James Earl Rudder

While on the subject of people that have made significant contributions to TAMU, James Earl Rudder is one of those individuals. Rudder was a 1932 graduate of TAMU and commissioned into the US Army. On June 6, 1944 as a Lt.Col., he led a company of 225 Army Rangers in the assault at Pointe Du Hoc in the D-Day Invasion of France. He and his troops faced 90 foot cliffs heavily protected by German fire. His mission was virtually impossible but with incredible bravery, they succeeded in taking the location, though only 90 men survived the assault. He continued his role in WW II, including the Battle of the Bulge, to its end. 

After the war, he was a leader in private and public roles before becoming the 16th president of TAMU in 1959. He made the decision to transition A&M from an all-male military university to what you see today - corps optional, women, and integration. That decision was not received well by many/most former students but he knew it was needed for A&M to become world class. He died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in 1970 while still president of A&M. Rudder Tower is the tall building next to the MSC and his statue is on the North side of that building.

Comments

Post a Comment

Please include your name in your comment so I know the author! Thanks.

Popular posts from this blog

Palo Duro Canyon

Image
I was  pleasantly surprised by the number of comments back from my reunion e-mail yesterday. I appreciated each of them as most referenced similar feelings to what I tried to express. You just never know.... We met up with a couple Thursday night to go to the Texas play in Palo Duro Canyon. I grabbed a few quick photos of the canyon on the drive in. The panhandle has been blessed with a wet spring and the canyon was beautiful with all the green. If you have never been to this state gem, you are missing something. Growing up, I spent many an hour in this park creating great memories. The sky was clear and the temperatures hot for these photos. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/
Read more

Springtime

Image
It's been a while since I messed with your mailbox so Howdy and I hope each of you are doing well. A few of you have sent notes and updates and they are always appreciated. This is too long but summarizes our life the past few months. We have been busy this spring with some major cleanup of the woods/brush around our house. The area in front of our house was cleaned up in the original construction. By cleaned up, I mean you could safely walk (mostly erect) through the area without fear of death by 1000 thorns. The other areas were left much less accessible with survival maintenance only but still no clear access. Though I have always wanted to see the garage-side area to look more like our front, we never made it happen in the 11+ years we have lived here. We had three obstacles that are more like excuses but they were very real. The first issue is our fundamental frugality. We could not bring ourselves to pay the several thousand dollars to have someone come in and do the work. Th...
Read more

Solar Eclipse - 3

Image
As I stated in a previous e-mail, my photos were not unique and I had seen many similar. I ran across a post on Facebook from the Holcomb Observatory in  Indianapolis, IN describing what they saw during the eclipse Monday. Their post gave more detail regarding the size and source of the red color that I did not know. They also photographed what appeared to be the "same" prominence in one of my photos (shape and location essentially the same anyway). I decided to zoom in on my photo and allow a software magnification to increase the size a bit (3X). I'm pretty happy with my handheld photo with a pretty normal equipment when compared to an observatory! This is my photo followed by the $$$$$ stuff! Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/
Read more