kirby as he sets up a magical magnetic field, flips over a seven of diamonds, waves his palm over a 50-cent piece and, within a few strokes of his outstretched arms somehow moves four silver coins under a single, face-down card across his desk. “Some of this stuff I’ve practiced for 40 years!”

During his 30 years on the Tarleton faculty, Kirby has not only pulled fast ones on his students, the magician has also taken his show to backyard parties, school assemblies and civic club gatherings—a venture he said he plans to continue into retirement.

“There are so many connections to magic in mathematics. People think math and they think drudgery and tedium. But there’s really subtle and clever ways of doing things. Kinda like when performing magic.”

—Kurt Mogonye

Outreach programs expand

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arleton State University Outreach Programs continue to expand, bringing the value of Tarleton degrees to Texans across the state.

To meet the demands of area hospitals, the Southwest Metroplex Center in Fort Worth has partnered with Tarrant County College District to offer the bachelor of science degree in nursing at the Trinity River East Campus. The degree will build on TCCD’s associate RN program, creating a more educated nursing population and contributing to leading-edge medical research hospitals.

In spring 2012, Tarleton became a member of the Midlothian Higher Education Center at Navarro College in Midlothian. MHEC brings bachelorcompletion programs and graduate programs to an area without higher education options to support area workforce growth and opportunity.

Tarleton’s graduate counseling psychology students in Waco will receive on-campus experience at the new Counseling Center located at McLennan Community College. Supervised by licensed faculty and staff, the center will not only provide learning resources, but counseling services to Tarleton and MCC students.

Enrollment at the outreach locations continues to grow each semester, contributing 27.5 percent of total enrollment for spring 2013.

— A l e x H o l l o way

Moncriefs receive honorary doctorates

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hen Mike Moncrief visited the Tarleton campus in the mid-1960s to check on his admission application, he met with the legendary professor and administrator Joe Autry.

“After looking at my background, and less than stellar performance in high school,” Moncrief likes to recall with a chuckle, “while he would recommend accepting me, he also wanted me to know he would vote me most likely to never succeed in accomplishing anything.”

Thus, says Moncrief, a former state senator and Fort Worth mayor, there was no greater feeling than graduating and, years later, returning to Tarleton as the keynote speaker at a graduation ceremony.

Moncrief remembered the story again May 11 when he and his wife, Rosie, received honorary doctor of humane letters degrees from Tarleton.

A 1968 graduate, Moncrief made his mark in Texas as an oilman, philanthropist and public servant. Upon earning his bachelor’s degree at Tarleton, he embarked on a career of service and spent more than 30 years in elected office, serving one term in the Texas House of Representatives, 12 years as Tarrant County judge, 12 years in the Texas Senate and eight years as mayor of the city of Fort Worth. Health and human services issues have been the hallmark of his career.

Rosie Moncrief shares her husband’s passion for their community. She devotes her time to the Fort Worth community where she volunteers to address issues involving children, senior citizens and health care. She is dedicated in serving on a variety of boards, committees and fundraisers to help make a difference for current and future generations across North Texas.

“I’m proud to say my life’s journey started when I attended this outstanding institution of higher learning,” Moncrief said. “I credit much of my success in my private life as well as my public life to two things. First, for the valuable lessons learned while attending this great university…. The second part of my success has everything to do with my wife and life partner Rosie.”

Rosie Moncrief said she and her husband accepted the honorary degrees “with great pride and humbleness [and]…. with deep respect for Tarleton.

“To be honest, I have always considered myself a Tarleton woman,” she added. “In addition to Mike being a graduate, many of my friends in Fort Worth are proud alums of TSU, and I have four brothers who went to Texas A&M, a sister institution to Tarleton. I truly feel a part of the family here.”

— J o e M i cha e l F e i s t

Making math add up

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he STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) crisis in the United States has been well documented.

Study after study shows U.S. students slipping behind their counterparts throughout the world in these crucial fields.

College readiness continues to be a problem because high schools are “too focused on passing those standardized tests” and public school systems are “not teaching (students) how to think mathematically or imparting numerical literacy,” said instructor Kay Teague, Tarleton’s freshman math coordinator.

To address the situation, a recently implemented redesign of instructional delivery for the remedial Math 100 and 101 courses is boosting pass rates and providing students a path to success in required coursework.

“We made an eight-week remedial and an eight-week algebra class to get it done in one semester,” said Dr. Bryant Wyatt, head of the math department. “It makes them go to class every day and keeps them in rhythm and doesn’t allow them to slack,” he said. “So, having a class every day and getting them through remedial and straight into college algebra courses in eight weeks back-to-back, we’re seeing lots of improvement in scores and course completion.

“It’s an important topic because we’re not producing science majors without them first being successful in math. Most junior colleges have a 75 percent fail rate and lots of institutions are worse. Math, oftentimes, is the hardest subject people take.”

—Kurt Mogonye

overheard around campus “We are at the radio stations KTRL and KXTR, both on the campus of Tarleton State University, where Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio is president.

(I’ve known him for 10 or 11 years and) I just found out what the F stands for. I’m not going to tell people….”

— Doug Stephan on his nationally syndicated Good Day radio show, Jan. 10, 2013

“Students, this celebration is about you. Not long ago, you chose Tarleton, and I hope you agree it was the smartest choice of your life.”

— Dr. David Weissenburger, associate vice president for enrollment management, at the Oct. 10, 2012, ceremony marking Tarleton surpassing 10,000 enrollment

“I don’t think there is language that’s off limits. It depends on how it’s used. It’s just language, and we are the masters. Language is the tool that we use.”

— Dr. Marilyn Nelson, former poet laureate of Connecticut, at a Speaker Symposium lecture, March 5, 2013

“When the announcement was made, it took me a good 30 seconds after I heard the words ‘Carnegie Hall’ to process it. I was completely shocked.”

— Junior music education major Destin Chapman, on hearing that the Wind Ensemble will play Carnegie Hall next year

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overheard around campus

A stinking disruption at Trogdon House

“You can never take an audience and just assume that everyone wants to be dumbed down. Not all of us want to hear vanilla. We want something lyrically satisfying…. In regard to Texas music, I never had a problem if someone wants to sing about his truck…. There are just too many artists not writing about their truck.”

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— Texas singer-songwriter Terri Hendrix, at a Tarleton Speaker Symposium presentation, April 22, 2013

“One of the more interesting places I’ve visited of late is the Hedley (Texas) city dump.

This isn’t a sanitary landfill.

It’s a genuine old-time dump ground. I’ve come here to look for old dreams.”

— Storyteller and historian Dr. T. Lindsay Baker, on his KTRL radio program, T for Texas

“When you’re placed in a leadership role (in your profession), do your homework, just as you would be doing it in class today. Be prepared.”

— A. Dwain Mayfield, Tarleton alum and former Lockheed Martin executive, at the April 3, 2013, ROTC Leadership Symposium

“If anything in our lives separates us from our happiness, we are foolish.”

— Singer Jewel, on Doug Stephan’s nationally syndicated Good Day radio show, broadcast from Tarleton’s KTRL studios, Jan. 10, 2013

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isitors are always welcome at the Trogdon House, home to President F. Dominic Dottavio and wife Lisette. Almost.

After the Thanksgiving break, the couple returned home and were greeted by an obnoxious, unmistakable odor. A skunk, soon nicknamed “Stinky” by Tarleton’s physical facilities staff, had taken up residence and wasn’t all that keen about leaving.

Groundskeepers came to the rescue, or tried, first with a cage they hoped would trap the skunk. Then there were hot, damp searches under Trogdon House’s crawl space in a fruitless effort to find the critter.

For several days attempts were made to find the uninvited visitor, and it soon became apparent that groundskeepers were playing a game of hide-and-seek with the skunk—so much so that workers kept tally on a whiteboard in their office: “Stinky 8, Toro Team 0” read the score.

After multiple attempts at trapping Stinky— and with the skunk’s pungent smell lingering— the only solution was for the Dottavios to vacate Trogdon House for two nights during several rounds of commercial deodorizing of the home.

“There’s never been a varmint on campus that eluded us like Stinky did,” said Terry Pritchett, director of physical facilities. The grounds crew eventually concluded the skunk left on its own, he added.

It wasn’t particularly funny at the time, but “it’s something we can look back on and laugh

about,” said Lisette Dottavio.

While several events had to be relocated, in the end Tarleton’s first family and grounds crew prevailed. To pay homage to the skunk, the Dottavios erected a small tombstone in a flowerpot at Trogdon House as a reminder of the one guest who overstayed his welcome.

—Kurt Mogonye

ROTC thriving

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arleton’s Texan Battalion has recently commissioned 22 officers, including two second lieutenants at the December 2012 graduation ceremonies, 10 at the May 2013 commencement—with another officer upon completion of summer training—and an additional nine officers slated to take their oaths in December 2013.

“We pride ourselves on being the best and producing the best officers,” said Lt. Col. Jason Vranes, commander.

“When our cadets are commissioned we refer to the lineage with 200-plus years of becoming what our history books talk about, dating back to the Revolutionary War. When we talk about Gen. George Washington, we tell our cadets that could be you, or Patton or McArthur.”

Upon graduation, Texan Battalion’s cadets have gone on to become helicopter pilots, Army Rangers, and in the case of Lt. Col. Daniel Thiebaud, have come full circle and returned to Tarleton as a faculty member of the Military Science Department.

—Kurt Mogonye

overheard around campus “It’s just a little bitty pissant country place, nothing much to see/ No drinking allowed, we get a nice quiet crowd, plain as it can be/ It’s just a piddly squatin’ no time country place, nothing to hide at all/ Just lots of good will, and maybe one small thrill, but there’s nothing dirty going on.”

Members of the Tarleton Aeronautical team include (from left) Jordon “Sawyer” Baldridge, Robert Hess, Amber Dayhare, Billy Fournier, Jake Rhodes, Todd Byers, Dustin Neighbors, Jancie Bateman, faculty adviser Dr. Bo Brawner and Taylor Hutyra. Not pictured are Blake Lohn-Wiley, John Phillips and Jade Sauceda Rodriguez.

Like a….well, rocket

“This is a monumental moment in the history of Hood County, and I want to acknowledge what a great gift this facility is to the city of Granbury.”

I

t’s only been in existence a couple of years but the Tarleton Aeronautical Team has taken off like a.… you know.

It started in 2012 when the team placed sixth out of 41 teams from around the world in the CanSat competition, an event that requires teams to design, build and launch a rocket, with a payload, track the flight path and more.

Next up was the much more ambitious, and prestigious, NASA University Student Launch Initiative. Competing against 35 of the top universities in the country—including MIT, Penn State, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Cal Tech and Virginia Tech—Tarleton blew away most of the competition, finished in third place overall and took Rookie Team of the Year honors.

“These students put mathematics into action and were engaged in scientific research with NASA scientists and engineers,” said Dr. Bo Brawner, a math professor and the team’s adviser. “How cool is that!”

