DIAL 4-5444 # ^ TJ ^ 4-4- ^ 4 i ^ ^ CIRCULATION 5,500STUDENT TRI WEEKLY

NEWSPAPER OF TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE 1 tic ±Sattaiion OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER

OF THE CITY OF COLLEGE STATION

VOL. 39 ■ 122 ADMINISTRATION BUILDING COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 30, 1940 Z725 NO. 94

661 SENIORS TO RECEIVE DEGREES FRIDAY NIGHJuniors To Celebrate With Dinner, DanceMusic To Be Furnished By George Hall

Toastmaster To Be Tom Richey, Senior Class Prexy-Elect

Tonight A. & M. juniors will take on the first resemblance of next year’s seniors and close a big jun­ior year when they have their An­nual Prom and Banquet. Official­ly, this is their last function as juniors, but many arrangements have been made to accent the sen­ior aspect for next year. Uniforms will be worn with the cadet officer shoulder straps and saber chain. Tom Richey, recently elected class president for 1940-41, will be toast­master at the banquet .

Starting at 7:00 p. m., the juniors will gather in the old mess hall an­nex for their banquet, where places are being set for 800 class members. Favors in the form of leather bound compacts, will be presented dates. The compacts are flat and square with a gold school seal centered on the top. ‘Junior Prom’ is on a small scroll beneath the seal. Those juniors who do not attend the banquet but have paid for a favor may obtain them at the dance. A group of sophomores, dressed in white suits and shoes, will usher at the ban­quet and dance.

George Hall has been engaged to play for the class dance which will be held at 9:00 in the main part of Sbisa Hall. Uniform for the dance is not specified, and members of the graduating class of ’40 will be guests.

Dolly Dawn, featured vocalist with George Hall, has a voice that is recognized for its clarity and sparkle by all who listen to Hall’s radio programs. Hall’s fame as an orchestra leader started with his eight year engagement at the Hotel Taft in New York City. This engagement broke all records for long term orchestra stands. He also broadcasts daily over the Columbia Broadcasting System during this time. Hall’s band is noted for its ability to play mu­sic to suit the occasion, and he is able to change quickly from a slow waltz to a dizzy rhumba. His brand of swing is no doubt famil­iar to many Aggies.

Dolly Dawn, whose hobby is collecting little china dogs, has ex­pressed a preference for college proms as the dances which she en­joys most, notwithstanding the fact that she won the Orchestra World Achievement Award in 1937 and 1938 as the vocalist who did the most for the advancement of popular music over the radio and stage. The pleasant, bla brunette is expected to be vocal style for the evening

The committee in charge of favors and invitations for the dance are Bob Little and Cyrill Heitkamp. The dance committee is composed of Bill Becker, Ben Roberts, Jack Hendrick, Ed Felder, David Yarbrough, and George Tay­lor.

George Hall and Dolly Dawn will also preside at the band stand on Friday night for the Final Ball. All classified seniors plan­ning to attend the Final Ball Fri­day night are requested to enter by the extreme left door of the mess hall. Names will be checked at that door. This event will bring down the curtain on the social sea­son of the 1939-40 session, and a special Silver Taps ceremony has been arranged. At 12 o’clock, during intermission at the dance, the Silver Taps ceremony will be observed. Dancers are requested to gather with students from the old area in the open space before the Academic Building. Students from the new area are requested to make a special effort to attend this special Silver Taps ceremony which commemorates the ending of the 1939-40 session.

Cntertain at Final ‘Dances

rfW' : . jr

GEORGE HALL DOLLY DAWNGeorge Hall leads the noted orchestra which plays for the Junior

Prom tonight and the Final Ball Friday night. With him is Dolly Dawn, whose voice is so well known on radio and recordings.

George Hall Says He’d Like To Smarten Today’s Classics

Aside from the pleasant music>the classic composer-conductorsfurnished by George Hall as lead­er of his orchestra, the swing maestro also has a distinctive and pleasant personality of his own. His physical features are those of a Latin-American, which is on­ly natural because his parents were Spanish. Tall and broad shoulder­ed, he wears a neatly waxed and pointed mustache, not so long, however, as to interfere with the big black cigars he loves to smoke. About twenty cigars a day go up in smoke for George Hall, and they really go up in smoke. He smokes them right down to the very end. “The best part of the cigar is the butt,” he says.

