Placing Memory

Young Ladies' School: Where Women Connected to Southwestern Learned Before the Ladies Annex

2023-06-08T19:53:43+00:00

The Young Ladies’ School was established by people associated with Southwestern in 1878 due to the demand for a post-seconday educational program for the daughters of Southwestern faculty as well as the townspeople, preachers, and significant town leaders. A retrospective Megaphone article from Thursday, October 13, 1977 describes how plans for a “ladies' program” connected to the University were discussed and insisted upon from the beginning. The Young Ladies School met temporarily in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown until the Ladies Annex building was officially ready for use.

The church still stands today on at 703 South Church Street and is known as the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown. In another Megaphone issue on Monday, January 2, 1939, the article subtitled, “Georgetown’s Contribution” briefly encapsulates how the city significantly aided the University in this endeavor. The article states that the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown made it possible for the first girls to enter Southwestern and beginning in September of 1878, the church was available for their use until the Ladies Annex was completed.

The establishment of the Young Ladies’ School serves as a kind of pre-history of Southwestern’s approach to educating women, so it is vital to the history of the University itself. It shows how the community came together and demanded that the daughters of prominent townspeople in town be educated.

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Women’s Role at Southwestern Through the Eyes of Laura Kuykendall: To Laura Kuykendall, a woman’s purpose at SU was to both embody certain qualities and expand certain possibilities.

2023-06-09T14:09:32+00:00

In the early 20th Century, women students of Southwestern were molded to value and practice certain “feminine” qualities, to be a daughter of the institution, to be exposed a wider range of individuals, and to explore both academic subjects and future life-pathways that would be left shut otherwise. Although women’s role at Southwestern was, yes, to fill and perfect their “innate” qualities, in doing so, they also gained a broader sense of what was possible to achieve as a woman.

Since its beginning, Southwestern has prided itself on being more than solely a technical institution; Southwestern was, and still is, invested in providing a multifaceted educational experience for its students focused on establishing habits of lifelong learning. But, with the separation of women and men starting in 1878 and formally ending in 1903 (with the declaration of a single co-educational campus instead of a men’s college and a separate but not quite equal women’s “annex”), a woman’s educational experience served a vastly different purpose than both male students of the time and the female students of today.
The richest source pertaining to this in the early history of Southwestern was written by Laura Kuykendall, who served as Dean of Women from 1918-1935. In her Master’s Thesis, titled The Dean of Women and Her Problems as Found on a Small University Campus (1926), Laura Kuykendall specifies the intricacies of holding a Dean of Women’s position: what it entails, and most pertinent here, how one should interact with her female students.
A large part of Kuykendall’s insights revolve around the concept of “shaping” or “molding” women to have the core qualities that Southwestern upholds, because, as Kuykendall stated herself, “church institutions claim as their chief reason for existence the development of character."
Specifically, Kuykendall urges that when teaching women, "the golden rule is the 1st principle to be taught. Gentleness of a speech - almost along the lost arts - is one of women's chief charms. Respect for authority is another virtue that is needed to be instilled in every citizen in the land. If girls were taught deference to parents, teachers, the Government, many social problems would be settled." Furthermore, a main aspect of educating women is to shape them to have “sincere, loyal natures,” and be “disciplined in mind,” “superb in physique,” “gracious and courteous in manner,” “unselfish, honest, self-controlled, and tolerant.”
While Kuykendall does acknowledge that "a young girl cannot be molded in a set form that may be made for students at large,” she still notes that “each case must be taken as an individual.” So, even though each female student was seen as an individual, they were still being formed to, at the end of their education, become “a splendid product” all one and the same.
It is pertinent to recognize the purpose of Kuykendall’s thesis, and what audience it was written for. Kuykendall put forth the thesis in order to achieve her Master’s degree in Sociology and Economics, so this writing was likely read by individuals – male individuals – in the upper administration or faculty. And though Kuykendall did challenge some normative ideologies of women’s role (we’ll get there below), she largely had to adhere to the mission and vision of Southwestern at the time, and may have played into it within this document.
In tandem with female students being disciplined in a homogenous way, their role at the Institution also entailed being mothered. Frequently throughout Kuykendall’s thesis and other archival materials, Southwestern itself is referred to using the “she” pronoun. Even more, the institution is referenced as “Mother Dear,” and the students of the Ladies Annex are called “Southwestern’s daughters,” or “her daughters,” repeatedly. This occurs much more frequently than does “Southwestern’s sons,” leading me to believe that there was a higher level of discipline and watchfulness over the female students than the male students. This, then, was one facet of women’s role at Southwestern: to be surveilled.
Even with this surveillance, the female students of Southwestern were also encouraged to form relationships with each other, exposing themselves to other walks of life (of course, out of the already limited pool of students, in terms of racial or class diversity). One means of building this connection was through Kuykendall’s annual Dinner of the Golden Bowl. This event focused on friendships, specifically between female students, instructors, and alumnae. There was also encouragement for female students to connect year-round. The Annex facilitated a "big or little sister movement," where older and younger students were grouped together. This sorority-like practice worked to both foster community within the Annex as well as allow older students to discipline and enforce rules among the younger students.
Kuykendall advocated for more opportunities for institution-sponsored multi-gender socialization, in addition to female intermixing. In her thesis, she stated that "there must be places where young men and women will feel free to talk and not be driven to leave the campus to find ‘privacy’.” In this way, women were to utilize their educational experience to gain real-world interactions and connections.
Most radically, Kuykendall was an avid advocate for the expansion of what fields were “appropriate” for women to engage with. In his history of Southwestern, Jones found that “in addition to the traditional subjects, such as stenography, typewriting, and the various domestic science arts,” Kuykendall foresaw women taking up, in her words, “bench work, cabinet work, factory woodwork, wood turning and pattern making, forging, automobile mechanics, machine shop practice and printing, mechanical, architectural and engineering drawing.” To Kuykendall, this exposure was a crucial aspect of a women’s education.
Additionally, Kuykendall, herself a professional woman who had never married or had children, advocated that a professional life path is a valid option: "Only a few years ago a woman found two avenues open to her. One was the way of marriage. the other the path of the spinster aunt… But today a young girl has the choice of a profession as a third way out."
Being at a private Methodist Institution, one key aspect of becoming educated was to “discover for yourself a personal fellowship with God,” said President Bergin in The Megaphone in 1941. For some leaders in the institution, this meant performing a strict and rigid embodied religious practice. Kuykendall thought otherwise. She thought that there was “another lesson that is one of the greatest taught, - that is, the religion of service as taught through the Sociology, Education, Philosophy, Bible, and Theology Departments… In these departments one is taught tolerance, kindness, constructive charity, fair business principles, and Christianity as applied to every day living.” So, a woman’s role at Southwestern was to find religion and the traits surrounding it within their everyday courses, not solely at church or chapel alone. This somewhat radical deinstitutionalizing of religious practices from Kuykendall signifies a start to the lessening of rigidity within religious practices found at Southwestern. Still, for Kuykendall, religion maintained its pertinent place in women’s education at Southwestern, just now, in slightly varying forms.
Therefore, a women’s purpose for being a student of Southwestern, at this time, meant to be molded to certain (feminine) qualities and attributes, to be mothered, to meet a wider range of individuals, and to explore both academic subjects and future life-pathways that would be left shut otherwise.
Even with Kuykendall’s advocacy for the expansion of women’s societal roles, she still states that a Dean of Women “has neither trained [students] EXCLUSIVELY for marriage nor an independent career, but she has trained them for whatever places in life they may find they are called upon to fill.” Kuykendall ultimately wanted “these young women to take their places in the business world, in church, in state, in any and every place that women are called upon to fill.'' Although there still was (and in some ways still is) a long way to go for women’s discipline and the double standard to be equalized, Kuykendall imagined a more-progressive world in which the girls she shaped became leaders and independents. Their role at Southwestern was, yes, to fill and perfect their “innate” qualities, but in doing so, they also gained a broader sense of what is possible to achieve as a woman.
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Williamson County Science Building: The first Science Center on campus was symbolic of the tension between science and religion in the early years of Southwestern.