The interdisciplinary Tarleton team, led by junior engineering physics major Dustin Neighbors, submitted thousands of pages of technical reports to NASA and defended them via teleconference. They built a scientific payload that took nine different atmospheric readings, as well as oriented pictures and video. The system also transmitted telemetry to the ground station they designed. In addition to all this, they built a high-powered rocket from scratch that carried the payload safely to within 31 feet of a mile.

“They still have all their fingers, pretty amazing!” Brawner said.

— From the Theatre at Tarleton and the Department of Fine Arts production of the acclaimed musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

— Granbury Mayor Ricky

Pratt, on Tarleton’s transfer of the Langdon Center to the city

“Now I have to go meet my brother Poo.” — Texas Gov. Rick Perry, July 16, 2012

“The entire NASA USLI experience is intense,” he added. “All the top schools in the country competed. We were the dark horse. But we have shown we have some of the best students in the country. They out researched, out designed and out built teams from the top universities in the country. It was no surprise to me that we did this well. These students are amazing.”

Neighbors, the team leader, said, “It is one thing for a rookie team to place in this competition and another thing for a rookie team with no aerospace engineers to place so well in such a prestigious rocket competition.

It is exciting to think what the Tarleton Aeronautical Team will do next.”

The moon, anyone?

— J o e M i cha e l F e i s t

“I believe we shocked the world. There were 37 universities and almost 1,000 people at the awards banquet. They had no idea who (Tarleton) was but today they do.”

— Dr. Bo Brawner, Tarleton Aeronautical Team adviser, after the team’s winning performance in a NASA rocket competition

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Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94

FOLLOWS YOU

keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart ♥

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TWEETS

FOLLOWING

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Following

B y J o e M i c h a e l F e i st

verybody tweets, says 18-year-old Kayla Reid, a freshman pre-nursing major. Well, she quickly adds, not everyone.

“It’s weird seeing old people tweet,” Reid says. And whom does she consider old? “Like my parents.” (For the record, her dad, Kevin Reid, is 45 and her mom, Melissa Ford, is 40.)

Twitter is the new “in thing,” she adds.

Facebook is just so yesterday. “I use Facebook to post a few pictures,” she says, “but that’s about it.”

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Reid, who hails from Haslet, north of Fort Worth, said she likes sharing what she’s doing with friends, “especially when I’m excited about something.” And right now, she’s excited about Tarleton.

“My stepdad came here, and so when I was looking my mom suggested Tarleton because it has small classes, and I like small classes. I came to visit the campus

and said, ‘This is the school for me.’ I love it. I can’t see myself at any other school.”

Since being accepted last fall and enrolling in January, Reid has shared her thoughts and experiences at Tarleton on Twitter. Here are some of her Tarleton tweets.

Remember, as one social media sage said, “You are what you share.”

Tweets

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Following

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Tweet to Kayla ✌

Tweets Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 13 Jan I’m going to gain so much weight with all this food I’m eating #unlimitedmealplan #freshman15 Collapse Reply Retweet Favorite ···More 1 FAVORITE

CJT ✌ @_vivalacj @kaylabayy94 AHH you’re going to do so awesome! gooooood luck baby girl!

13 Jan

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 In for a busy weekend of packing and getting everything ready for college!

11 Jan

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 2 days till I leave for Tarleton! So excited

10 Jan

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 Its official! So ready to move into my dorm on sunday!

Hide photo Reply Retweet Favorite ···More

8 Jan

Retweeted by Kayla

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View all photos and videos Who to follow · Refresh · View all Tarleton Libraries @TarletonLib Follow Tarleton Dining Hall @tsudining Follow TSU Health Center @TarletonHealth Follow Tarleton RecSports @TarletonRec Follow Tarleton Transition @TSUtransition Follow Tarleton StudentLife @TarletonStuLife Follow Tarleton Activities @TSUactivities Follow Find friends Trends · Change #tarletonstate

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RETWEET

FAVORITE

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 @XOXOKaeleen in just 11 days I’ll be at Tarleton with you!! :) miss you girl!

2 Jan

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Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 15 more days until I leave for college So Excited #Tarleton

29 Dec

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 So excited!! Just found out I got the dorm I wanted for next semester! #tarleton #legacy

20 Dec

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 My life will be busy and great!

3 Dec

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Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 3 Dec I can’t wait to meet new people, live the college life, join a sorority and try out for the drill team Expand

#WeAreTarletonState #BleedPurple #TSUTexans #Tarleton #TarletonRocks #studentsuccess #Tarletonswag #Texanlove #TexanNation #Classof2017 #TexansforLife #TarletonBound #bestschoolever #TexanPrideyall

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 8 Nov Can’t wait to go to Tarleton!!! I love this small town feel! #bleedpurple #texans #2months #excited Expand

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 Purple is going to have to become my new favorite color #tarleton #texans #excited

13 Oct

Kayla ✌ @kaylabayy94 Can’t wait for college life!!! #tarleton

13 Oct

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B y M a r y G . S a lta r e l l i

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The Timb

hen Marilynn Johanson was a teenager, she and her dad helped herd cattle at her grandfather’s Timberlake Ranch in Mills County. One evening after their chores were done, her grandfather, W.C. Timberlake, took Marilynn aside to deliver a piece of sage advice. “I want you to get a good education so you won’t have to work so hard like me and your dad,” he told her.

“So, I got an education, had a great career teaching, and came back to the ranch as soon as I could,” Marilynn said, laughing. “I’ve often thought about what my grandfather told me and that I’ve come back to do what he and my father did, but ranching is a lot easier now. I get to ride a four-wheeler around the ranch, not a white horse.”

Marilynn and her husband, Lamar, who taught at Tarleton for 40 years, recently donated their family’s 790-acre Timberlake Ranch to the university. Their donation brought a legacy full circle for the Timberlake and Johanson families—a heritage of devotion to Texas land and dedication to education. Timberlake Ranch is part of 1,700 acres of land valued at $5.2 million that the Johansons endowed to Tarleton.

“Education is our life,” Lamar explained. “We’ve been involved with five universities in Texas, but the one that’s been home for me and Marilynn is Tarleton—we share a heck of a kindred spirit there.”

Lamar’s tenure at Tarleton included work as biology professor, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, dean of what was then the College of Arts and Sciences, and as the first executive director of Tarleton System Center, Killeen, now Texas A&M-Central Texas. Marilynn taught vocational home economics for 20 years at Hico and Stephenville High Schools, followed by stints as field representative for the Texas Education Agency and principal of Strawn Independent School District and Goldthwaite Elementary School. Together, Lamar and Marilynn devoted 74 years to teaching Texas students.

Education also came first to Marilynn’s grandfather, who graduated from a frontier high school in Burnet in 1888 and read law. Timberlake married Effie Stephen, whose grandfather, John M. Stephen, donated land for the town of Stephenville. In 1902, Timberlake packed up his wife and three little boys and moved from Burnet County, looking for a new home.

He chose a location in Mills County, near Goldthwaite, where the Colorado River bends deeply, surrounding the ranch on three sides, creating a peninsula with 2.84 miles of riverfront. Sandstone hills blanketed with bluebonnets each spring overlook open pastures and river lowlands thick with ash, elms and pecans. Archaeological artifacts recall the ranch’s years as home to American Indians, from grinding holes in rocks along the river to flint chips and arrowheads unearthed under the trees.

A diminutive man with a deep voice and long white hair and beard who rode a white horse, Timberlake raised cattle and ventured to town only to vote and pay taxes. His children attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse in the small community of Rye Valley.

After his grandchildren were born, Timberlake sold four calves each year, saving the proceeds to pay for their future college studies. Three of his grandchildren followed his advice, went to college and on to learned professions—teaching, practicing

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Dr. Lamar and Marilynn Johanson on their ranch overlooking the Colorado River.

mberlake berlake Legacy  law and working as an architect.

Today, the Johansons welcome guests to Timberlake Ranch and their red-and-brown native sandstone ranch house, which sits high on a ridge overlooking the Colorado River. In the pasture below, a wooly polled Hereford bull named “Andrew” watches over his grazing herd of heifers and calves. Amid spreading live oaks along the river is a pavilion with serving and picnic tables and a dinner bell, where the Johansons host family reunions, fish fries and barbecues. A Swedish welcoming sign greets all with “Välkommen Johanson’s Lant Kök,” or “Welcome to Johanson’s Country Kitchen.”

The Johansons’ dream is that their ranch can remain intact and productive, a center where Tarleton students can study environmental science and biology, agriculture and wildlife management. Lamar sees the ranch’s rustic buildings as ideal for hands-on learning experiences. Among them is a fully furnished log house that welcomes overnight guests, and the “Timberlake Ranch and Fish Club,” where hunters and fishermen camp in a cozy circle of mobile homes, RVs and a clubhouse.

“Can’t you just see this as an outdoor lab with graduate

students living and studying here?” Lamar asked. “Nothing would please us more than for that to happen.”

The Johansons’ donation to Tarleton is a life estate, meaning the property remains theirs as long as they live. When their estate passes to Tarleton, the university can sell three other large parcels of land in San Saba County to create a maintenance endowment for Timberlake Ranch and fund scholarships for students. The donation includes mineral rights, so they hope future gas production will also fund scholarships.

“We want to make sure if you’re a good old, ordinary kid—a middle-of-the-road student and you’re in need of money for your education, scholarships will be there,” Marilynn said.

Lamar and Marilynn think W.C. Timberlake would be proud to see his ranch enrich the lives of students while enhancing a family legacy of education. “He would be pleased to know that kids could receive a college education generated from land he had settled—that he had built something that could be passed on to help people get an education,” Marilynn said. “And he would feel good that his family had enough gumption to pass it along so other people could benefit through education.”

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The War that Never Ends

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Veterans face the demons and pain of PTSD

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B y K at h r y n J o n e s

he Saturday morning of Feb. 2 was sunny and warm, giving an early hint of spring. Former Navy SEAL and celebrated military sniper Chris Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, liked to go out to the country

and shoot on days like this, so they hopped in Kyle’s black truck and drove from their homes in Midlothian to nearby Lancaster. There they picked up a young man neither one knew well.

His name was Eddie Ray Routh, and he was 25 years old, with dark brown hair, a trimmed beard and penetrating dark eyes. Routh’s mother, Jodi, a special education aide at an elementary school in Midlothian, had asked for Kyle’s help. Her son was having problems adjusting after returning from two tours of duty as a U.S. Marine stationed in Iraq, then in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. He had been repeatedly hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and released the week before the outing.

Whether Kyle knew the details of Routh’s recent hospitalizations, no one knows for sure. A fellow veteran needed help, and Kyle was going to try to help him.

They drove for more than an hour on U.S. 67 to the turnoff to Rough Creek Lodge west of Glen Rose. A winding county road led to the tall iron and stone gates of Rough Creek, an upscale resort with a spa, gourmet restaurant, bass fishing lake and a 1,000-yard shooting range equipped with a sniper rig. Kyle knew it well; he was planning to hold a shooting class there in March.

The range was on a remote part of the 11,000-acre resort in Erath County. Exactly what happened there over the next several hours isn’t known for certain. What is known is that the bodies of Kyle and Littlefield were discovered later that afternoon. They had been shot at close range, law enforcement authorities said. Kyle’s truck was missing. So was Routh.