Among other ochestra leaders, George is very popular because he never misses the opening of anyone else’s orchestra if he can possibly help it. One time he went to six openings in four days.

Just because he wears a bright red rose most of the time doesn’t mean that George is so gay that he doesn’t know his classical mu­sic. His favorite ‘heavy’ tunes are “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony” and Wagner’s “Siegfried,” and waltzes claim his preference even in popular music. George is just one of those fellows who keeps music running in his family be­cause his father was concert mas­ter for Victor Herbert. Even while he was in high school, George played a violin for Herbert. But George sometimes infuriates patrons of serious music by sug­gesting that the reason swing bands are preferred to symphonies is because they’re modern, and that if he could get his hands on a symphony orchestra he’d cut it flnwn arirl atnarton if ijp to play

STiduxeQ pos t^ie oAm -d m J'ust what

did in their day.Dolly Dawn, Hall’s pleasant

brunette singer, is no amateur in this music world either. For nigh on to eight years now she has been singing over the radio and has won several polls and set sev­eral new records for phonograph sales. She picked her job and land­ed it by deciding early that she wanted to sing with Hall’s Orches­tra. By practice and memory work and more practice and more memory work she learned all of the orchestra’s vocals and sang them in accompaniment to .the music. Until she landed the job though, the accompaniment was to his music coming over the radio. She finally got the nerve to ask for her job when she got a chance on the amateur hour which Hall was conducting at the time. She must have been a pret­ty good amateur, because she is now one of the best liked profes­sionals in the vocalist business. That was only three years ago, and in that short time Dolly has risen to the heights in giving vocal entertainment to dancers.

Holick Gives Aggie Band 3 New Batons

The Holick Boot Company of Col­lege Station recently fulfilled the long felt need of the Aggie Band by donating them three new bat­ons.

Pat Ledbetter, head drum major for next year, will use one of the new batons, a white one trimmed in maroon. Tom Harrison and Jam­es Cargile, the two assistant drum majors for next year, will use the other two which are to be finished in maroon and trimmed in white.

Sditors cBefore and oAfter

Appointments for Next Year’s ‘Bat’ Staff Made

Recommendations for positions'fhelp the staff, but it will greatlyon The Battalion staff for next year were made by Bob Nisbet Wednesday afternoon and sub­mitted to E. L. Angell for approval by the Student Publications Board. The following is a list of the men with their respective positions: George Fuermann, Associate EditorEarle Shields..... Managing EditorBilly Clarkson....Managing EditorA. J. Robinson......Magazine EditorHub Johnson.............. Sports EditorPete Tumlinson................ Art EditorPhil Golman. ..Staff Photographer Tommy Henderson...............................

.......................Circulation ManagerKeith Hubbard.....................................

.................... Advertising ManagerJim Sedberry,Jack Hendrick,Tom Harrison,....Asst. Adv. Mgrs.

Ele Baggett was recommended for managing editor of The Long­horn, and O. G. Allen was recom­mended for Longhorn advertising manager. They were approved.

Plans for The Battalion of 1940- 41 will feature a drive for better staff organization and will make a special effort to achieve finan­cial success. According to Bob Nisbet, the staff will function somewhat like a military machine with each department and each phase of work on the paper head­ed by one man who will be re­sponsible for the success of his particular enterprise. That the paper should make its own way financially has been a goal sought after in vain since it ceased to be a weekly publication.. Such an achievement is an end toward which the paper will strive.