2023-08-27T01:45:07+00:00

The Williamson County Science Building was the first Sceince Center on campus. It was eventually demolished and replaced by Fondren-Jones Science Hall at a different location, but for thirty years, it evolved quickly in response to Southwestern’s involvement in the two World Wars while revealing an underlying tension between science and religion at a faith-based college.

Plans for the Williamson County Science Building (WCSB) were first recorded in the minutes and reports of the 1916 meeting of the SU Board of Trustees, detailing contracts for construction and installation. The report concludes with a thank you to the men and women of Williamson County for their self-sacrifice in making construction possible. Construction was completed in 1917, and the WCSB was state of the art for the time. Original layout plans included 3 floors, with the first floor dedicated to Physics, the second being built for biology and genetics, lastly the third floor designed for chemistry labs.
I was surprised to see that the second floor included a museum. It is most likely that this mode allowed the students to engage with a more interactive way of learning. Enacting the process of the WCSB, specifically garnering funds (valued at nearly $1.3 Million today), was a community effort, but what is it about a university science building that drew in the residents of Williamson County to help with their plan even though it was mainly designed to serve the University? The need for a building on campus specifically for students in science-related fields grew strong in response to demands for technological innovation and scientific training during World War I. WCSB was not only a matter of improving Southwestern, but also answering the call of the nation.
As the saying goes “history repeats itself,” and throughout the 1940s Southwestern witnessed a resurgence in stressing the importance of science-related courses in response to wartime needs in World War II. Notable differences on the campus during this time included the installment of a V-12 Navy Program, and along with this installment came a list of demands from the Navy. The list of demands included refurbishment of the WCSB and some required courses, with most of the courses geared towards chemistry and engineering.
Although the WCSB had provided the genesis for the SU standard of science disciplines, Southwestern is an ever-changing campus which grows more and more each year, and in 1948 The Williamson County Science Building was demolished.
Along with the demolition of the WCSB came the unveiling of the cornerstone of the original foundation of the building. In many older buildings the cornerstone of a building would be laid down and filled with items chosen to reflect the values and culture of the time, essentially like a time capsule. The cornerstone of the WCSB held copies of local newspapers, the weekly Southwestern newsletter, a copy of The Megaphone, a copy of the Christian Bible with the Old and New Testament, the Methodist Hymnal, and an instruction manual for clergy.
Southwestern University was founded as a Methodist university so it makes sense overall for a SU building to have such items in its capsule, but it seems strange to me that there were so many religious items included in the time capsule of a science building.
The aforementioned early periods of the 20th century were a time of great innovation and advancement and are integral to the development of Southwestern's science courses. Providing a space for science faculty and students to gather and discuss ideas (and question old ideas or what has been ‘accepted’ as fact) facilitated the growth of success within the sciences, as buildings serve as grounds for socialization and claiming space. While Southwestern was founded in association with the Methodist church, the University holds a more vague reflection of these values in the current day.
Advancements in technology and medicine are a direct result of questioning your predecessors and yourself to see what could be done or thought about differently. Before the war effort trickled down to Georgetown, did a culture of questioning what was thought to be true exist? Did the change of teaching and learning science at a collegiate level demanded by the affairs of the nation result in a gradual shift of the University’s mission? By understanding how the evolution of teaching science at Southwestern unfolded, we can begin to understand the success garnered by the Fondren-Jones Science center today and see where it will take the students of the future.
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Who was Willard Rodgers?: Reflecting on the life and tragic death of Southwestern’s first Black lacrosse player, Willard Rodgers

2024-12-06T19:10:09+00:00

In 1986, Willard “Rodgers—a 19-year-old sophomore at Southwestern University and the only Black player on the lacrosse team at the time—passed away under mysterious circumstances. While the official explanation cited complications from a minor accident in his dorm room as the cause of death, many of his Black classmates believed his fatal injury was sustained during a racially charged incident on the lacrosse field. Rodgers’ story serves as a somber reminder of the unspoken struggles Black students have faced at Southwestern and the need to confront difficult truths in the university’s past.