According to an arrest affidavit, Routh drove Kyle’s truck to his sister’s home in Midlothian, where he confessed to the shootings. Within hours he was arrested, handcuffed and transported to Stephenville, where he was charged with two counts of capital murder.

As of this writing, a grand jury has not indicted him.

Routh was undergoing psychological evaluation to determine his mental competence. He remains locked up in the Erath County Jail.  J eremy E nlow photo

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No training to be a civilian

News of the killings spread fast over cellphones and the Internet. It was the lead story on national and international newscasts and websites. Some of Kyle’s friends said they didn’t believe it at first. Their initial reaction was that an Iraqi insurgent or sympathizer had taken him out in retaliation for all the “targets” he had killed.

But Kyle was the kind of guy who would help any veteran in need, family and friends say. “He understood that each individual, as they come back, deals with different challenges,” Wayne said. “He wanted to help them work through things and become productive parts of society.”

In his memoir, Chris Kyle recounted how he struggled with his own demons and the toll his military life took on his wife, Taya, and two young children. But he made the transition to civilian life and started a training company, Craft International, for the military and law enforcement. He also set up a foundation, FITCO Cares, to provide veterans free fitness equipment, personal training and life coaching to those with disabilities or suffering from PTSD. Wayne Kyle says his son was not trying to give vets “therapy” in the psychological sense. Instead, Chris believed that taking them hunting or shooting in a non-threatening setting and training them ended up being a form of therapy. “He got such joy out of taking the veterans and helping them with things, just going out to the range and shooting,” Wayne says. “If you take an individual that’s been in firefights and remove them from that and put them into the civilian world, they feel good about going out and shooting. It’s stress relief.” 

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Kyle’s Navy SEAL buddies had given him the nickname of “The Legend” for his prowess as a sniper. He had killed anywhere from 150 to 160 insurgents during missions in Iraq, according to his memoir about his experiences, American Sniper, which became a New York Times bestseller.

And it was incredulous that the military’s most lethal sniper could be killed by a young man he was trying to help. “We can’t make sense of it,” Kyle’s father, Wayne, said in an interview. “He spent almost 11 years in the service, most of that on dangerous missions.”

Wayne and his wife, Deby, went through four deployments wondering if their son would come back home. “Raising a child is stressful to a point, but there’s nothing as stressful as sending one of your loved ones off to war,” Wayne adds. “We had tried to condition ourselves to expect the worst because of what he did…. You can never prepare yourself for the ultimate time when you’re notified, but we knew he was one of the most highly trained, highly skilled members of probably the most elite fighting force in the world.”

Wayne recalls that he told Chris he was more worried about him as a civilian than when his son was on active duty. “There’s no training to be a civilian,” Wayne says. “You’ve learned before in the military what to possibly expect around the corner. You can’t predict that in a civilian world.”

Kyle as a Navy SEAL.

facebook photo

Kyle and wife, Taya.

It’s like a numbness

The shock of Kyle’s death reverberated at Tarleton. The school’s Alumni Association just weeks before his death had named him its Outstanding Young Alumnus, even though he never actually graduated. Many of the veterans on campus felt Kyle’s death deeply. “It’s like a numbness,” said Elizabeth Johnson, coordinator of Tarleton’s Military Veterans Services Center. “It’s like someone threw cold water in their faces. It was a slap of reality. It was hard for them.”

Several vets came to Johnson’s office after they heard the news. “They don’t come in and say, ‘I have PTSD,’” Johnson explained. “They come in and say, ‘I think I may need to talk to somebody.’” The center does not have in-house counselors, but refers student-veterans to off-campus sites that offer psychological counseling services.

Experts say there is no concrete data on crime rates related to Iraq or Afghanistan veterans diagnosed with PTSD. Suicide rates are beginning to be tracked, but not homicides. But the ties between PTSD and crime are not new to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In 1988 the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey found that about 480,000, or 15 percent, of all Vietnam vets were diagnosed with PTSD. About half of them had been arrested or jailed and 11.5 percent had been convicted of a felony.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that in 2011, VA medical centers and clinics treated 476,515 veterans with primary or secondary diagnoses of PTSD. Routh’s court-appointed attorneys are planning to use the mental state of their client as a defense. Stephenville attorney R. Shay Isham said that Routh’s mother pleaded with the VA hospital in Dallas not to release her son just the week before the killings. Routh’s other court-appointed attorney, J. Warren St. John of Fort Worth, said he is “disheartened” by the way the military treats vets. “These kids are trained to kill people,” St. John says. “Then we just expect them to come home and act in a normal manner?” 

This clay sculpture of Chris Kyle was bronzed and presented to Kyle’s family by Florida artist Gregory Marra.

The War that Never Ends

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No excuse for murder

Wayne Kyle says that the U.S. government has “abandoned” its military vets. “Our government has chosen to encourage our young people to join the military, to defend our country, to defend our freedoms, our rights and then when they do that and decide to go into the civilian world, they forget about them, not recognizing that there is a problem out there,” Wayne said. But under no circumstances should PTSD be an excuse for committing murder, he adds.

“Our family stands behind that 100 percent. I don’t know this individual (Routh) and don’t know whether he suffers from PTSD, but it is not an excuse for him to have committed the worst crime of our life.”

The first case of an Iraq war veteran found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity due to PTSD was the 2009 case of Jessie Bratcher in Oregon. Rather than being sentenced to a maximum-security prison, he was sent to the Oregon State Hospital for treatment.

That same year, however, a PTSD case in Altoona, Pa., turned out differently. A veteran, Nicholas Horner, was charged with two murders less than a year after returning from Iraq. He had been diagnosed with PTSD. His lawyers argued he was taking a mix of drugs to treat the disorder and they “confused” him. The jury, however, convicted Horner of first-degree murder. Instead of receiving the death penalty, he got life in prison.

Barry R. Schaller, a former Connecticut Supreme Court judge, in his 2012 book, Veterans on Trial: The Coming Court Battles Over PTSD, predicted that a wave of cases connected to the “invisible injury” of PTSD is coming. The courts “will bear the brunt of postwar mental health problems,” he wrote.

Chris Kyle’s parents and wife plan to carry on his work on behalf of vets. Wayne Kyle says the family supports two organizations in particular, Halo for Freedom Warrior Foundation (www.haloforfreedom.org) and America’s Mighty Warriors (www. americasmightywarriors.org), which was started by the mother of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq.

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“There’s no training to be a civilian. You’ve learned before in the military what to possibly expect around the corner. You can’t predict that in a civilian world.”

— W ay n e K y l e , fat h e r o f C h r i s K y l e

“Our government is not going to take care of our military nor its veterans,” Wayne Kyle said. “As citizens of this wonderful country that our veterans have provided us a means to live in and experience the freedoms that we have, it’s our duty to take care of them.”

K’Leigh Bedingfield, a Tarleton communication studies student, interviewed Kyle after his distinguished young alumnus award. In what is most likely the last interview he granted, she had the foresight to ask this question: “What kind of lasting impression would you want to leave? Like a legacy, I guess you could say?” Kyle didn’t even have to pause to think about it. “I would love for people, when they think of me, to think, ‘Here’s a guy who stood up for what he believed in and helped make a difference for the vets—somebody who cared so much about them that he wanted them taken care of.”

His father adds: “Chris did so many things to make a name for himself when he was active duty. But I think he got more joy out of helping veterans after he got out. He felt tremendous about saving lives. He never wanted to be known for the number of kills that he had.”

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” For Chris Kyle, the war is over. For Eddie Ray Routh, the battle rages on, if only between the enemies fighting in his mind, and there may never be any peace. But for other veterans, Kyle’s work goes on without him. He may well end up living up to his nickname “The Legend” in a very different way— by saving more lives than he ever took with his rifle.

Elizabeth Johnson, coordinator of the Military Veterans Services Center, talks to a veteran in her office in the Tarleton Center.

Jeremy Enlow photo

Veterans Services Center One-stop Shop for Vets’ Needs

W

hen Timothy Lukacz joined the U.S. Army in 1996, just a week after he turned 18, he told the recruiter he didn’t want to go anywhere cold.

His first assignment was in Fairbanks, Alaska. The thermometer plunged as low as 68 degrees below zero. Lukacz stayed in Alaska three years and graduated from Air Assault School.

His next assignment took him to the much warmer climes of Egypt and Israel. After returning to the United States, Lukacz went to the Army’s elite Ranger training school in Florida. “It was a huge opportunity and a crazy transition from snow to sand and from below-zero temperatures to almost tropical conditions,” Lukacz recalls.

For the past several years, he’s been in the midst of another transition, one from special operations soldier on the front lines of the war in Iraq to college student and aspiring doctor. Lukacz, 34, graduated from Tarleton in May 2013.

He says he ultimately wants to become “a person who saves lives instead of taking lives.”

Helping him achieve those goals is Elizabeth Johnson, coordinator of the Military Veterans Services Center on the ground floor of the Tarleton Center. Once housing the registrar’s office, the center is now a standalone office that welcomes veterans to walk in, have a cup of coffee, sit down and talk.

The center is the go-to site for everything from figuring out education benefits to providing readjustment counseling and outreach services to combat veterans to helping vets and their families find a place to live — whatever it takes to make their transition to civilian and college life as seamless as possible.

“We’re like the concierge in a hotel,” Johnson says. “Whatever they need, we are here for them.”

Veterans such as Lukacz depend on the center to be the intermediary between the university and the federal Office of Veterans Affairs and other government entities that administer benefits. “I just go to them and they can take care of everything,” Lukacz says.

He and Jim Greenman, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, say they decided to attend Tarleton because they liked the militaryfriendly atmosphere, smaller class sizes and greater accessibility to professors. “They were more open to answering questions, being available for meetings, and generally helping out,” Greenman says of Tarleton’s faculty.

The center has been open since November 2011 and works closely with admissions, academic advising and other departments. “It’s kind of like the village it takes to raise a child,” Johnson says. “It takes a village to help our veterans.”

The center’s main service is to help student-veterans apply for and receive their maximum benefits under the Department of Veterans Affairs’ post-911 G.I. bill and other programs and scholarships from state and local organizations. In Texas, the socalled Hazlewood Exemption also provides educational benefits to honorably discharged or separated Texas veterans and to their eligible dependent children and spouses. The VA also requires that the university certify that all courses a veteran takes as a full-time student apply to the degree the veteran is pursing.

In 2009, when the office was just a part of the registrar’s office, it served less than 150 students. In the spring 2013 semester it certified 400 students. ”It’s grown in huge numbers, and we’ll see more and more as troops start coming home,” Johnson says.

— K at h r y n J o n e s

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Tarleton graduate student Chelsea Taylor is surrounded by children in Lubombo village in Swaziland.

Where

in the World st o r i e s B y J o e M i c h a e l F e i st

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tudying hunger issues in South Africa. Gaining a new worldview by traveling overseas. A faculty exchange program that took a Tarleton professor to exotic India. Where in the world is Tarleton? It’s around the world.

Texans are there for education, research, outreach and cultural understanding.