Another goal in view is the im­provement of the style of news coverage and story writing. As suggested by Dr. Ide P. Trotter, head of the Agronomy Department, each department will have, if possible, one man on the teaching staff who will see to it that de­partment news reaches The Bat­talion Office. Not only will this

STIDHAM FUND IS NOW $721, STILL SHORT OF GOAL

With only one day remaining in the drive for the George Stidham Fund, committee chairmen report­ed $721.09 deposited in the Fiscal Office. This is far short of the sum hoped for at the beginning of the drive last'Saturday. Co-chair­men Buster Keeton and George Fuermann pointed out, however, that there was still an opportunity to reach the goal as the faculty, College Station businessmen, and many of the military organizations and projects houses had not been heard from at press time.

At a meeting of the Stidham Fund committee held last night, it was decided that the corps would be given another opportu­nity today to contribute to help the Aggie whose back was broken in a recent accident. Boxes will be placed at the entrance of Sbisa and Duncan dining halls at both the dinner and supper hours and cadets may contribute at these times.

Contributions began coming in from other Texas cities yesterday, and one was received from Annap­olis, Maryland, from an ex-Aggie who is now a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy.

A generous gesture wTas made on the part of Bryan’s W. R. McCullough Funeral Home who transferred Stidham to Houston by ambulance. A letter from Mc-

improve news coverage and will also give better publicity to the various departments.

For the magazine, there will be an art staff numbering around 20 members.

The sports department, headed by Hub Johnson, will emphasize minor sports to give publicity to teams and members who are usual­ly never heard from.

From behind the editor’s desk comes the statement that editor­ials for next year’s paper will work constructively for the good of the college and will be aggressive with a spark of fire here and there.

MARINE CORPS COMMISSIONS NOW OFFERED

Of interest to all sophomores not planning to take advanced Mili­tary Science next year is an an­nouncement made by the United States Marine Corps concerning commissions in this branch of ser­vice. The announcement states a means whereby physically fit soph­omores may obtain a commission in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. This commission is to be granted at graduation to those qualifying in the same manner as other reserve commissfons. This is an opportunity for those students who want a reserve commission in some branch of the armed ser­vice but need for their courses the three hours per semester re­quired for advanced military science. '

The plan provides that the soph­omores who are selected will at­tend a six weeks camp during July and August of this summer and a similar camp during the summer between their junior and senior year. The men will be sent to the Marine Corps Base, either at San Diego, Calif, or Quantico, Virginia, during that period of training. Upon passing all requirements, they will be commissioned as Sec­ond Lieutenants in the U. S. Ma­rine Corps Reserve.

On Monday, June 3, Lt. Col. Maurice G. Holmes, unit instructor for the 15th Marine Corps Battalion at Galveston, will be on the cam­pus for the purpose of interview­ing anyone who is interested and answering question on the subject. He will also accept enlistments then for those students who are physically fit. Students who de­sire information immediately about the plan are invited to contact O. R. Simpson, student employment director, who is himself a Marine Corps officer.

Largest Graduating Gass In History Will Be Given Diplomas By Dr. F. M. Law

Dr. Friley, President of Iowa State,Will Deliver Commencement Address

Friday night will spell finale to college careers of 661 seniors when they cross the platform on Kyle Field to receive their reward for four years of effort in the form of the coveted diploma, to be present­ed by Dr. F. Marion Law, president of the Board of Directors of A. & M.

Graduation activities officially started for seniors Wednesday morning when the signing of oaths of office for seniors graduating into the ranks of the Officers Reserve Corps was started in room 101, Academic building. These oaths will be signed through Friday noon

■fand must be signed before a gra-

Rev. S. W. Williams of Brown- wood will deliver the Baccalaureate sermon Friday morning.

Orchestra Needs Help To Get On Fitch Bandwagon

Every cadet should enjoy hearing A. & M.’s own Ag- gieland Orchestra play a thirty-minute program on the Fitch’s Sumer Band­wagon. Also the program would give the college favor­able publicity.

In order that this may be accomplished, the Music Cor­poration of America in Chi­cago will need some assur­ance that the “public” desires to hear the orchestra. Accord­ing to Jack Littlejohn, leader of the band, it would help a lot if every cadet would drop a card of approval to

M. B. Livsey, Music Cor­poration of America 430 North Michigan Ave.

Chicago, IllinoisEach summer the Fitch

company sponsors a program which features one orchestra each week, E. L. Angell, stu­dent activities manager, who has been handling the cor­respondence, says the Aggie- land has a good chance to get on for one week, but that 6,000 letters will certainly push the cause a long way.