Willard “Sel” Rodgers was a Southwestern University sophomore, a member of the lacrosse team, and the first Black student to play the sport at Southwestern. Tragically, on October 6, 1986, Rodgers passed away at the young age of 19, leaving behind a legacy marked by both his achievements and the complex, unresolved questions surrounding his death.
Rodgers, born in Los Angeles and raised in Glendale, Arizona, arrived at Southwestern ready to make his mark. In addition to his role on the lacrosse team, he was a member of EBONY (Encouraging Blacks and Others to Never Yield) and worked in the residence life office. For the Black student community at Southwestern, Willard’s presence was a source of pride and camaraderie.
However, as the only Black player on the lacrosse team, he often encountered challenges that his white teammates did not. According to a former classmate, Rodgers endured harassment on the field, with incidents that crossed lines from rough play to what appeared to be racially motivated aggression. The classmate recounted one such incident in which Rodgers was struck in the head with a lacrosse stick by one of his teammates—a blow his peers believed was intentional and contributed to his untimely passing the following day.
The circumstances of Rodgers’ death remain controversial. The October 17, 1986 issue of The Megaphone reported that Rodgers’ fatal head injury—a contusion above his right eye—was sustained when he “walked into a door in his dorm room.” This explanation, however, stands in contrast to the accounts shared among Black students, who believed that Rodgers’ head injury was linked to the on-field incident. The article further stated that Rodgers had been taken to the hospital for “allergies” the night before his death, though neither his medication nor allergies were determined to have contributed to his passing.
Rodgers’ death left a lasting impact on his fellow Black students, who struggled to process both the tragedy of losing a friend and the institutional response, which many felt failed to acknowledge the racial dynamics surrounding his injury or his precarious place on the lacrosse team. For these students, Rodgers’ death symbolized the challenges Black students have faced at Southwestern, where incidents of exclusion and racial hostility often went unaddressed.
Today, remembering Willard Rodgers is a call to acknowledge the struggles of the Black students who came before us and literally put their bodies on the line as they endured environments that were often overtly unwelcoming. As Southwestern continues to reflect on its history, Rodgers’ story reminds us of the need to confront uncomfortable truths, honor those who came before, and work toward a better future.
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Who was Reverend Roberto L. Gómez?: Navigating Identity in a White world: The Journey of Southwestern's sole Mexican American Graduate in 1969

2025-03-27T18:15:58+00:00

Roberto L. Gómez, Southwestern University's only Mexican American graduate of 1969, embodied resilience and determination during a transformative era for minority students in higher education and at Southwestern. His story highlights the challenges of navigating cultural identity and systemic biases while laying the foundation for greater inclusivity on campus.