Last year, about 125 Tarleton students traveled to 14 countries for study abroad opportunities. They were immersed in Spanish culture and language in Pamplona, learned about international business in Dubai and Australia, and studied European health care systems in London.

In the past decade, dozens of faculty have traveled throughout the world for research or to lead these study abroad groups.

The numbers grow every year.

“Education is more than skills acquisition,” said Dr. Marilyn Robitaille, director of International Programs and associate professor of English. “That’s often an important part of what we do at a university, but a university education is about educating the whole person…. Being exposed to other cultures and other languages and other views of the world, it’s part of that expansion of horizons that’s such an important part of the fabric of what a

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university education needs.”

It’s all part of an education “that opens minds, opens horizons,” she said. “And if you think about the grand, big picture, it opens the way for negotiations, for democracy, for world peace. For all those things that are much bigger than the things we do on a dayto-day basis.”

International connections also affect faculty. Tarleton professors and students are doing research in Africa and on other continents. Collaboration with colleagues in other countries helps extend awareness of their research and can offer new perspectives on creating knowledge.

In the following pages, Tarleton magazine highlights a few of the many students and faculty who have traveled the world to seek greater knowledge, share expertise and gain cultural awareness. Their lives were changed forever.

Into Africa

Tarleton professor Dr. T. Wayne Schwertner at the Tropic of Capricorn in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

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helsea Taylor never dreamed she’d go to Africa to do research on crested guinea fowl. First, she wanted to be a veterinarian. Then, when she got interested in wildlife biology, she was “very adamant about not wanting to mess with birds. I liked big mammals, the things everyone likes—lions and tigers and bears and wolves. But I find more and more, if you get a species off the beaten path, they tend to be 10 times more interesting than any species that’s already known about.

“I may find out stuff about guinea fowl that no one knows,” she said.

Taylor, a Tarleton graduate student who has two bachelor’s degrees from Tarleton, has already been to South Africa and Swaziland, and will return this summer, as part of a nearly $700,000 grant awarded to Tarleton by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant will be used to address global food security and hunger issues.

The crested guinea fowl

is Tarleton Taylor’s piece of the puzzle involves guinea fowl, important in southern Africa because it’s a food source, a game bird that can be hunted and produce revenue, and an insectivore that can help control ticks and other parasite populations.

“But they can also be pests sometimes,” Taylor said. “One of the primary concerns is that with agricultural development or habitat fragmentation, is the population declining? Because that could have an impact on all those other things.”

At the Mlawula Nature Reserve in Swaziland, Taylor will capture and tag the guinea fowl with high frequency radio transmitters that will be used to track them. “You can then determine habitat range, population densities, survival rates. The primary purpose of the study is to look at reproductive demographics.”

Her project “is a small piece of the ecology of the guinea fowl,” Taylor said. “And unfortunately in wildlife management, that’s how research gets done. Piece by piece. And you have to integrate all the different aspects to get the big picture.”

Dr. T. Wayne Schwertner, assistant professor in the Department of Animal Science and Wildlife Management and the program director, said Taylor’s research is the first of several overseas ventures associated with the grant. It will also fund undergraduate research and assistantships as well as course and faculty development.

“I see this as a great kick-start (for Tarleton) to leverage both experience and these funds to continue to develop an international natural resource program,” Schwertner said.

“As a world leader the United States has a vested interest in stability in other parts of the world,” he added. “Starvation and poverty do not lead to stability.… That’s the big picture.”

For Tarleton, Schwertner said, “It’s going to provide our students with experiences they wouldn’t otherwise get. It’s going to provide them with knowledge and understanding and collaboration with networks of professionals and students in other parts of the world….

“From a natural resources conservation standpoint, that’s going to light the fire of our wildlife and natural resource majors, to see that there are lots of issues around the world, from deer management in Texas to pandas in China, and that even if you come from a place like Tarleton State University in our small town you can go around the world and make a difference in wildlife conservation.”

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courtesy photo

Tarleton goes Basque

M

courtesy photo

egan Rimli had never been to Europe before she signed up for a Spanish immersion course in the summer of 2012. She came back, she said, a changed person.

Rimli and 14 fellow students, under the tutelage of Burton Smith, assistant professor of English and languages, spent 38 days based in Pamplona in the country’s Basque region, studying Spanish, living with a Spanish family, touring the country and wholly engaging the culture.

A Spanish major who graduated in May 2013, Rimli recalled being intrigued by the cultural differences.

“It was very different, it was liberal. They had different fashions. They weren’t as uptight in different ways. The way they dress is a little more relaxed. For instance, there are a lot of women who don’t wear undergarments.… and no one thinks anything of it.”

Rimli (bottom left) and other students, along with Spanish instructor Burton Smith (right), pose for a group shot in Spain holding a Basque flag.

She found the European concept of “personal space” quite interesting.

“There was none,” she said, laughing. “So when you were in a public area they were right up in your face.”

But on a more serious note, her fellow students were from throughout Europe and often spoke fluent English and Spanish as well as their own language. That “made me feel like our country was kind of behind,” she said. “And for a country that’s so proud of itself, it was really embarrassing. And it made me rethink how I want to raise my future children and get them out in the world and culturalize them.

“When I went to Europe that was the awakening, being in front of all those people who were so much more advanced,” Rimli said.

She believes that international travel, especially on your own, “teaches you how to trust yourself as an adult. It’s sad that there are a lot of people who never leave one state or one culture.”

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A statue in downtown Pamplona, Spain, depicting the famed running of the bulls.

Smith, the language professor, has been leading summer study abroad immersion courses since 2000.

“It’s a broadening experience,” Smith said. “The students really become cosmopolitan. They become comfortable in being abroad and getting around and getting their needs met and used to other people and how other people view the world. And how Americans are viewed.”

To Smith, the more familiar students are with different cultures, the better it is for them and Tarleton.

It means “our university produces a student who knows the world a little bit better. Nowadays, we are a global society and we have a global economy. It no longer works to just be focused in one region of one state. For our students to be able to deal with and understand foreigners makes them more valuable (as employees).”

Rimli, who plans on getting her B.S. in nursing through an accelerated program at the University of Texas at Arlington, agreed.

“The better rounded an individual is and the more experience and education that person has, the more they can offer to the next generation,” she said. “(Students today) are going to be our accountants, our CEOs one day, and they will have to be able to talk to people of all cultures. They’re going to be teaching our kids. I would like to know that a Spanish teacher who’s going to teach my child knows a little bit about the culture. They didn’t just get a four-year degree at some school that didn’t give them a cultural experience or the opportunity for that.”

Indian epic

courtesy photo

courtesy photo

Y

ou could say that Moumin Quazi was born with a world perspective. His father was Pakistani and Muslim; his mother was a freckled-faced redhead from Colorado, as American as apple pie, said Quazi.

So it’s not surprising that in 2009 Dr. Quazi, an associate professor of English and languages specializing in 19th and 20th century British literature, jumped at the chance to travel to India as part of a faculty exchange with a university in the foothills of the majestic Himalayas.

Quazi had become friends with Dr. Surekha Dangwal, an English professor at HNB Garhwal University in Srinagar, in the northeast Indian state of Uttarakhand, through his membership in the international South Asian Literary Association, an organization of which he is now president.

Late in 2008, Dangwal visited Tarleton where she lectured students about southeast Asian literature in a cultural studies class, visited other classes, shadowed Quazi and, in general, learned about American culture and its educational system.

Early the next year, Quazi reciprocated. He remembers getting off the plane in New Delhi after a 10-hour flight from Germany, then facing an eight-hour drive to meet Dangwal.

“I thought I’d sleep,” he said, “but my eyes were wide open because of the sights and the sounds and the colors, and the extreme contrasts between old and new and archaic and technological, rich and poor. I’d look out and there would be monkeys and elephants.”

At the university, he lectured on post-colonial literature, theory and pedagogy, or lectures on how to teach literature. His afternoon “salons,” as he called them, consisted of chai (Indian

In India, Quazi participated in Holi, the Hindu festival of colors and a time of joy, music and dance.

tea) and philosophy, cultural exchanges and intellectual awakenings.

Despite it being spring break in India, his classes were packed, he said, because the students were fascinated by his background. His father was born in India before moving to Pakistan, and Quazi, himself a product of the South Asian diaspora, a subject of much cultural interest.

The Tarleton professor said the faculty exchange had “extraordinary far-reaching effects” in his career and that of his Indian counterpart.

“To be able to expand the horizons of two professors and their points of view that will ultimately be passed along to many, many generations of students, is priceless,” Quazi said. “It’s one thing to teach about another country and the literature that comes out of it, like (Dangwal) does in teaching American lit and I do for them, Indian literature written in English, it’s another to really get an immersion exposure to another culture. It just breaks down barriers left and right. That can’t be underplayed.”

He added that his affiliations with professional organizations such as the South Asian Literary Association ultimately benefit Tarleton and its graduates.

“I couldn’t do this without being connected to a university like Tarleton State. Every time my name is on something that has to do with this international literary association, it’s Moumin Quazi, Tarleton State University. How does that help students? It enriches the cachet of the Tarleton brand for them. It’s just one more way that Tarleton is getting some exposure out there.”

Quazi shot this photo from the backseat of a car on his way to Srinagar.

“I could see something up ahead on the side of the road,” he said. “I immediately began snapping my camera as I passed the heap. It wasn’t until I looked at the photos later that I realized I had captured a man in the midst of his roadside collection of rubbish.”

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Faculty, students explore the heavens from Tarleton Observatory

By Kurt Mogonye

H

umans have always looked skyward.

Whether it’s curiosity about life outside this world, worship of the gods of the sky or the simple observation of the sun, moon and stars.

Housed inside a silver dome on Tarleton’s Hunewell Ranch is the university’s connection to the universe, where inquiring minds carry out the ultimate observational science.

Students and faculty weren’t able to peer into deep space until the Tarleton Observatory was completed 12 miles east of Stephenville in 2005. Now, observational astronomy at Tarleton is helping to find the answers to questions related to evolution of binary stars, contributing to the discovery and confirmation of new asteroids within our vast solar system, and searching for new planets within the solar neighborhood of our galaxy, all under the watchful eyes of Dr. Shaukat Goderya, who was named director of the university’s astronomy program in 2008.

His research is an extension of the work conducted for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and involves charge-coupled device (CCD) photometry—a small, solid-state array of silicon photodetectors which, when put at the focus of a telescope, enables observers to obtain a digitized representation of a small portion of the sky.

Goderya’s primary academic endeavor involves observing eclipsing binary stars with Tarleton’s 32-inch research-grade telescope and using the observed data to determine light curve elements and physical parameter of the binary system in conjunction with computational models. The professor’s work is aided by undergraduate and graduate students—an opportunity extended to them thanks to the small size of the university’s program, which allows a hands-on experience and collaboration with astronomers around the country and world. 

26

Out this

of world P hotos by jeremy enlow

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The center of it all Binary stars are stellar systems consisting of two stars that orbit around a common point, known as the center of mass, Goderya explained. The two stars are also gravitationally bound to each other. It has been estimated that more than half of all stars in our galaxy are binary stars.

