SPIRIT OF MAYO — Joe Fred Cox of the history department receives the Spirit of Mayo Citation from President Keith McFarland. The presentation was made at the Fall Faculty/Staff Meeting on Aug. 24. McFarland said he meets many alumni who remember Cox and ask about him. “Many former students say Cox taught them to appreciate history and they think of him at election time,” the president said. Cox said receiving the Spirit of Mayo Citation was the “greatest honor I have been given and for doing something I enjoyed.”

When President Keith McFarland visits with alumni, he is often asked about faculty members they had classes with during their college days. One of the faculty members alumni most frequently inquire about is Joe Fred Cox, assistant professor of history who has been on the A&M-Commerce faculty more than 30 years and now teaches part- time.

Cox, who grew up in the Commerce area and earned two degrees from the University, has stayed close to his roots. He began teaching in the department of history as a graduate assistant in 1965 and two years later became an instructor in the department. “Many former students say Cox taught them to appreciate history and they think of him at election time,” McFarland said at the Faculty/Staff Meeting kicking off the 2000 Fall Semester. A colleague of Cox’s in the history department, McFarland recalled that Cox often had students in his office who wanted to talk about a topic being studied in class or others who just stopped by to visit. The A&M-Commerce President made these remarks prior to presenting Cox with the Spirit of Mayo Citation.

The Mayo Citation is named for William L. Mayo, founder of East Texas Normal College, forerunner institution to A&M-Commerce. The award is given to recipients for embodying Mayo’s credo of “ceaseless industry, fearless investigation, and unfettered thought.” Receiving the Spirit of Mayo Citation is the “greatest honor I have been given and for doing something I enjoyed,” Cox said. Cox can be described as an A&M-Commerce “original.” He is a mixture of Texas drawl, “down home” ways, sharp wit, and a captivating storyteller. As a history teacher and A&M-Commerce alumnus, he appreciates what Mayo stood for. Cox, who started the University’s Oral History Program in the early 1970s, did a taped interview with an elderly woman who knew Mayo when he taught in Pecan Gap and started his college in Cooper. He also became acquainted with several Commerce residents who remember the University’s founder.

One of the reasons Cox appreciates Mayo is because he was a figure in the history of the University and the Commerce and Cooper area. “You can romanticize it, but the guy obviously had a dedication and he recognized that education in his home state of Kentucky was very limited. The surprising thing about his wife (Etta Booth Mayo) was that she was highly educated, probably more than he was.” Etta Mayo was interested in the arts and taught instrumental music at East Texas Normal College. In talking with those who remembered Professor Mayo, Cox said they stressed he was “very stern and very dedicated. He believed not only in education, but he believed in kids behaving to receive an education.” Cox observed that Mayo’s manner might have been similar to that of a high school principal who emphasized discipline.

He added that he appreciates Mayo because his college is still thriving while many small colleges in northeast Texas in the early 1900s were forced to close their doors. Cox’s association with A&M-Commerce goes back to 1948 when he enrolled as a student. He describes President Sam Whitley as “stern and tough. He was a lawyer. He had a law degree, but didn’t have a doctorate.” Of President James Gee, Cox recalls that the A&M-Commerce administrator had financial resources from his wife’s side of the family and sometimes did not deposit his University pay check in his bank account. President Gee often put his check in his desk and evidently forgot about it for several months. After this happened, the comptroller would get upset about Gee not cashing his check, Cox related. Gee and his wife, Cecelia, were old antebellum South. Cecelia came from a wealthy family, the Gibbs, and finances were not a problem for her or her family, the history faculty member continued. Mrs. Gee bought her wardrobe from Neiman Marcus, and once a year employees from the Dallas store would come to Commerce so she could pick out new clothes, he added.

In his classes, Cox gives some of the behind-the-scenes details dealing with historical events, to the delight of his students. Asked about his teaching approach which students have so enjoyed, he said a bit irreverently, “It was the ‘under the sheets’ details.” Early in his teaching career, Cox recalled that many of the students came from the East Texas region — from cities such as Sulphur Springs, Mount Vernon, Mount Pleasant, Naples, Winfield, Omaha, and Texarkana, and into Arkansas. Through the years, he taught students from the same families, such as the Groces from Pittsburg and the Bordens from Mount Vernon. Both families had large gardens in the summer and the students would bring him homegrown tomatoes, okra, and peas, he recalled. Looking back on this institution’s history as a regional university, Cox said that the Cotton Belt Railroad played a major role in attracting students. “The Cotton Belt ran a passenger train in East Texas, and that was our biggest recruiting device,” he said, explaining that students could ride the train to get to Commerce.

One of these students who rode the train to Commerce in the early 1900s was Sam Rayburn, the University’s most distinguished alumnus. From Rayburn’s home near Bonham, he could go to Whitewright and there pay 50 cents to ride the train to Commerce, Cox said. Rayburn never drove a car, the A&M-Commerce faculty member related. During Rayburn’s political career in the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., he continued to ride trains, Cox said. Regarding A&M-Commerce athletics, Cox had Lions’ football player Harvey Martin in several of his classes in the 1970s. On one occasion, the big football player brought his “new” father in to meet his teacher. “Harvey’s mother had remarried and he brought this little guy in to meet me and introduced him as his new daddy. Harvey was about 6-foot 6 and 280 pounds and this little guy was about 140 and 5-7. They were quite a sight. ” Cox said with a laugh.

In addition to teaching on campus, Cox has traveled to the Dallas metroplex and several area cities, including Sulphur Springs, to teach. In about 1966, Cox taught one of the first undergraduate courses offered off-campus by A&M-Commerce. This course was held in Richardson and was for students who needed to take two courses in American history to be certified to teach. Cox explained the students in the Richardson class already had college degrees and were new to Texas.

The women in the class had relocated when their engineer husbands had started working for defense contractors in the metroplex, such as Texas Instruments and Collins Radio. This class was especially interesting because a couple of the students could discuss World War II from their personal perspectives. “In that class, I had one student who was a German and her father had been captured at Stalingrad by the Russians and another student, Selma Hughes, was one of the kids evacuated from London during the Blitz,” Cox said. Later, Hughes continued her graduate education at A&M-Commerce and earned her doctorate. She then taught special education at the University. Cox is married to the former Jane Dickson, who grew up in Winnsboro and is an A&M-Commerce alumna. She is retired from Alliance Bank in Commerce. They are the parents of a daughter, Karen Cox Bohl, a lawyer who lives in Austin with her lawyer husband, Steve Bohl. In the last few years, Joe Fred Cox has taught on a part-time basis. Looking back at his years at the University, Cox says he has had a rewarding career. “I’ve had a lot of fun,” the A&M-Commerce award-winner reflected.