In 1991, SU Latina student Rebecca L. Borjas began her research about early Latino/a/x and Hispanic students at the Univesity, and during her research, she received a letter from Dr. Roberto L. Gómez about his experience at Southwestern in the late 1960s as a Hispanic student.
Roberto L. Gómez graduated fromSouthwestern University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and Religion. As the only Mexican American graduate in his class, Gómez’s story is emblematic of the challenges and complexities faced by minority students during a pivotal era in American history and Southwestern history. His experiences offer a first-hand lens through which to examine Southwestern’s cultural and social landscape in the late 1960s, a time of significant societal change and growing awareness of the way that racial and ethnic identities shaped experiences at Southwestern.
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When Gómez arrived on campus in 1967, he carried the weight of being a minority in a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Like many Mexican Americans and other racial and ethinc minorities of his generation faced with the prospect of either joining or changing the predominantly White American culture at the time, he grappled with the tension between acculturation and cultural preservation. His own journey at Southwestern reflects this: when he started college, he asked people to call him “Bobby,” but by the time he graduated, everyone called him “Roberto.”
Reflecting on this period in his letter to Borjas in 1991, Gómez noted, “In the 1960s, some Mexican Americans believed that one would get ahead by becoming educated and acculturated. Learning English and forgetting Spanish were emphasized.” His determination to succeed led him to adopt the social norms of the majority culture, but this came at a personal cost. Friends from his hometown accused him of being “too agringado,” a sentiment that showed the difficulty of balancing academic ambitions with cultural authenticity.
Gómez’s time at Southwestern was marked by a search for connection within a much smaller Hispanic student population than we have at SU today. Of the eight Hispanic students on campus at the time, only a few actively identified with their heritage. Gómez’s friendship with Martin Aleman, another Mexican-American student interested in the humanities, became a cornerstone of his social life. Their shared academic pursuits and cultural understanding provided much-needed solidarity in an environment that often felt isolating.
Despite the lack of formal organizations for Hispanic students, Gómez found ways to contribute to campus life. He participated in Student Union committees such as the Film Committee and Hospitality Committee and was elected Senator of Ruter Dorm during his senior year. These roles not only allowed him to engage with the broader campus community but also helped to challenge stereotypes about Mexican Americans’ capabilities and leadership potential.
Gómez’s determination to assert his rights as a student was tested during a confrontation at a local barbershop. Several of his Anglo friends went to get a haircut and Gómez said “When my turn came, I sat in the barber’s chair. I immediately sensed trouble. Out of nowhere a deputy sheriff appeared. He came towards me and said he did not want trouble from students. He looked right at me and I looked right back at him.” When the deputy sheriff attempted to intimidate him, Gómez stood his ground, later returning to the barbershop out of principle.
This was the same barber shop on the Square that discriminated against Black Southwestern students in the 1960s and 1970s as well. Gómez’s act of quiet defiance illustrates his resilience and commitment to challenging the subtle and overt forms of racism he encountered.
On campus, Gómez’s experiences with discrimination were more nuanced. While he did not recall overt racism from faculty or staff, he did acknowledge moments of disappointment, such as being overlooked for a dorm supervisor position. “Was racism involved in my not getting the position I applied for? Or was someone else better qualified?” he pondered, highlighting the lingering uncertainties that often accompanyminorities experiencing systemic bias.
Gómez’s reflections reveal the personal sacrifices he made in pursuit of higher education. Southwestern’s curriculum in the 1960s focused exclusively on the majority Anglo culture, leaving little room for minority perspectives. “The university did not address Black culture or history and Mexican-American culture or history,” he observed. This lack of representation left Gómez disconnected from his heritage, a realization that became more pronounced as he engaged with the burgeoning Chicano movement through newspaper articles he read in Cody Memorial Library.
The Cody Library was a special place for Gómez. There, he read the newspapers in Cody Library with stories of “militant Mexican American students in South Texas colleges calling themselves Chicanos and organizing Chicano groups. These Chicano groups were demanding certain rights in the educational process and curriculum. The Chicano students demanded Chicano professors and Chicano history and literature courses.” Gómez then expressed, “My Mexican American conscientization started.”
Years later, Gómez’s wife expressed surprise at his limited knowledge of Mexican music, sayings, and folk traditions—a saddening reminder of the cultural trade-offs he had made in his college years. “What I did not realize then was the cultural and ethnic sacrifice I was making,” he admitted, shedding light on the long-term impact of assimilation and acculturation.
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After college, Gómez went on to lead a successful career as a Methodist minister in nearby San Antonio, bringing his experiences as a bicultural Chicano to his work and making him an especially successful advocate for Mexican Americans who were both acculturated to the dominant Anglo culture and resistant to it.
Looking back on his experiences from the perspective of the 1990s, Gómez expressed gratitude for his time at Southwestern while acknowledging its shortcomings. His bittersweet relationship with the institution highlights the duality of his experience: the pride of academic achievement and the loneliness of being racially and culturally minoritized. “I believe life would have been better for me if there had been more Mexican American students, a Mexican American social group, Mexican American women to be friends with, Mexican American staff, and Mexican American faculty and courses,” he reflected.
Gómez’s legacy is a testament to his perseverance and the strides made by minority students who followed in his footsteps. Today, Southwestern’s diverse student body and organizations like the Latinos Unidos student organization and Southwestern’s recent designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) are evidence of progress, inspired by Hispanic alums like Gómez. His story reminds us of the importance of creating inclusive spaces where all students can thrive—academically, socially, and culturally.
Note: This entry is indebted to research originally conducted in 1991 by Rebecca L. Borjas, an intern at the Mood Heritage Museum, as part of a project documenting the history of Hispanic students at Southwestern University.
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Who Was Red McCombs?: Understanding how McCombs’ name came to be known on the Southwestern campus, and across the state of Texas

2024-06-19T00:03:08+00:00

Billy Joe (more commonly known as “Red”) McCombs was renowned for his philanthropy to various educational institutions across the state of Texas, funded by the profits of his work in the oil and gas, automotive, and sports industries. This entry focuses on McCombs’ path to philanthropy through his experiences in higher education.
McCombs grew up in the small town of Spur, Texas, where he later said he first showed his “entrepreneurial spirit” by selling newspapers and washing dishes at a local restaurant after school. McCombs’ father was a mechanic in Spur but he moved the family to Corpus Christi in 1943 after receiving the opportunity to work at the Naval Air Station. McCombs was deeply saddened by the prospect of leaving Spur; however, he found success playing football for his new high school team.
After graduating from high school in 1945, McCombs spent the summer searching for colleges that would give him a scholarship for their institution. He tried out for Baylor University’s football team, which was returning from a hiatus after World War II, but he was rejected on the last day of tryouts. However, the athletic director Bill Henderson informed McCombs that he had a connection to Southwestern that would allow him to play on the football team and attend classes on scholarship.
This offer from Henderson led McCombs to play for Southwestern’s football team as both a defensive lineman and a receiver in the Fall of 1945 before leaving in the spring to serve in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1947, where he was stationed in Korea. When he returned to the US in 1947, he transferred to Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, where Del Mar’s football coach offered to pay his tuition for the year, and an extra $10 a week if he would drive some of his teammates to the games. It was during his enrollment to Del Mar where he met Charline Hamblin, also a former Southwestern student, and they began dating.
McCombs transferred schools again, deciding to study pre-law at UT in the fall of 1948. However, an entrepreneur at heart, he was unsatisfied with the prospect of a career in law, so after 2 years he returned to his home in Corpus Christi to sell used cars at the local Austin Hemphill dealership. The success he experienced as the dealership’s top seller that year marked the beginning of his career as a car dealer whose multiple dealerships in San Antonio for multiple car brands still bear his name. Eventually he expanded into the petroleum industry and was a rancher, completing his image as a quintessential Anglo Texan wheeler-dealer.
Throughout it all, McCombs maintained his love of sports. In 1953, McCombs bought the minor league baseball team the Corpus Christi Aces, saving it from bankruptcy. The team was renamed the Corpus Christi Clippers, and managed to win the playoffs 1954. He went on to acquire the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs two separate times. In between, he owned a second NBA team, the Denver Nuggets, and for a while owned the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL.
In 1988, McCombs established the McCombs Foundation to aid various causes within the Texas education and health sectors, ensuring that his name is cemented across the landscape of Texas, at UT-San Antonio, Trinity University, and the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, as well as even sports rivals Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor, and of course UT-Austin, which renamed its entire business school after McCombs after a $50 Million gift in 2000.
Closer to home for us, McCombs had an enormous influence at Southwestern from the 1980s into the 2000s. Recognizing how impactful his short time at Southwestern was, McCombs joined the Board of Trustees in 1987. Rising to the Board Chair position in 1992, he facilitated gifts of close to $92 million for the university and personally funded the Red and Charline McCombs Campus Center and other campus projects such as the Charline Hamblin McCombs apartment-style residence halls for upper-class students. Although he stepped down from the Board Chair position in 2000, McCombs maintained his place on the Board, being granted the title of Life Trustee member in 2014, maintaining that title for 9 years before his death in the Spring of 2023.
McCombs’ presence is still felt on campus through the various institutional landmarks named after him and his family, making his memory central to the life of everyone at Southwestern. Other Placing Memory entries explore the more complicated aspects of this legacy more fully.
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Who was Nemo Herrera?: An alum and prominent Mexican-American in the history of sports in Texas who is not actively remembered today on campus