Goderya says binary stars play a vital role in our understanding of the evolution and physics of stars. They can provide important clues on the mass of each individual star.

In a binary system, the stars are so close to each other that they cannot be identified visually, Goderya said.

“However, since the orbital plane is oriented edge wise to our line of sight, we see the two stars as eclipses in the light curve.”

One aspect of Goderya’s research is to develop automated tools to classify and conduct in-depth study of eclipsing binary stars. Recently, Goderya and several undergraduate students participated in a successful pilot test of a neural network, which resulted in a number of small samples that confirmed a feasible model to classify binary stars using data mining on databases.

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Dr. Shaukat Goderya in the Tarleton Observatory

Learning to observe This research, Goderya said, is ideal for beginning students in astronomy because it stems from learning high quality fundamental observational astronomy. Tarleton students, with the proper training, can participate in the observations, acquire and process data, and analyze the findings by using astrophysical models and computers.

Goderya said these projects give students training in working with optical telescopes, CCD cameras, and other scientific instruments, as well as the experience to use relevant software tools.

“It’s unique to Tarleton in that we involve undergrads in our observing,” said Goderya, “and our observation techniques are relatively well suited for this telescope. This scope is designed for this type of work and is powerful enough to observe extra-solar planets, plus it’s within reach of our undergraduate students.

“When I was a graduate student I wasn’t allowed to use the big telescope until I actually passed my Ph.D. qualifying exams, because if you can’t pass your exam, there’s no point in passing students on to the big scope,” he said. “Here, we don’t do that to our undergrad students. We say, if you’re interested in astronomy and you want to play with the telescope, we’ll teach you how to use it. We’re already attracting students because of this facility.”

Among them is Jake Rhodes, a mathematics graduate student, who participated in multiple research projects alongside Goderya and Dr. Michael Hibbs—one of which resulted in the confirmation of an asteroid in the main belt between Jupiter and Mars as part of IASC, or International Astronomical Search Collaboration.

“I got the astronomy ‘bug’ while at Tarleton. It was when I became a student and saw the connection between physics and engineering,” said Rhodes, who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics. “It’s a great opportunity to get experience in what astronomers actually do…. Being at Tarleton as an undergrad, it’s a very rare opportunity to have the chance to work with equipment such as this research telescope,” Rhodes added. “With two people running the observatory, it’s much more of a personal learning environment and having a mentor.”

It’s what sets Tarleton’s program for astronomy apart from others, said Rhodes.

“It’s superior to so many other places, and the fact that Tarleton has that scope is amazing. I would stress to undergrads that if you’re pursing that type of degree there is no reason for you not to get experience. You’re getting a very rare opportunity at this point in your education in tinkering with the real thing. At Tarleton, it’s a rare and fantastic opportunity to get your feet wet in the astronomy game.”

Deep impact

Satisfaction

The observational data is not easily obtained, however, and Mother Nature must cooperate by providing clear skies during the proper season, as certain celestial bodies only appear for a few months each year. But thanks to the telescope’s online connectivity, Goderya and his student astronomers can observe remotely—from anywhere in the world or from the comfort of their homes.

“We do at least six to seven hours of observing per night per week, and on some long winter nights I’ll observe 10 to 12 hours,” Goderya said. “You can start at 5 p.m. and go until 5 a.m. Two to three nights a week I observe with my students, and Dr. Hibbs also uses the scope two to three nights a week, depending on weather conditions. Everything is remote controlled and students use the telescope control center on campus to do the observing under supervision. Both Dr. Hibbs and I have the ability to log in from home, and we assist the students in their learning and using the scope.”

Not only are Tarleton’s students benefitting from having a research-grade telescope in their backyard, Goderya said the university’s observatory has the capacity to fuel additional research and provides service to graduate and doctoral students from other institutions. In addition, through the Hands-OnUniverse project, budding high school-age astronomers have participated as observing members.

“This telescope is capable of doing much more, and we have opportunities for international collaborating so that visiting scientists and students can come out here and spend some time at the observatory,” said Goderya. “We have an advantage because we don’t have a full-fledged graduate program and our scope is made available to both graduate and beginning students.

“That’s not very common. In a big facility, like UT Austin, they have a big entourage of faculty members with a large contingent of graduate students.

It’s very hard for undergraduate students to get time on a research grade telescope. But our undergraduates don’t have this competition at Tarleton.

Even freshmen can use the big scope if they show interest and ability to learn.

It’s one thing to play with a small scope, and that’s something everyone can do. But to have your hands on a big one like this and actually participate in observing, it’s an enlightening experience.”

Rhodes, who spent four years as an undergrad peering into the heavens through Tarleton’s telescope, agrees. “When you actually realize that you’ve found something that will be useful or have successfully located a small object in the vast universe, it’s really cool,” he said. “There are so many stars in the heavens that you have to be precise in pointing the scope to where you’re looking. That’s an exciting part of it, too, because you get a feel for how big the heavens are.

When you start to magnify and use a lens and get in the nitty-gritty of what’s between the dots of light, you find out there are even more stars than what you can see. That’s when you realize that we are very small compared to the giant spaces of the universe.”

Goderya studies more than binary systems.

The native of Pakistan and recent Fulbright recipient also has his sights set on discovering extra-solar planets—those that lie beyond our own galaxy—and with the hope of finding one that could possibly support life.

“Extra-solar planets have been found and all have been the result of a collaborative effort,” said Goderya. “Our contribution is to collect more data so detailed studies can be done. We don’t have the capacity to find extra-solar planets in other galaxies, but we’re looking in a small neighborhood within our solar system. They’re all around in our solar system, but most of the planets that have been discovered are mostly Jupiter size.”

Finding a planet that could possibly have life on it is a discovery Goderya dreams about often.

While being credited with discovering a new planet is akin to man’s first steps on the moon, Goderya admits satisfaction also comes from training and working with students who will become the next generation of astronomers.

“More than answering the age old question of are we alone out there and conducting research, teaching has been my main interest and provides much excitement, because I get to train a fresh mind that comes into college, and I can help make that person capable of doing something great,” Goderya said. “And when that former student writes back to you, about all the time you spent with them in college and because of that, now I’m doing this in my career, that is the time you really feel accomplishment and that you’ve done something to help them.”

Out of this world

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Football

The Tarleton football team went 6-4 overall and 5-3 in the Lone Star Conference this past season. The Texans closed out the year with a three-game winning streak, breaking a couple of school records in the process. Jake Fenske got the start at quarterback over the final three games and all he did was set the school record for longest play from scrimmage; a 99-yard pass to Cordell Valentine on the road at North Alabama. He also threw for the most yards in a single-game as he tallied 460 yards passing against Angelo State in the season’s final game. Senior defensive end Rufus Johnson was named First Team AllLSC, the LSC Defensive Lineman of the Year and First Team AllRegion. To cap it all off, Johnson was selected as the 183rd pick in the NFL draft, going in the sixth round to the New Orleans Saints.

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Volleyball

The Tarleton volleyball team went 23-9 last season and qualified for the postseason for the sixth time in the eight-year tenure of head coach Mary Schindler.

The TexAnns rolled through conference play with a 15-5 record, with none of the wins being bigger than a miraculous five-set thriller against West Texas A&M. The TexAnns went on to the postseason where they advanced to their third straight LSC semifinal game. Nikki McNorton was named the LSC’s Defensive Player of the Year and an All-American

by Daktronics while juniors Danielle Barker and Emily Klein moved into the school’s all-time top-10 lists in assists and digs, respectively.

Men’s basketball

The Texans started slow but came on late to finish the regularseason 17-9 overall and

10-8 in the Lone Star Conference. Tarleton went into the conference championship tournament as a No. 3 seed and came out tournament champions after defeating Midwestern State 53-50 in the tournament final.

Tarleton claimed its second LSC tournament title in school history and advanced to the South Central Regional Championship for the fourth-consecutive year.

Tarleton was downed in the first round of the tournament 76-65 to eventual national runners-up Metro State, but the Texans finished

the season at 20-10 overall and have a lot to look forward to in 2013-14.

Women’s basketball

The TexAnn basketball team overcame significant injuries to qualify for their third straight NCAA Regional tournament and finished the season with a 19-10 record.

Tarleton was sitting atop the conference standings and peaking when they made the trip to Wichita Falls to play Midwestern State.

In that game, Tarleton lost two veteran players —one a starter—to season-ending injuries.

After that, they relied heavily on the strength of center Kiara Wright who carried the team to the LSC Championship Tournament and into the regional tournament.

Wright was named the LSC Player of the Year, LSC Defensive Player of the Year, South Central Regional Player of the Year and WBCA AllAmerica among other awards. Peyton Adamson also earned conference and regional awards.

softball

The Tarleton softball team qualified for the postseason for the 12th time in the school’s 18-year softball history.

Tarleton was sitting in fourth place in the conference with a couple of weeks to go, but a tough stretch run was on the horizon.

Tarleton played nine straight games against nationally ranked foes and went 2-7 over that stretch, but the TexAnns battled back to end the regular season with a sweep of the region’s No. 7-ranked team, Incarnate Word, to earn the No. 5 seed in the postseason tournament.

Tarleton had four players honored by the LSC, including senior Arianna Rodriguez who will end her Tarleton career as the school’s alltime leader in runs, hits, home runs, at bats, RBIs and total bases.

Baseball

The baseball team won the school’s first-ever Lone Star Conference Championship after posting a regular-season record of 32-14-1 overall and a 21-7 mark in conference play. A mid-season win streak of nine games in a row propelled the Texans

to an advantage that no other conference team could match.

Tarleton opened the first weekend of conference games with a 4-0 mark and never looked back, finishing the season three games ahead of Texas A&M-Kingsville.

Tarleton went 2-2 in the LSC championship tournament.

Men’s Track and Field/ CrossCountry

The men’s cross country team competed in the fall and finished third in the Lone Star Conference Championship meet, earning a spot in the Regional Meet. The trio of Chase Rathke, Tye Doty and Miles Joslin were all named

the Coach of the Year.

The TexAnns trailed by eight strokes going into the final round of the tournament, but a 20-stroke swing propelled Tarleton to its sixth-consecutive LSC title and seventh overall in school history.

The TexAnns finished in sixth place at the NCAA Division II Women’s Golf Championship in Daytona Beach, Fla.

all-conference in cross country. In the spring, the men’s track and field team found much success—having six athletes hit NCAA provisional marks.

Junior Jeff Smith reached the finals in the 400m hurdles at the national championships.

Women’s Tennis

Women’s Track and Field/CrossCountry The women’s cross country team competed in the fall and finished sixth at the LSC championship meet. Celeste Meyer earned all-conference status in cross country for the women. In the spring, the Tarleton TexAnns competed in track and field and had two players hit NCAA marks prior to the LSC championships and, as a team, won the McMurry Invitational. Junior Nikki McNorton was named All-American en route to a third place finish in the high jump at the national championships in Pueblo, Colo.