Summer ’Bat ’ Staff Named; To Feature Camp Columns

Announcement was made today by first-term Summer Battalion editor George Fuermann of staff appointments for the publication. Phil Levine, junior assistant on the 1940 Longhorn and an editorial assistant on The Battalion staff for two years, will serve as man­aging editor during the first semes­ter. E. C. “Jeep” Oates will be sports editor; Phil Hauger, circu- laiton manager; Phil Golman, staff photographer; Helyne Morrow, movie editor; and Betty Shelton, society editor.

On the right the gentleman with the unsuspecting countenance is Battalion editor-elect Bob Nisbet.

On the left the gentleman with the careworn expression is retiring editor-in-chief Bill Murray after his year’s toil.

Fuermann pointed out that the Cullough said, “We consider it a i first Semester staff would total

^ithnLaAplrMreidi:s|^"‘ members wo„Min this worthy undertaking. As inc uc*e sev 61 coeds from other a result, please accept our state- j schools. Included in this group ment inclosed marked paid.” Sev-1 are Edith Thomas, vice-president eral Bryan merchants have also j of the T.S.C.W. senior class; Ruth contributed to the fund. J (Continued on page 4) George Fuermann

duating senior may receive his O. R. C. commission which will be pre­sented at 8:30 Saturday morning in Guion Hall by Brigadier Gener­al Walter B. Pyron, of the Texas National Guard. These commis­sions will be presented immediate­ly before the Final Review when seniors will present their last final review and will then step forward to be honored by the corps with a review.

First entertainment for visiting parents will be the final concert by the Aggie Band at 4:30 this af­ternoon in the area adjoining Mitchell Hall on the north. Num­bers to be played in the concert are chosen by the seniors in the band. Persons attending the con­cert may park their cars in the streets adjoining the area.

The Junior Prom will start at 10:00 p. m. tonight immediately following the Junior Banquet which starts at 7:00 and features George Hall and his orchestra, with the noted vocalist, Dolly Dawn. Graduating seniors will be guests of the junior class at the dance and will be allowed to en­ter free at both the Junior Prom and the Final Ball. Silver Taps will be observed at 12:00 o’clock Friday night as the traditional farewell to departing seniors.

The Baccalaureate Sermon will be given Friday morning at 10:30 in Guion Hall by the Reverend S. W. Williams, D.D., pastor of the First Methodist Church of Brown- wood, and father of John S. Wil­liams, member of the graduating class.

The Processional to Guion Hall for the sermon will form in the order as follows: President Wal­ton, Reverend Williams, members of the Board of Directors, Deans and Directors, Heads of Depart­ments, and candidates for de­grees. The formation will be in column of two’s and, with the ex­ception of the candidates, will form in the lobby of the Academic Building.

The graduating class will form on the lawn west of the Academic Building and south of the walk, being arranged alphabetically ac­cording to courses, those receiving advanced degrees first in line. Students will report to Registrar E. J. Howell and members of the staff to Colonel George F. Moor© for assignment to positions.

The line will form at 9:55 for the Baccalaureate Sermon and the procession will move at 10:15 to Guion Hall. Guion Hall will be open to ticket holders at 9:30 and for non-ticket holders at 10:15. Academic regalia will not be worn for the Baccalaureate services. Seniors not exempt from wearing the uniform will wear Number 1 uniform complete with cap, while those exempt from wearing the uniform will attend in appropriate civilian clothes including coat.

The Commencement program will take place at 6:00 p. m. Fri­day evening at Kyle Field with the address to be delivered by Dr. jC. E. Friley, president of Iowa State College, which will be fol­lowed by the Valedictory address, the conferring of degrees, and the presentation of diplomas.

The same order will be observed as for the Baccalaureate Sermon except for the addition of staff members who will follow the Heads of Departments in the or­der of Full Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant Professors,

(Continued on page 4)