2023-08-28T16:58:16+00:00

William Carson “Nemo” Herrera was a Mexican American athlete and Southwestern alum who spent his entire life immersed in sports. He was a man who not only made his mark on the court and field, but also impacted the lives of numerous young people through coaching, educating, and being a mentor. Given his prominence in the history of sports in Texas, you would think he would be actively remembered on campus, but this is not the case.
Rodolfo and Carolina Herrera had their son William Carson Herrera, on February 19, 1900. He resided in San Antonio, Texas, for the entirety of his childhood. At the age of 12, he started attending public school and immediately fell in love with playing organized sports. Soon after, his teammates bestowed upon him his lifelong nickname “Nemo,” which was derived from a combination of the main character in a popular comic strip Little Nemo and a spin on his family nickname Memo. At Breckenridge High School, he prevailed in both baseball as a second baseman, and basketball as forward. He was an outstanding athlete in his teenage years, so it was no surprise to those who knew him when he continued playing ball in college.
In 1918, he was recruited to play sports at Southwestern University. He lettered in baseball and basketball all years he attended Southwestern. He was a two-time member of the All-State college basketball team, a one time member of the All-State Baseball team. He also lettered one year in football while at Southwestern, but decided to not continue playing the rest of his time at SU after sustaining a serious leg injury.
Additionally during his college years, Nemo was a member of the Phi-Delta Theta Fraternity, and a part of the Student Army Training Corps. Although he did not graduate from Southwestern, he was still an outstanding and notable athlete during his time, and he would eventually earn his degree from Trinity University, in his home city. On breaks from school, he would play semi-professional baseball to help pay for university.
Herrera began his coaching career in 1923 at Beaumont High School soon after graduating, where he was an assistant coach on the basketball team for a short period of time, a time when he also helped guide his team to victory all the way to the district championships in 1924. During this year, he also continued to play on a semi-professional baseball team.
A year later he took a job with that Gulf Oil Company in Mexico, and continued playing there from 1924 to 1927. However, in 1927 he got seriously injured in a baseball game and was taken to an American hospital, where he met the love of his life and future wife, a nurse named Mary Leona Hatch. The young couple soon married and returned to San Antonio, where they settled down and had two boys, William and Charles.
In 1928 Herrera was hired to coach all sports at Sidney Lanier Junior High School, a school that was in one of San Antonio’s poor, mostly Mexican/Mexican American West side barrio. In his first year, he helped guide all three of the school’s teams to a district championship. In 1933 he became the first Mexican-American head coach of a major sports program in Texas when he was promoted to head coach. In the course of his time at Lanier, Herrera coached basketball, baseball, and sometimes football as well. On the side he would umpire in American minor leagues and the Mexican National League, and worked as a college basketball referee to supplement his income on breaks and weekends while coaching.
He changed up the strategy of the basketball team, and helped them use their small size and speed to their advantage. This strategy led them to much success from 1938 to 1945. Lanier won five district titles and made it to the final four of the state basketball playoffs four times, winning state in both 1943 and 1945.
In 1945 he turned down the opportunity to fill in as head basketball coach at Texas A&M while their usual coach took leave. He declined because he wanted a more permanent position, so he went to coach varsity basketball at Bowie High School in El Paso. He then led the Bowie baseball team to two back-to-back titles in their first two years. Further, he led the basketball team to four district titles, as well as an appearance in the final four for state playoffs in 1948.
In 1949, El Paso Bowie qualified for the first ever baseball championship tournament. They were the only entirely Hispanic team to compete. Although they were unable to find accommodations because of segregation, that did not stop Nemo and his boys. They slept under the bleachers at Texas Memorial Stadium for the entire duration of the tournament. Nonetheless they went on to win the Class AA state title, and 7 of his players were named to the All-State team. With this, Herrera became the third Texas high school coach to win a state championship in multiple sports. He remained at the school until 1960, during which time he would win three more baseball district titles.
Between 1960 and 1962, Herrera became the head baseball coach at Edgewood High School in San Antonio. He then returned to El Paso to coach at a newly built school, Coronado High School. Here he helped establish their first ever baseball team, a team who won their first district title in 1967. Throughout his time here, Herrera also organized summer baseball leagues and coached El Paso’s under-fifteen team.
Herrera retired from coaching in 1970 and returned to San Antonio at the age of 70. It is then when he began a new career as the director of civilian recreation at the Kelly Air Force Base, where he would work until 1981. A few years later, he passed in San Antonio on April 5, 1984, and was buried at San Jose Burial Park.
Herrera has received much recognition for his devotion to the games, as well as his guidance to others. Nemo Herrera was also the first Hispanic to be inducted into the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1967. Additionally, he was inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame in 1969, the El Paso Baseball hall of Fame in 1988, the San Antonio sports hall of fame in 1997, Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999, and the San Antonio ISD hall of fame in 2016. Along with this, the gymnasium at San Antonio Lanier High School is named after him.
Herrera also was inducted into the Southwestern Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995, which is why we have located this pin near Robertson Center. But despite this and all the honorifics elsewhere, Nemo Herrera is not prominently remembered in the commemorative landscape of his first alma mater, Southwestern.
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Who was Margaret Root Brown?: A Southwestern Alumna, Philanthropist, and art patron whose legacy permeates the campus.