Women’s Golf

The TexAnn golf team had a very good regular-season, placing in the top three of all eight events it played in and winning three titles along the way. Tarleton headed into the conference championship as the heavy favorites after sweeping the postseason awards. Freshman Isabell Jimenez-Perea was named both the Player and Freshman of the Year, while head coach Jerry Doyle was tabbed

The Tarleton tennis team spent the entire season ranked in the national polls, ending the season at No. 17.

They qualified for their 10th NCAA Regional appearance in the past 11 seasons and advanced to the regional finals following a 5-0 sweep against the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference champions, Western New Mexico.

Senior Karla Martinez ended the season—and her career—on a 17-game singles winning streak.

Martinez was also named the LSC Player of the Year while her doubles partner, Alicia Perez, was named the LSC Sportsmanship Player of the Year.

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Pre-game ritual “I think I probably have too many…. Like, we eat a pre-game meal at Peacock’s before every home game. Little things, like which parking space I choose. And before every game I take a shower.

It’s stupid, but….”

Favorite athlete “Michael Jordan, definitely. Because he’s Michael Jordan. He’s the best basketball player of all time, the best competitor of all time.”

Favorite spot on campus “If I say anything other than Wisdom Gym, well.… (laughing).

I stayed in Traditions Hall my freshman year. That was a fun experience. I have a lot of good memories from over there.”

Favorite shot “The three-pointer. Definitely.

From the top of the key.”

Best sports memory “Winning the conference tournament this year against Midwestern.”

Spotlight C

B y J o e M i c h a e l F e i st

Coleman Furst Favorite movie, actor “Probably He Got Game, and my favorite actor is in it—Denzel Washington.”

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Motivational music “To get pumped up before a game, I’ll listen to Till I Collapse. It’s a song by Eminem. It’s old but it works.”

oleman Furst smiles broadly when he remembers the Lone Star Conference Tournament Championship Final in Allen March 9. In a tight, tense game against Midwestern State, Tarleton’s Chuck Guy found Furst virtually alone in the left corner with 1:14 left to play. The 6-foot-1-inch, 175-pound guard calmly sank a three-pointer to put the Texans ahead, 52-50. Tarleton never relinquished the lead and went on to win only its second tournament title in school history.

Furst, a kinesiology major, says he lives, pretty much, for basketball. He admits to not being much of a reader and likes a lot of music, but isn’t totally wild about any of it. He loves the gym, the court, the basket, the game.

A three-year letterman as a guard, Furst is a product of Denison High School. As a junior, he averaged 10 points per game, played in all 29 games and scored a season high of 23 points against Arlington Baptist. He shot 47 percent from beyond the arc.

Furst said that after college, he doesn’t want to venture too far from courtside.

“I want to coach basketball,” he said. “But I’m not 100 percent sure of what I’m going to be doing after my senior year. I’d like to put myself in a position where I could maybe play overseas.”

ATHLETICS

J.W. Boren was a four-time all-Lone Star Conference selection as a placekicker for the Texans, earning second-team honors as a freshman before being named a first-team selection his final three years as a Texan. Boren still owns the LSC record with 59 career field goals made. During his senior campaign with the Texans, Boren finished third in the LSC in scoring with 90 points, which also ranks tied for third in school history. He earned NCAA All-American honors in 2000 and 2002.

Krayles Banks, a defensive back while playing at Tarleton, was a member of the Texan football squad from 1975 to 1978 where he helped lead the Texans to its first-ever TIAA conference championship in 1977. Banks and the Texans went on to win another TIAA conference championship during his senior season in 1978.

Banks finished the 1978 season with more than 20 tackles (14 solo).

Tracy Guy scored 953 points in two seasons for the Texans and helped lead Tarleton to back-to-back TIAA conference championships during the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons. He made 247 field goals in his career, with 210 of those coming from beyond the three-point line. He made 122 three-pointers during his senior season at Tarleton, which ranks as the second most for a single-season in school history. Running the offense for the Texans, Guy finished his career with 309 assists, which ranks fifth-most all-time in school history.

Two former Texan football players, a former men’s basketball star, an entire women’s basketball team and a distinguished Tarleton athletics devotee highlight the Tarleton Athletics Hall of Fame’s class of 2013, inducted on June 1.

The 1991-1992 TexAnn basketball team, coached by Jan Lowrey, finished the season 30-8 overall with a District VIII mark of 8-0. The team then went 2-0 in the District VIII playoffs before going 3-1 in the NAIA Division II National Tournament where the TexAnns finished national runners-up to Northern State College of South Dakota. The national runner-up team included Kristin Curtis, Karla Dick, Julie Mata, Sheri Murphey, Helena Smith, Tina Tibbs, Niki Young, Angie Gentry, Mellanie Tidwell, Dawn Mailloux, Kaelie Butler, Eleanor Golding, Miyoshi Oliver, Leanna Stockdale and Rachel Torres. Curtis and Smith each earned All-American honors, while Dick and Mata were each tabbed NAIA Academic All-Americans.

David Tomlinson has been an outstanding supporter of Tarleton athletics and has served on the Texan Club Advisory Board for more than 20 years. Tomlinson is a two-time Texan Club President, having served the role from 1994-96 and then again from 2008-10. He received the distinguished All-Purple Award in 1997 for his contributions to the Tarleton athletic programs. Tarleton named the Memorial Stadium Purple and White Pavilion after him in the spring of 2008.

Athletics Hall of Famers past and present.

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Texans A ‘personal’ education A l um n i P r o f i l e Walter Dansby is superintendent of the Forth Worth Independent School District.

Jeremy Enlow photo

Walter Dansby M.Ed. ’78 B y J o e M i c h a e l F e i st

W

hen the trustees of the Fort Worth Independent School District were searching for a superintendent late in 2011, they didn’t have to look very far. Their interim superintendent probably knew more about the district than any other living soul.

After all, Walter Dansby had attended 12 years of public schools in Fort Worth and had spent his entire career—more than 40 years—as a teacher, coach and administrator in the district. He wanted to

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make a difference in young lives, and the trustees took him up on the offer, naming him superintendent in February 2012.

Everything Dansby had done up to that point, including graduate school at Tarleton, had prepared him for that moment.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1974, he began teaching history and coaching seventh grade basketball at Rosemont Middle School in Fort Worth. He soon began to consider a master’s degree and found the perfect program with Tarleton.

In 1976, Dansby and a friend began to take classes through Tarleton at Brewer High School in west Fort Worth, he recalled.

“It was here and Tarleton had a close alignment with Fort Worth ISD,” Dansby said. “The classes were offered in such a way that it was convenient. It made it easy for us to work and go to classes in the evening. And I had some classes on campus in Stephenville, especially during the summer.”

Dansby praised the professors and the climate of learning at Tarleton.

“It had the academic rigor but it was like being in high school again because you had those people who were readily available to you to give you advice, who were personable,” he said. “And that’s what I really liked about the school itself…. It was just a wholesome atmosphere.

“I know my advisor was (the late) Dr. Johnny Dunn,” Dansby continued. “I remember that he was very amenable and he was one who really took the time to explain things to me. He was always available.… I know he’d be proud of what I’m doing right now.”

That personal approach to learning has been a theme for Dansby, dating from his childhood in Fort Worth’s Stop Six neighborhood.

“You belonged to the neighborhood,” he said. “You were not isolated and you were not anonymous. I wish that for a lot of neighborhoods today. You were not just representing yourself and your parents.

Everybody took pride in what you did.”

Dansby now runs a district with 83,000 students and 140 schools. He faced budget deficits and low-performing schools when he took office, but is convinced he’s making strides to repair the system.

He completely reorganized the district administration into “instructional networks” to enhance learning and he looks at the budget constantly to “make sure dollars are being spent where they need to be spent.”

Whatever the future holds personally and for Fort Worth schools, Dansby wants to maintain that personal approach to education that he experienced as a young boy and that was reinforced at Tarleton.

“I take it personally—about our academic achievements, our financial situation,” he said. “I think about relations with the community. All of us have to have ownership. The schools can’t do it alone.

We can work all day with kids but if we can’t get the parents to buy in and reinforce the message at home, we’re not making the progress that we need.”

Ambassador on horseback A l um n i P r o f i l e

Tarleton alumnae Kristin Jaworski is trail boss for the Fort Worth Herd.

Jeremy Enlow photo

Kristin Jaworski B.B.A.’01, M.S.’07 B y M a r y G . S a lta r e l l i

S

itting astride her 15-hand palomino Paint Horse named “McCoy” while dressed in drover garb of the 1860s, Kristin Jaworski is the quintessential Texas cowgirl. Her boots, spurs, fringed chaps, tooled-leather brush cuffs, supple worn gloves and wide-brimmed hat are tools of the trade for a cattle trail boss. This boss is head of the Fort Worth Herd, the only city-owned herd in the country with its own cattle drive.

Twice each day the clippety-clop of hooves on old brick pavers rings out in the Fort Worth Stockyards as 16 longhorns lumber down Exchange Avenue, gently guided by Jaworski and the herd’s drovers. These daily cattle drives re-create the economically challenging era in Texas between the Civil War and introduction of railroads.

During those years, Texas longhorns wandered on open plains. Cowboys quickly learned they could make more money if they drove wild cattle to railheads like Abilene, Kan. Huge herds of 2,000 to 3,000 longhorns traveled north along the Chisholm Trail, and Fort Worth was a regular stop along the way. With its daily cattle drives, the Fort Worth Herd is preserving a significant era of Texas history and culture for visitors and residents alike. Jaworski, who grew up riding horses, especially enjoys teaching children about the Old West.

“I think we’re losing sight of our Western heritage,” Jaworski said. “Kids today don’t know about the American cowboy, and hands-on experience is the best way to teach them. They get so excited by smells, sounds and sights. That’s worth every minute

we spend keeping history alive for them and giving them that Western experience.”

Jaworski, who is 36, uses her bachelor of business administration and master of science in management and leadership from Tarleton every day in her job as trail boss.

She calls herself and the herd’s drovers “ambassadors on horseback” for Fort Worth who represent an important marketing and public relations tool for the city. Her job is high profile and she has complete responsibility for everything related to the herd, from personnel to livestock, facilities, dayto-day operations, safety and budget.

Jaworski credits her professors at Tarleton for bringing out her strengths. When she went through the competitive public interview process to be trail boss, she wasn’t confident that she was qualified, but her professors were. They encouraged her to persevere.

“They were so personal and spent a lot of one-on-one time with me,” Jaworski said of Tarleton’s professors. “They’re dedicated to their individual students. The small student-tofaculty ratio at Tarleton was so meaningful to me, and I hope that’s something the school always retains.”

With management and leadership skills acquired at Tarleton and on the job for 11 years, Jaworski strives to improve the herd. Her goal is to safely herd longhorns through the stockyards every day for visitors who come to witness the reenactment of a historic Texas trail drive. Each year, more than 650,000 people from around the world watch the herd mosey along down the historic stockyard road. “ I love it,” Jaworski said. “There’s definitely something to be said for representing the American cowgirl and cowboy to a very diverse world.”

