It was just supposed to be a short-term thing, this working in his father-in-law’s construction yard. Just one of those sacrifices a man makes when he’s trying to get his degree and is about to become a father, too. No way would it lead to anything lasting—after all, his own dad, who after a lifetime in construction was determined his boy would have it easier, wanted him in business and well away from the weary work of building things.
Three decades later, that son is happily up to his hardhat in construction. Furthermore, if industry awards and cover stories are any indication, he’s the man at the very top of one very prestigious pile of stone and masonry.

Robert V. “Buddie” Barnes (BS ’76), the savvy businessman who one day would be entrusted with edifices such as the American Airlines Center in Dallas and the Getty art museum in Los Angeles, was pretty much tricked into signing up for classes at East Texas State University.
His father, doing his best to steer Buddie in a worthwhile direction and away from the construction business that he and his own father had toiled in for so long, decided a business degree from this University was a good idea.
He couldn’t know then that the education waiting here for his boy would be the foundation for Buddie’s career in the very field he eschewed.
But it’s hard to imagine that he’d have minded if he’d known then that Buddie would put his mark on some of America’s most prominent facades, including the recently completed and much praised American Airlines Center.

Buddie had intended to put his high school ROTC experience to use at Texas A&M and its Corps of Cadets. But after a visit to the school, he decided that might not be such a good idea after all. During his tour of the campus, he came across a group of freshmen sweeping streams of water out of a dorm. It seems they had been assigned cleanup duty after an indoor firehose fight between seniors.
“Then they told me about the night they spent standing at attention in a closet,” says Buddie. “I didn’t think I’d want to put up with that.”
Instead, he would adopt a family tradition and join the Army, he decided. But
Please see “Masonry Man,” page 2

Yvonne Rollins, Peggy Pressley and Margo Harbison from the Commerce Area Alumni Chapter serve up the ‘dogs at the Spirit Rally during Homecoming. For more Homecoming highlights, turn to pages 8 and 9.

Alumni Calendar

January
26—Alumni Association Board
of Directors Meeting
March
15—ASTP Reunion
18-22—Campus closed for
Spring Break
April
4—Alumni Ambassador Forum
19-21—First Last Dinner Dance
20—Athletic Board Meeting
27—Alumni Association Board
of Directors Meeting
May
3—Fifty-Year Reunion
June
7—Alumni Golf Classic