2023-08-20T14:46:35+00:00

Margaret Root Brown was born on July 21, 1895 in Taylor, Texas, to James Leper Root and South Carolina Root. She had two older siblings, Daniel Root and Florence (Florra) Root Cody, who both attended Southwestern University alongside her. During her time at the University, Root Brown joined Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She was also listed as a member of the school’s art department that aided in the illustrations of the yearbook The Sou’Wester. Her activities and trips were often mentioned in the school’s newspaper as she was noted to be one of the “society belles” of the school. She graduated in 1915 with her A.B. degree after just three years of enrollment, and moved to Belton where she became a teacher.
In 1917, she met Herman Brown at a dance in Georgetown. Later that year, on September 9th, 1917 the couple decided to elope. After receiving financial support from Daniel Root, Herman established Georgetown as the first center of Brown and Root Industrial Services, an infrastructure company that started out in road construction, which allowed his wife to be very active in the community.
During this time Margaret became interested in art collection and was a part of the Texas Fine Arts Association, where she sponsored prizes for artists. In 1943 Margaret and Herman adopted seven year old Louisa Stude, who went on to marry Fayez Sarofim in 1962, and soon after, her brother Micajah.
In 1947, the Browns moved to River Oaks in Houston where they lived near George and Alice Brown. Despite growing increasingly ill due to lung problems that probably stemmed from having emphysema as a child, Margaret continued to be an avid reader and served on boards of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Houston Foundation of Ballet. She was also a member of St. Paul’s Methodist Church.
Margaret Root Brown was very loyal to her alma mater and is likely one of the reasons why the Brown Foundation made continuous gifts to the University. The Brown's major contributions to Southwestern include gifts of fine art and rare books, in addition to financial support. In 1952, she had Herman send a Brown and Root crew to the campus to plant trees and rose bushes at no cost to the University. After the opening of the Alma Thomas Fine Arts center, she highlighted the new gallery by sponsoring a series of exhibitions in 1957. The following year, she provided a new series of six shows in an attempt to rotate shows so that students would always have a new exhibition to look at when they met in the auditorium for compulsory assembly every week.
Margaret Root Brown was also a philanthropist and particularly interested in funding the attendance of international students at Southwestern. The only two stipulations being that “the student had to speak adequate English in order to participate effectively in classes and had to return to his or her own country on graduation.” Her scholarships for these students began in 1950 and continued until her death. In January 1963, she passed away from a pulmonary insufficiency at the Methodist Hospital, two months after her husband’s passing.
Margaret Root Brown is remembered in multiple places on campus in prominent and subtle ways. This pin is located at the place where her portrait hangs, on the second floor of the Collen Building.
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Who was Lois Craddock Perkins?: Exploring the Life of the Woman who Inspired the Chapel

2023-06-08T01:23:10+00:00

Lois Craddock Perkins, after whom this chapel is named, was born in 1887 in China Springs, Texas. She attended Southwestern University from 1908-1911. As a student, she was a part of the Youth Women’s Christian Association, or Y.W.C.A., and was involved in the Bible study and finance portions of the club. She was also a member of the “volunteer mission band,” the purpose of which was “evangelization of the world in this generation.” (Sou’wester Yearbook 1909, p. 177). This involvement indicates her passion for Christianity and mission work, which can be seen later in her life as well. She was also a member of the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority.
According to a Megaphone article from February 11, 1910, Lois Perkins was taken to a sanitarium in Temple, and was noted as having returned in the February 25 article of that same year, although there is no further information given on this event. She was given a distinction in her studies in a Megaphone article from January 13, 1911, and while Lois did not receive her degree from Southwestern, she is a notable alumna from the university due to her numerous financial and cultural contributions.
In 1918, Lois married Joe J. Perkins, a prominent Texas businessman and philanthropist, and had two daughters. Elizabeth, the only daughter who survived into adulthood, eventually married Charles Prothro and the couple became prominent benefactors of Southwestern. There is a major building and multiple spaces named after the Prothros across campus.
In the early days of the university, chapel services were held in the auditorium in Cullen. April of 1882 brought the construction of a chapel on the southwestern corner of the campus, but this was a project of the local Methodist church rather than that of the University. The original idea for Southwestern’s own chapel came from Lois sitting on the creaky pews in the old building, and commenting to her husband that she wished Southwestern could have a “‘a nice chapel’” (Jones 369). Later that evening, Joe reportedly called President Score and offered funds for a new chapel. Lois’ status as an alumna, and her initial urging for the new chapel, led Joe to insist that the building be named after her. To this day, it is one of the few stand-alone buildings named for a woman. The name “Lois Perkins” is, in the life of a Southwestern student, synonymous with the Chapel, and leaves a legacy that does not exist apart from this building.
Throughout the course of her life, Lois and her husband donated millions of dollars to organizations throughout Texas, particularly those with Methodist affiliations. She served on the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council, was inducted into the Methodist Hall of Fame for Philanthropy, and was awarded Southwestern University Outstanding Alumna’s award in 1970 (Vernon). While she is remembered largely in conjunction with her husband and his wealth, Lois Craddock Perkins was an accomplished woman of her own right, and made significant contributions to Methodism and Southwestern University.
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Who was Laura Kuykendall?: One of Southwestern’s most influential female leaders… whom we no longer actively remember.