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Drew’s African adventure A l um n i P r o f i l e Drew Slattery, a Peace Corps volunteer, visits with Namibian villagers.

c o u r t e s y pHO T O

Drew Slattery B.S.’11

By Kurt Mogonye

I

magine a life void of electricity, iPhones and other modern conveniences, living in a mud hut with a thatched roof and cooking meals over a fire fueled by dung. It’s been Drew Slattery’s routine, a life-changing routine, since graduating from Tarleton in May 2011.

Just days after receiving his diploma, Slattery, a communication major, flew halfway around the globe to Zambia, embarking on a two-year term as a Peace Corps volunteer.

He works directly with villagers as a rural aquaculture extension and promotion agent, helping Zambians improve the efficiency of fisheries. He advises them on proper methods of feeding and breeding fish, how to design ponds to improve stocks, and new ways to integrate food crops with the aquaculture component.

“My hope,” Slattery said of the farmers he works with, “is that they will reach such heights as to inspire other farmers into improving their methods. At the end of the day, I’m just a ‘white’ who’s here for 27 months. They realize this and it can cause some people to not take me serious. But the motivated farmers I help will still be here when I’m gone, and they can fill the void I will leave in teaching and developing.”

But it’s not all work. Slattery looks for opportunities to share his American culture with neighbors.

“Every Friday I have an American hip-hop listening party at my hut with a small speaker and iPod,” he said. “Zambians love American music but don’t really have access to it, so each week, some local youths and I get together and bond over some tunes.”

He’s also taken advantage of breaks from work to travel across Africa to enjoy such places as Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, where he went diving with great white sharks.

36 Texans

His stay overseas has been made more pleasant thanks to care packages containing magazines and beef jerky sent by family and friends, including his brothers in Tarleton’s Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity. Slattery is the sixth member of the fraternity to serve in the Peace Corps and the 27th Tarleton alumni to serve abroad since the program’s founding in 1961.

Life in a Third-World country is an experience Slattery says he wouldn’t trade for the world. “It really gives you perspective on what is important in life. The NFL, the Kardashians and the iPhone app store are all lower on my list of necessary life components now than before,” said Slattery. “When you live somewhere without all the artificial walls and distractions of Western culture, you get a glimpse at just how similar people really are, how all of our struggles are basically the same, and how so much of what we spend our time chasing in America does not really matter in the scheme of things. You can’t take cars and money and status with you when you leave this life, so why dedicate your life to them?

“I’ve always valued service, and after this experience I view it as a building block,” he added. “I come from a place of privilege, so I plan to use every opportunity I’ve been given to better this world.”

Slattery will soon say goodbye to his Zambian friends and farmers and return to Texas just in time for Tarleton’s Homecoming this fall. He says he plans to pursue a master’s in international agricultural development after a stint with an international aid and development firm.

“In America, life is so easy—physically and emotionally,” Slattery said. “Not so here. This is the jungle and you have to be strong to survive here. I will take the strengths I’ve developed here with me the rest of my life. Peace Corps is not for the faint of heart. It’s a calling, like the military or becoming a priest.

It’s something you must feel in your heart and soul, and it will change your life forever.”

Class Notes 1970s

Dr. Mickey Freeman Bush ’71, ’72, a longtime family

physician in Missouri City, outside Houston, recently retired. She was named Outstanding Family Physician in Houston in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2006 by Inside Houston magazine and one of America’s Top Family Doctors from 2002 through 2012.

Stephen Burgett ’73, retired after 39 years as the construction technology teacher at McKinney High School. He spent his entire teaching career at the school. “Over the years, until available lots moved too far from campus, Burgett and his students built and sold 13 homes in the area,” said a story in the McKinney newspaper.

Steve Higdon ’75, is executive vice president of programs— Fort Worth, for the DFW Chapter of the American Marketing Association. Higdon owns Higgy Marketing and also is the marketing director for Repurposeology.com, a new e-commerce website that focuses on the re-utilization of everyday items that have reached the end of their usefulness.

1980s

Artist Mike Tabor ’80 (wearing hat), was commissioned by John Hancock Financial to create a life-size bronze statue of Dick and Rick Hoyt (at left), the famed father and son Boston Marathon team. The statue was installed on the front lawn of the Center School near the Boston Marathon starting line in Hopkinton. Over the past three decades, 73-year-old Dick has pushed his son, Rick, 51, who is a quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, the 26-plus miles of the race. A 1/3 life-size version is at Terminal C at Logan International Airport. Tabor’s studio is located in Granbury and he teaches art at Granbury High School.

William “Bill” Brod Jr. ’80, of Pasadena was appointed to the Judicial Compensation Commission by Gov. Rick Perry. The commission was created by the Legislature in 2007 to recommend the salaries of state judges. Brod is a certified public accountant and commercial director of AES Corp.

Jimmy Terry ’82, is general manager of the PGA of America’s

Ron D. Butler ’87, is chairman of the board of directors and CEO of First Financial Bank, Abilene. Butler joined First Financial in Abilene in 1993. He holds a master of business administration degree from Tarleton. He serves on the boards of the Hendrick Medical Center Foundation, West Texas Rehabilitation Center and West Central Texas Municipal Water District.

Jeff Greenlee ’87, is fire chief for the Amarillo Fire Department.

He was valedictorian of the Amarillo Fire Academy Class of 1993 and subsequently rose through the ranks of the fire department.

Before working for the city, Greenlee worked at General Dynamics and Rockwell International. He holds a degree in engineering technology from Tarleton.

1990s

Rodney Webb ’91, is head football coach and athletic coordinator for Rockwall High School. He previously served as the head football coach and athletic coordinator at Mesquite’s John D. Horn High School. Webb has 22 years of experience as a teacher and coach in numerous districts. In 2007, he was inducted into Tarleton’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

Rob Wolaver ’91, is the executive vice president of Texas State Technical College in Waco, managing the daily operations of the college and serving in full administrative capacity in the absence of the college president. In addition, Wolaver is responsible for the supervision of the Student Development Division. Wolaver joined the TSTC administration in 2002.

Dewayne Stephens ’92, is the new Boy Scout executive in the 17-county East Texas Area Council. Stephens found his first professional scouting position in Abilene, where he was district executive of the Chisholm Trail Council. He held leadership positions in Brownwood and Dallas before moving to Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2007, where he was the scout executive until returning to Texas.

Jack Love ’95, is the general manager of the Triangle Town Center at CBL & Associate Properties, Inc., in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area. Love has been with the company since 2001 and is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Trent Thomas ’95, ’97, is senior state legislative representative for the Texas Department of Transportation.

Thomas previously had served on the staffs of state Reps. Bob Turner, Jim Keffer and Drew Darby, and was the government affairs director for R-CALF USA, a national cattle producer organization.

flagship facility, PGA Village, in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Terry had been at TPC San Antonio for more than four years. He is a former officer and board director for the Southern Texas PGA and has served as senior general manager of TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

Sammy Urteaga ’96, serves as a fire marshal with the Dallas Fire Department responsible for enforcing fire code. Urteaga specializes in new construction, conducting acceptance testing and inspections of life safety systems in a building. He is the proud father of a 13-year-old son.

Dr. J. Chris Haynes ’86, ’91 and ’07, is an assistant professor in the Department of Secondary Education at the University of Wyoming, where he teaches courses on the use of technology in secondary agricultural education and agricultural mechanics. He is an active member of several national agricultural education organizations.

Michael A. Palmer ’97, is the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent for agriculture and natural resources in Coleman County. His awards include being named the recipient of the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association Outstanding Agricultural Agent Award and the Texas County Agricultural Agents Association’s New Agents Recognition award.

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Class Notes Aaron Lett ’99, moved to Charlotte, N.C., signing on with

Dana Seals Compton ’04, was named one of the 40 Under 40

CapTech in March 2013. CapTech is a consulting firm that manages, designs and builds IT systems. Lett serves as a consultant after working several years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as a web developer.

honorees by the Fort Worth Business Press. The award is given each year to up and coming young professionals. Compton is the director of business development for Komatsu Architecture.

2000s

Kathreyn Harris ’00 was named chief executive officer of

Ben Urban ’05 will finish his Ph.D. in laser physics at the University of North Texas this year and then do a postdoctoral residency at Northwestern University in Illinois. Urban completed his bachelor’s degree in physics at Tarleton and then went on a Monbukagakusho fellowship from the Japanese government to graduate school at Nagoya University in Japan, where he finished his master’s in physics.

Vending for Veterans, a nonprofit entity that aims to provide veterans the means by which they will be able to earn a selfsupporting income. Harris previously worked as an advocate with the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program.

Brent Moseley ’06, is the owner/broker of Prudential Moseley Real Estate in Early, outside Brownwood.

Marily Durbin Considine ’00, a military wife and breast

Andrew Foote, ’07, ’09, a doctoral student in animal sciences

cancer survivor, was featured on NBC’s Today show on May 12, 2013. Her husband Major John Considine ’01, currently deployed in Afghanistan with the Army, joined the family via Skype. Marily was also named Fort Hood’s Military Spouse of the Year 2013. The Today show video can be found at http:// www.today.com/video/today/51857847#51857847.

Rodney ‘Mac’ McConnell ’00, is head men’s basketball coach at East Central University in Ada, Okla. McConnell previously served as head men’s basketball coach at Ranger Junior College, was the assistant coach at Angelo State in 200607 and the assistant coach from 2004-05 at Tarleton.

at the University of Kentucky, received the 2013 Emerging Scholar Award from the Southern Section of the American Society of Animal Science. Foote’s research into nutrition and ruminant health could help cattle producers across the country.

2010s

Dario Martinez ’10, is the editor of El Lechero (The Dairyman), a bilingual magazine with 26,000 U.S. subscribers. Working for the Jerome, Idaho-based company, Progressive Publishing, the Tarleton communication studies graduate also serves as assistant editor for Progressive Dairyman.

Jennifer Reeves ’10, ’12, is the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service’s family and consumer sciences agent in Llano County.

She’s a Llano County native.

Kenneth “Shane” Wigington ’12, is the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent for agriculture and natural resources for Irion County.

Presentations

Dr. Adam Estes ’02, (right), performed with the Assembly Saxophone Quartet at the 2012 World Saxophone Congress XVI in St. Andrews, Scotland. He has been part of the quartet since 2003. Estes moves this fall from the music department at Minot State University to lead the woodwind studies program at the University of Mississippi.

Dr. Jeremy Andreatta ’04, was named assistant professor of chemistry at Worcester State University in Massachusetts in August 2012. Andreatta earned his Ph.D. in inorganic and organometallic chemistry from Texas A&M University in 2009.

He then completed a post-doctoral program in chemistry at the University of Virginia’s Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization.

38 Texans

The Fall 2012 Distinguished Alumni Lectures featured Ben Baty ’50 and Gen. (Ret.) Chris Adams ’50. Baty attended Tarleton before graduating from Texas A&M University in 1957. He had a 38-year career with Shell Oil Company. He later retired from Shell but was appointed executive vice president of Portland, Ore.-based Hanna Sherman International, and served in that position until retirement in 2000. Adams received an associate of science degree from Tarleton State College and a bachelor of science degree in business administration from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce) in 1952. He retired from the U.S. Air Force as a major general and chief of staff for the Strategic Air Command.

