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Spirit® is published three times per year by the Texas A&M Foundation, which manages major gifts and endowments for the benefit of academic programs, scholarships and student activities at Texas A&M University.

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Weekends at Texas A&M

I was one of the girls from the Texas State College for Women who attended the 1949 Military Ball weekend at Texas A&M, mentioned in the fall issue of Spirit. It was indeed a fun few days filled with events.

At the time, we were an all-girl college and Texas A&M was an all-male military university. Whenever Texas State girls visited the College Station campus, for that weekend or others, we had to have written permission from our parents to be off campus. We would catch the Sunbeam train at the Dallas train station.
 

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During the 1940s and 1950s, large dances were often held on the weekends in Sbisa Hall.

In those days, we dressed up in high heels, platform shoes, hats, gloves and suits. What a sight it was to pull into College Station and be greeted by a sea of young men in uniform! Since there weren’t many lodging options, boys often moved out of their dorms on the Quad so we could stay in their rooms. I had never been in a boys-only bathroom, so the fixtures were an adventure.

Dinner was often in Duncan Hall, and there would be a very large dance in Sbisa Hall. We usually had dance cards tied with ribbon to our wrists with the names of boys with whom we were to dance. Bands like the Vaughn Monroe Band and Vocals and Carmen Cavallaro provided entertainment.

If it was a football weekend, we received a large mum for the game. My husband-to-be, William Lonquist Jr. ’48, was a Yell Leader in 1949 with Head Yell Leader, James H. “Red” Duke ’50, who later became Dr. Red Duke, a Houston trauma surgeon, professor and TV personality. (He passed away in 2015.) Shortly after I graduated in June 1950, William and I married.

The military weekend with Audie Murphy and LIFE magazine was very special! One girl from Southern Methodist University drove down in her convertible. Girls at Texas State were not allowed to have a car until the last semester of their senior year, so only a few cars showed up on our campus.

It was always fun to be in College Station for a weekend, but then it was back to Texas State for a week of study! 

Antoinette “Twan” Brady
Austin, Texas
The University of California, Berkeley Student Union, 1960.

Stark’s Widespread Influence

I read with great interest the article in fall Spirit about the Memorial Student Center (MSC) Stark Northeast Tour. I was one of the Aggies who Wayne Stark '39 influenced to attend an elite graduate school. I became acquainted with him because I was active in the Student Conference on National Affairs in the MSC.

During my senior year in 1963, he asked me what I intended to do after graduation. I told him that I was considering requesting a deferment from active duty in the Army so that I could seek an MBA in finance. Back then, Wayne encouraged a lot of Aggies to broaden their horizons beyond Texas and College Station in order to experience different cultures and expand our future prospects.

To that end, Wayne contacted the Aggie who was then the dean of the Harvard Business School, who suggested three universities that were good in finance, which was not a strength of Harvard. One of those was the Berkeley Business School, now the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

I managed to gain admittance and was later told that I was the first person from Texas A&M to be admitted, which seems unlikely considering that the Berkeley Business School was formed in the early 20th century. However, the Agriculture & Mechanical College of Texas was not considered an elite university back then, as it is now. I remember thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” after realizing that most of my fellow students attended Ivy League schools. I started the one-year program in June 1963 and graduated in June 1964.

Though the atmosphere at Berkeley was dramatically different from Texas A&M and that of my hometown of Dumas, in the Texas Panhandle, I received an education that was to be decisive in my business career. I also learned to interact with people from much different backgrounds than mine. I credit these lessons back to Wayne Stark and his influence.

Joe Horn ’63
Amarillo, Texas
 
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