|
Page2
Alumni band plays in the Garden
The alternative rock band Robot Brown was selected
to perform at the New York International New Music Festival at
Madison Square Garden.
Based in Dallas, the group is comprised of three A&M-Commerce
graduates and one current student.
The band performed in New York City two dates in November.
Out of 3,000 submissions to the festival, Robot Brown is among
only 100 bands selected to perform.
The group recently performed at The Curtain Club in Dallas’
Deep Ellum and at the North Texas New Music Festival. The group’s
debut album is “A New Life for the Missile,” and they
currently are working on a second album.
On vocals is Russell Fincher, a 1997 graduate with a bachelor’s
in experimental studies. On guitar is Gary Parks, a ‘99
graduate with a degree in design communications. On bass is Danny
Rix, a new media major, and on drums is Matt Hunt, who received
a bachelor’s in economics in ‘97.
The band is currently in discussion with a Dallas record label.
For more information on Robot Brown, visit www.robotbrown.com.
For Farm Boys, their own
work/study program certainly worthy of a Buck
continued from page 1
be able to devour enough foodstuffs to enable
their recovery from a morning’s worth of chores, plus see
them through their classes.
At noon they had less than an hour to eat lunch, walk back to
the farm, and change clothes for an afternoon of planting, plowing
and hauling. Then it was time to milk again. After supper, they
had free time—to study.
The Buck Hughes Student Success Program lives on
The central figure in almost every Farm Boy story is the mythic
Buck Hughes, the man who, in many ways, made Farm Boys into men.
It was because they had felt firsthand his kind of guardianship
that last year eight former Farm Boys gathered themselves around
a long table in the quiet back room of a steakhouse in Sulphur
Springs, Texas.
They were an unusually quiet group that day, perhaps because they
weren’t there simply as good ol’ farm boys. They were
that day as representatives of the official A&M-Commerce Farm
Boy Alumni Association. Their well-weathered faces reflected a
certain somberness, and their hands, with knuckles scuffed by
old scars, were often clasped almost prayerfully before them along
the long table.
Their business that day was to consider anew their own hardscrabble
youths and how their time with Buck paid off for them in the end—then
to decide how to make it pay off yet again, this time for a new
batch of A&MCommerce youngsters. They eventually hammered
out the foundation for awarding a Farm Boy Endowment Scholarship.
They even figured out how they could award their first scholarship
at this year’s Homecoming. (What they didn’t know
then was that, because of a tie between applicants, they would
end up awarding two—both of which happened to go to Farm
Girls.)
It’s their version of the Buck Hughes student success program.
Buck often found his new graduates their first job, and it wasn’t
unheard of for him to tell the graduate where to go to buy his
first car—for which he sometimes had already arranged the
financing.
Today’s hilarious were yesterday’s horror
stories
By all counts, Dr. Buck Hughes was a no-nonsense man of few grins
but plenty grit, enough to bend any young upstart to his will.
Even rugged Farm Boys have no trouble admitting they were scared
to death of him. “He was not a warm and fuzzy person,”
explains Jerry Lockhart (BS ’60, MS ’61), who ought
to know, in light of the fact he married Buck’s sister.
The head of the ag department
today, Dr. Pat Bagley, tells about the ag student who confessed
to him how he’d graduated and been gone six months
before he realized that Dr. Hughes wasn’t president
of the University.
Another tells about the time Buck directed a slender young
man to pull a 150-gallon cattle sprayer across two narrow
boards suspended over a deep culvert. It didn’t seem
humanly possible, but the kid pulled it off simply because
Buck Hughes told him to. Apparently, the one thing you didn’t
want to do—ever—was to so anger Dr. Hughes that
he ripped his cap from his head and flung it to the ground.
Grady Fisher (BS ’53) tells how he was flunking out
of English when |
The inaugural winners of Farm Boy Alumni Association scholarships
are, at left, Jessica Fleek, a junior animal science major,
and Amber Bacorn, a senior agricultural economics major.
|
his professor alerted, neither the dean nor
his folks, but Buck Hughes. Buck sent Grady to both sections
of the class and told him to do twice the assignments, too. |
Today Grady has no complaints. Years ago, as
a colonel in the Air Force, Grady found himself having to write
reports that would pass inspection at the Pentagon. That he could
do so is something Grady chalks up to having Dr. Hughes as a taskmaster.
But Buck wasn’t all drill instructor.
Dr. Bob Williams (BS ’77, MS ’81), remembers the time
Dr. Hughes caught him and some other farm boys roping University
cattle with University horses. At that time, the horses were off
limits, having been broken only to halter, not to ride.
But Bob and his friends were more cowboy than farm boy, and he
says: “We had to chase those cows afoot, and that didn’t
set well with us.” So they broke a few horses to ride and
then went to wrangling.
When Buck spotted them working cattle astride rather than afoot,
Bob remembers: “I don’t know who was more surprised—him
or us.” But it caused Buck to reconsider, and not long after,
it became standard practice to use the horses.
One winter day after a nice, unusually big snow had settled on
Commerce, Buck caught Vaden Richie (BS ’50, MED ’61)
in the dairy barn skimming cream.
Vaden had in mind to make some snow ice cream and had been skimming
off the top of the milk cans for several days. He was gathering
the last batch when the light clicked on, and there stood Dr.
Hughes in the doorway.
Vaden remembers being frozen to the spot as Buck stared him down.
When finally Buck spoke, however, his words took the young Farm
Boy by surprise. “Don’t take it all from one can,”
Buck advised. “Take a little from all of ‘em.”
And late that night, as Vaden and a friend prepared their precious
snow ice cream, there was a knock at the door.
It was the feared Buck Hughes with a bottle of vanilla.
USPS-346-930
Mailing Information
|
The Pride is an official publication of Texas
A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas 75429, and is published
four times per year in the months of January, April, July and
October. Second-class postage paid at Commerce, Texas. The Pride
is distributed without charge to former students, faculty, staff
and friends of Texas A&M University-Commerce. It is published
by the Office of Marketing in support of Alumni Relations. It
is printed in the A&M-Commerce Instructional Printing Facility,
Commerce, Texas 75429.
Administration
Keith D. McFarland, Ph.D., President
Jack Gray, Executive Director,
Marketing & External Communications
Editorial Staff
Jack Gray, Executive Editor
Kayla Price, Ed.D., Alumni Director
Deborah Davies, Managing Editor
David Walvoord, Photographer
Darron Moore, Art Director
Jaime Harper, Pride Online
Mary Lou Hazal, News Service Writer
Ashley Tubbs, News Service Writer
Bill Powers, Staff Writer, Sports
Tracey Chesney, Student Writer
Alumni Association
The Alumni Association was organized in 1890 to promote the University
and to contribute to the general welfare of the University and
its Alumni.
Executive Board
René Castilla, President
Rheba Icenhower, Vice President
Jandy Thompson, Secretary
Kenneth Foust, Treasurer
Kayla Price, Executive Director
Jerry Hyde, Member-at-Large
Alumni Relations
Kayla Price, Director
Jane Martyn, Assistant Director
Linda Bobbitt, Administrative Assistant
Alumni Relations is located on the first floor, west side, of
the Sam Rayburn Memorial Student Center, 903-886-5765.
Inquiries and Submissions
Inquiries and contributions of information may be made at 903-886-5765
or alumni_relations@tamu-commerce.edu
Mission
Texas A&M University-Commerce nurtures and educates for success
through access to academic, research, and service programs of
high quality.
 |
|