Five former students returned to their alma mater on Sept. 24, 2012, to visit with students from each of the university’s five colleges as part of the annual Alumni Academic Forum. This year’s speakers and their respective colleges included: James Douglas ’86, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Gary Sult ’87, College of Business Administration; Ora Lee Leeth ’73, College of Education; Kristina Guess ’04, College of Liberal and Fine Arts; and A. Dwain Mayfield ’57, College of Science and Technology.

Gathered from alumni submissions and news stories from various media outlets.

Contact us Send your alumni and class updates to Tarleton State University, Box T-0730, Stephenville, TX 76402 media@tarleton.edu | (254) 968-9076

Passages 2012 – 2013 Dr. Don Henneke, educator and horse lover, died Nov. 16, 2012, after a battle with cancer. He was 60. Henneke was a professor of animal sciences and director of equine science. He joined the Tarleton faculty in 1985 as an assistant professor in the Department of Agriculture, leaving in 1993 to pursue a consulting career in the equine industry. In 2000, Henneke returned to Tarleton and was named assistant professor of animal sciences. A year later, Henneke assumed directorship of Tarleton’s Equine Center. Henneke’s knowledge and expertise in the field of equine nutrition, reproduction and management was sought after by industry representatives and academicians throughout his career.

Roscoe Maker, rancher, businessman and philanthropist, died May 18, 2012, at age 95. A wellknown resident of the Cross Timbers region, Maker established a flying school in the 1930s in Clinton, Okla., and eventually became a flight instructor for the Army Air Corps. Later, he started a flying school in Abilene and developed other business interests, including a ranch in Bosque and Hamilton counties and a hobby store in Abilene. In 2011 he gave a $300,000 endowment gift to Tarleton for scholarships. He also named Tarleton as the sole beneficiary of his estate, the value of which has not yet been determined.

Dr. Leo Purvis, longtime educator, died Dec. 28, 2012, at age 93. He started working for Tarleton in 1967 as an assistant professor and retired in 1981 as the first dean of Tarleton’s College of Education. Purvis taught in Texas public schools for 39 years, including decades as a principal and three years as superintendent of Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD.

Virginia Barekma n White, 99, died Oct 7, 2012, in Lubbock. A Stephenville native, she graduated from Tarleton, where she studied social services, in 1932. At Tarleton, she met her future husband, J. Dixon White. They were married in 1935 and moved to Lubbock in 1948.

She was a lifelong member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a nonprofit organization founded to support educational opportunities for women, as well as many other civic and religious organizations in West Texas.

Ricky Wright, district director for U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Midland, and two-time graduate of Tarleton, died in Comanche Aug. 1, 2012, after a battle with brain cancer. He was 53.

Wright was born in Stephenville and grew up in Comanche where he graduated from high school in 1977. He earned a bachelor of science degree in education and business from Tarleton in 1981 and returned later to earn a master of science in information systems in 2001. “He was 110 percent purple and it was always evident that he loved Tarleton,” said Dan Hunter, a friend and director of Tarleton’s Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research.

Dr. Ron Newsome, known as the “Sports Doctor” and voice of Tarleton sports for 15 years, died April 17, 2012. He was 68. In 1983, Newsome joined the faculty of the Department of Health and Physical Education at Tarleton as an assistant football coach and instructor. Newsome remained connected to the university even after his retirement in 2008 and served as a familiar voice to Tarleton Texan and TexAnn sports fans who tuned into both radio and streaming online broadcasts provided by the Tarleton Athletics Radio Network and KSTV 93.1 FM.

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SILVER TAPS Honoring the sons and daughters of Tarleton who passed between:

March 15, 2012 – March 15, 2013

Rusty L. Aaron ’09 William A. Alexander Raby A. Alford ’42 Clay H. Anderson ’83 Gracie (Ray) Anglin ’36 Brandon D. Bailey ’15 Marguerite (Kelso) Ballard ’42 Ruth C. (Harris) Barham ’36 Norman “Biff” Barnes Dorothy “Dee Dee” (Dosher) Barr ’43 George W. Becker ’76 Verdie M. Bell Rosamond E. (Crowell) Berry Jamie J. Bible ’89 J.R. Birdwell Raymond H. Blair ’40 Truman O. Blum Christi L. Boardman Cynthia (Olmsted) Body ’93 Elmer “Tres” Bradshaw III ’77 Georgia R. (Schermer) Braithwaite ’60 Leonard N. Bridges ’42 Charles H. Bryant ’69 Jennifer L. (Fryar) Bubics Sally L. (Standridge) Buck ’85 Annie (Pipes, Tate) Burgess Patrick M. Burgos ’10 William J. Burks Ora B. (Nichols) Burnett ’36 Hayley N. Burns ’14 Sara Camacho Harry L. Cannon Sammie (Pemberton) Carter ’40 Dr. Nathan Cedars Clark P. Chandler ’42 Mary (Lockhart) Childers Lt. Lee L. Clardy ’38 Kimberly D. Clark ’96 L. Joe Clark ’67 Margaret E. (Moody) Clingman

Evelyn (Busby) Conant ’77 Donald E. Cook Lloyd C. Corder, Sr. ’50 Vance “Boley” Cotton, Jr. Melvin M. Crawford George W. Crow Philip Delucchi Mary Fae (Tucker) Dennis Wanda M. (Clark) Dillard Gregory L. Dome Lawrence “Larry” Dooley ’42 Wilma(Thiele) Dorsey Frances (Cobb) Dossman David A. Drechsel Marjorie A. (Hatcher) Duncan Virginia “Jan” (Mitchell) Dyer Athol “A.J.” Edmondson Kenneth D. Elston ’88 Gary R. Evans ’82 Vela (Hall, Alexander) Evans Lura (Allison) Fagan ’34 James D. “Jim” Farley Vernon A. Farris Jack Fields B. Dan Foster ’70 Dr. Randolph N. Foster, Jr. James D. Frazor Todd Freeman Janeath Gaines ’68 Charles B. Gambel Max H. Gardner Frances (Schnabel) Gaskin ’40 David E. Gibbs ’69 Morris Gifford Forrest Gober David H. Goodson Aron A. Goule ’93 Kathleen Graig Elizabeth (Schloeman) Grayson Gary T. Grogan Lonneal Guthrie William F. Guyton

40 Texans

Ollon R. Hamrick Michael F. Handran ’06 Nancy V. (Mauldin) Harrell Thomas R. Harrison Clara J. Hart Doug A. Hawes ’75 John C. Heagy ’48 William D. Heath ’86 Kathy L. Hecox ’01 Frances R. (Kupatt) Hendrix Dr. Don R. Henneke Gary D. Henry ’81 Robert Hewlett William B. Hightower ’51 Carolyn (Cole) Hill ’67 Paula J. Hill Allen S. Hitchcock Chelsa N. Holder Lewis “Mac” Hoppock R. Eloise (Brown) Horak ’79 Coley Howell ’75 Ben D. Hunter Edgar E. Jennings Juanita E. Johnson ’08 Sharon A. Johnson ’87 Barbara (Bruce) Jones ’51 Earl J. Jones Hubert L. Kiker Brawley M. King ’38 Nina B. (Powell) Kmiec John L. Kuykendall ’60 Chris S. Kyle Dr. Richard Lampe E. Wayne Lancaster ’48 Bobby J. Lansford Teresa L. Lewis ’03 Jerry N. Locklin ’55 Waldo E. Lowe Jack B. Lusk ’48 Roscoe Maker Jean-Claude Mande Rodrick A. Maroney

Albert M. Mathis Alberta “Jane” McAdoo Michael R. McClendon Jon “Mac” McLennan David W. McNeill ’97 Herbert F. McNett ’80 Ross McSwain ’48 Kevan S. Meador ’75 Duane L. Meier Mart M. Melton, Jr. Clardy E. Menefee Byron E. Miller ’35 Eunice M. (Peaton) Mitchell ’93 Harry T. Moffett, Sr. R. Weldon Moody William “Pat” Murphey Ronald J. Newsome Carol A. Nichter ’71 Duane “Doc” Ogle John F. Oglesby, Jr. Mary Ann (Brown) Olive ’37 Alyeen (Campbell) Overby ’42 Dennis L. Pack ’67 Gracie L. (Gober) Pamrowski John W. Patterson ’83 Donald T. Pendleton ’55 Catherine (Packard) Porter ’01 Burl W. Posey Trey J. Psencik ’08 Leo Purvis Leonard C. Radde Bobby P. Reed ’54 Gerald “Jerry” Reynolds Billy J. Rice ’43 Frank Richerson ’39 Alex “A.H.” Ringhoffer William P. Roberts Kathlyn B. (Mezger) Rogers Bobby L. Self Willie W. Sexton ’69 Joe E. Shotwell Gordon R. Sies ’02

If we have inadvertently omitted your loved one, please contact Tarleton External Relations at jfeist@tarleton.edu.

Sammy D. Slatten ’87 Sally (Darling) Smith Helen G. (Thompson) Spangler George B. Sparkman Gregory S. Spaw Joseph P. Spotts ’83 Charlcy A. (Taylor) Stansberry Cody Stephens William “Bill” Story, Jr. Dennis B. Struempler ’78 Clayton L. Taylor Lois (Boone) Thomas ’33 Myrna Jo Thompson Barbara E. Thurman Rev. James M. “Jim” Tilley ’69 Natalie (Hairrell) Todd Garrett Trammell Ricky K. Tucker ’07 Donald W. Tudor ’56 Amy (Cline) Turner Oscar Ruben Valadez, Sr. Billy G. Voorhies Jack B. Waggoner ’76 Pamela (Pratt) Walker ’69 Harold L. Warford Timothy M. Weaver Virginia (Barekman) White ’32 Dr. Ted J. “Hondo” Whitmire ’52 Dean Williams ’60 Mary (Smith) Williams ’41 Roger D. Williams C. Austin Winter John D. Wood Phyllis A. (Johnston) Woodworth ’73 Clifford Wooten ’49 Ricky D. Wright ’81 Wilna E. Yeager

A D VER T I S E M EN T

Be remembered for changing lives Even though Tarleton is one of the most affordable public higher education options in Texas, the vast majority of our students need financial assistance in order to pursue their dreams of earning a degree.

You can help. By funding a scholarship through your estate planning arrangements you provide resources which ease the financial burden of deserving students.

Make a difference and be remembered for changing the lives of students. Find out more by contacting us today. www.tarleton.edu/giving Office of Development and Alumni Engagement Ms. Sabra Guerra Box T-0260, Stephenville, TX 76402 sguerra@tarleton.edu | (254) 968-9769

Box T-0570 Stephenville, TX 76402 (2 54 ) 968- 9000 | www.tarleton.edu

A dapper Mike Leese (right) was Tarleton’s dean of men when he posed for this photo in front of what was then the Administration Building in 1972. He subsequently had a long career at other universities, including 19 years with Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where he served as associate vice president and dean of students, among other positions.

He returned to Tarleton in 2012 as executive director of student life development. A still dapper Dr. Leese (left) poses at the same spot in front of the E. J. Howell Education Building.

DejaVIEW