2023-06-09T14:21:38+00:00

Laura Kuykendall was a central female figure on the Southwestern campus from the early to mid-1900s. She was a champion for youth culture and an advocate for expanding the common notions of what a female’s education entailed. Kuykendall is not a hero by any means, nor do I attempt to make her out to be, but she served as a key individual in enacting how Southwestern shaped, taught, and managed its female students. This is a history that still affects us today, yet Kuykendall has been largely forgotten in the collective student body’s collective memory.

First attending Southwestern as a student in the 1903-1904 academic year, Kuykendall graduated with a degree in Elocution. Prior to this, she also received a Bachelor of Arts in Oratory and Gymnasium from Kidd-Key College, the North Texas Female College. After receiving her multiple degrees, Kuykendall taught at various institutions before returning to Southwestern in 1914 as a faculty member.
Kuykendall initially started as an Instructor of Expression and Director of Girls’ Gymnasium, then soon thereafter became Director of the Expression Department. After four years of success in these positions, Kuykendall was named Dean of Women in 1918 while still retaining all of her instructor roles. Not satisfied with just this, Kuykendall went on to pursue her Master's in Sociology and Economics at Southwestern while still fulfilling the role of Dean of Women, which she received in 1926.
Clearly, having received multiple degrees and filled multiple educational positions, Kuykendall’s utmost responsibility was educating herself and the women of Southwestern. Spreading her knowledge and educational approach to others, she served as President of the Texas Deans of Women, as well as a member of the General Council for the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs. Her Master’s Thesis, entitled The Dean of Women and Her Problems as Found on a Small University Campus (1926), worked to establish a baseline for other Deans of Women to follow, including the inequities between this position and male faculty and deans, how to successfully connect with women in the position, and even how a “woman’s building” should be built for optimal use. She was committed to expanding education and what an education entailed, not only for as many young women as possible but also for future female educators to be successful in their work and continue this expansion.
As for Kuykendall’s presence on Southwestern’s campus, she became highly regarded within both the student and faculty populations. As one Megaphone article in April of 1926 put it, “she is an institution herself”. Laura, or “Miss Kirk,” (as she was known by the students) never married or had children, so she was viewed as both a guardian figure and a trusting friend to many of her students. Kuykendall’s approach to working with students led her to be dear to them. Rather than acting as an authoritarian, she “loved youth with its vibrancy, loveliness, color, and drama; she lovingly devoted her life to youth, and youth loved her deeply for it”
Of course, Kuykendall still molded her pupils (and there were still rules and lots of order in the Ladies Annex), but even with this Kuykendall also worked to create intrinsic motivation and passion within her students by connecting with their youthfulness. Separate from her approach to being Dean, Kuykendall herself was dramatic, free-flowing, and eccentric by nature. As an instructor of expression, she regularly performed her whimsical spirit through her curated, flowing outfits, which are mentioned frequently throughout multiple editions of The Megaphone from the period, and (some of which) can be seen in the imagery below.
On special occasions, Kuykendall’s avant garde nature was reflected within the events she created and held, which also worked to bring the Southwestern community together. Kuykendall was instrumental in initiating, organizing, leading, and directing multiple annual celebrations for the SU campus that turned into short-lived traditions. These included the May Fete, the Dinner of the Golden Bowl, the Legend of the Bell pageant, and the Christmas Carol Service, all of which appear in separate entries within Placing Memory. Under Kuykendall’s direction, these celebrations all included grande pageantry, ornate costumes, elaborate choreographies, spectacular programming, and intricate invitations, seating arrangements, menus, & live music–all of which represent Kuykendall’s grande and dramatic demeanor, and her approach to community.
Apart from the Christmas Carol Service (now the Candlelight Service), these events largely stopped around 1950, about a generation after the death of Kuykendall on April 30th, 1935 at the age of 51. Her death impacted the entire Southwestern and Georgetown community, with a memorial service taking place instead of the May Fete celebration that year. A year after her passing, a portrait of the late Dean was unveiled in the Women’s Building to keep her memory alive, and five years after her death, the Women’s Building was renamed Laura Kuykendall (LK) Hall.
With the demolition of LK Hall after the fall semester of 1995, the last positive mention of LK Hall (as “legendary and beloved”) occurred in an October 1998 Megaphone article. Since then, Brown Cody Hall sits on the site of LK Hall and includes the old ornate steel columns from its front porch, but Laura Kuykendall has essentially been lost, forgotten, and erased in Southwestern’s collective memory. The plaque from the original LK Hall, which was once so important, floats around campus somewhere. The only things actively commemorating her today are the Laura Kukendall Garden in between Mabee Hall and Brown Cody (which is listed on some campus maps but not marked at the site), and the plaques on the first floor of the F. W. Olin Building for the Laura Kukendall Communication Studies Student of the Year Award.
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Who was Jessie Daniel Ames?: Southwestern alum who was a national women's suffrage leader and anti-lynching advocate in the South

2023-06-14T14:29:53+00:00

Jessie Daniel Ames, born Jessie Daniel, began her long legacy of working as a human rights leader in the South when her family moved to Georgetown in 1893 at the age of 10. She and her sisters attended the Ladies’ Annex to pursue an education. Eventually, she graduated in 1902 and married Roger Post Ames in 1905, moving out of Georgetown until his death in 1914. She then moved back to Georgetown to live with her mother and have support caring for her three children.
She worked for the Georgetown Telephone Company, and being a businesswoman, she realized that she had the same right to vote on issues affecting her business as any businessman did. As a result, she organized the Georgetown Equal Suffrage League in 1916 and began her career as a leader in progressive social and political reform.
Before long, Ames worked as a state treasurer at Texas Equal Suffrage Association pushing for Texas to become the first Southern state to ratify the 19th amendment. Once the bill was passed for women to vote in primaries, Ames and her co-workers worked tirelessly to register 3,800 women in Williamson County to vote 17 days before the election in 1918.
A year later, she founded the Texas chapter of the League of Women Voters and worked closely with state councils and committees regarding interracial commissions and women’s law reform. Her work with women’s rights in the South left a significant impact on the community that is still remembered and relevant today,
Briefly, Ames moved to Atlanta where she worked as the national director of the Woman’s Committee of the Committee on Interracial Cooperation (CIC). An issue of The Megaphone in 1929 titled, “Prominent Interracial Committeewoman To Be Here This Week” discusses Ames’ visit to Southwestern. The students described her words as “enlightening” and the attendance was “well worth the privilege.” The next issue the following week discusses another speech given by Ames to the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A groups at Southwestern titled, “Mrs. Ames Speaks Here On Race Problem.” Ames remained very active within the Southwestern community as she focused on shedding light on the social justice work she was doing to the young people of Georgetown.
In 1930, Jessie Daniel Ames founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. She was the first white woman to speak out publicly against the lynching of African Americans. Her actions led to the decline of lynchings in the 30s and 40s and by 1937, national, state, and regional organizations endorsed antilynching platforms.
Ames is actively remembered in several ways on campus today. Her portrait hangs in the Women’s Studies Alcove, located on the third floor of the library. This space commemorates her advocacy for women’s rights and includes other prominent feminist figures that directly impacted Southwestern's history. She is also commemorated on campus through the Jessie Daniel Ames Lecture Series that was begun in 1995 by the Women’s Studies (later Feminist Studies) program. These commemorations keep the knowledge of her life’s work known and therefore remembered within.
Remembering who Ames was is significant to the generations of women who have graduated since. This emphasizes the importance of women’s voices on campus today as the legacy of women that came before fought hard for our rights and the rights of other minorities within the community.
Jessie Daniel Ames spoke up about issues that were controversial in the South and as a woman, she was able to make a difference despite her place also being in the minority. By advocating for both anti-lynching and women’s voting rights, she should continue to be commemorated as a civil rights leader with significant ties to the University and Georgetown.
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Who was Isaac Joel McCook?: The original inhabitant of the Old Field House in its original location, before it was even just the Field House.

2023-06-17T15:19:50+00:00

Isaac Joel McCook (usually referred to as I. J. McCook) was Southwestern’s Business Manager (later Vice President of Finance) from 1929 to 1968. He also served on the Executive Committee for several years, acting as its Secretary for many of those years. He served the University during some of its most turbulent financial times, most notably during the Great Depression and World War II.
I. J. McCook was a highly respected figure on campus who was popular among both students and faculty. Students regarded McCook as a warm and modest man; the Executive Committee considered him to be one of the most capable business officers in Southwestern’s history.
I. J. McCook was known by everyone as tightfisted. He saved money wherever possible and disagreed with spending on anything he deemed unessential to the university. But because of his very conservative budgeting and knack for finance, McCook is remembered for playing a central role in salvaging Southwestern from bankruptcy during the Great Depression.
McCook’s strict financial views were the brunt of a joke made in a senior skit held at the chapel in 1932. McCook was not in attendance at this performance when it was assumed he would be there. To explain his absence, students joked that “somebody dropped a nickel behind the piano just before he was scheduled to go on the stage and spent the rest of the hour hunting for it.” This highlights both the idea that students knew McCook could take a joke and that McCook was very conservative with money.
McCook arrived at Southwestern only two months before Black Thursday in 1929. He came to Southwestern University at the request of his colleague Ernest L. Kurth on a “salvage operation” to manage the university’s enormous debt. The reported debt in 1928 totaled $554,950.49, equivalent to 9.87 million dollars in 2023. Prior to McCook’s time at Southwestern, under President Hyer, a lot of borrowing occurred to construct and operate the campus, and when the market crashed, the University’s financial situation went from bad to worse.
According to To Survive and Excel, I. J. McCook did four main things to reform Southwestern’s finances during his time. First, he initiated a strict budget system. He also ensured that the endowment fund would not be tapped to take out more loans. McCook transferred investment responsibility away from the Board of Trustees to the Financial Committee and lastly changed Executive Committee membership from Georgetown locals to representatives of the entire state.
The pin for this entry is located at the site where I. J. McCook, his wife Maymie, and his three children resided in the 1920s-30s, right in the middle of campus today. Information that I could not find regarding the building prior to 1940 was whether the McCooks owned the home or if Southwestern University owned the home. Megan Firestone, Head of Special Collections and Archives, hypothesized that Southwestern may have owned the residence and rented it to faculty.
Either way, we do know from census data that the McCooks lived here for some time before 1940. By the 1940 census, however, records indicate that they had moved. This is because, in 1940, the residence was moved as part of the University’s Campus Plan, which broke up the original Georgetown city grid overlaying the campus and re-oriented the campus around a central horseshoe street called Rutersvillle Drive. Therefore, this address, 409 E. 10th Street, no longer exists.
Jim West Gymnasium was built in 1940 on the site of the old McCook house. West Gym itself was demolished in 1994. Today the F.W. Olin building stands in this location, with the cornerstone of the West Gym installed in the ground in front of Olin as a reminder of the previous building, but no marker exists to commemorate the location of the McCook house.
The McCook home was relocated to where it stands today at 1005 Maple Street and converted into the Snyder Field athletic field house. There, more recently called Old Field House, it has had multiple uses since 1940, but most recently, it is the home of the Southwestern University Police department.
The McCook family name is also physically memorialized on campus by the McCook-Crain building on the east side of campus. However, the name attached to this building was not given in honor of I. J. McCook himself, but rather his son Charles Woodruff McCook, known informally as “Woody.” Woody was a Southwestern graduate who later joined the Army Air Corps and tragically died in combat during an overseas assignment to Burma in 1942. Although the McCook-Crain building does not directly memorialize I. J., it does signify the importance the McCook family had to Southwestern University’s history.
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