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Getting Gatsby

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

When The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925 it caused barely a ripple in the publishing world.

The novel about a self-made millionaire and his struggle for acceptance in high society failed to live up to the success of author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s earlier work This Side of Paradise. When he died in 1940 at the age of 44, The New York Times obituary noted: “The promise of his brilliant career was never fulfilled.”

But today Fitzgerald’s work is required reading for high school students and has inspired different film adaptations through the decades including the latest incarnation, a 3-D extravaganza starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

That made it the perfect case study in a class examining film aesthetics taught by Joan McGettigan, associate professor of Film Television and Digital Media (FTDM). A class project examined older versions of “Gatsby” that had been put on film including a 1949 version starring Alan Ladd, the 1974 Robert Redford-Mia Farrow film and a 2000 made-for-television production starring British actor Toby Stephens.

“I can count on the fact that they’ve all read it,” she says of the novel. “But they aren’t really given the opportunity to form an opinion about it in high school. They are given one interpretation and that’s it.

“I wanted the students to come back to something they had already read once and look at it in a new way,” she adds. “ ‘What do you think it’s about? and if you were making a movie, what would you emphasize and what would you leave out?’ ”

She wrote about the class and student reactions in a recent article in the Bright Lights Film Journal. Most students were not impressed with Stephens’ portrayal of Gatsby, finding him ineffectual and bland, she noted. Robert Redford also failed to impress and they objected to the style of the ‘70s era film.

“They thought it was too slow and too pastel,” she says. “The long dissolves and long takes frustrated them to no end.”

The Gatsby played by Ladd, one of the most popular actors of the ‘40s, got the best reviews from the class. McGettigan, whose research focuses on American film history, notes that Ladd fought to get Gatsby made despite the objections of the powerful Production Code Administration, which objected to Gatsby’s wealth coming from illegal gambling and bootlegging. Officials forced the studio to portray Gatsby as a hardened gangster to make his fall a cautionary tale.

“They had to make sure the characters were all punished for the things that they had done but it’s very difficult to make an ironic movie out of an ironic novel if you have to add this moral structure,” she says. “The novel had to be adopted in this weird way.”

But McGettigan says Ladd’s gritty take actually made the character more appealing to her students by being so edgy and tough. She also notes that, like Gatsby, Ladd had come from a poor background and made himself into a celebrity.

“Alan Ladd was appropriately cast; he understood the need to please and desire to succeed that Gatsby has—and also that nagging doubt that actors often feel and that Gatsby does too—the fear that he’s not quite up to it, that people will see through him."

Unfortunately, the DiCaprio version was released after the class ended, but she says since it opened, she’s been receiving e-mails from students offering critiques. She says so far, about half approve of DiCaprio’s portrayal, but half think he’s lacking.

“He looks great, but he hasn’t convinced some people that he has the acting skills to bring real depth to the character,” McGettigan says.

She said director Baz Luhrmann’s high-energy style with lots of action and the use of modern songs from Jay Z and Lady Gaga have helped make the film accessible to a new generation.

“It might make younger audiences connect with the story,” she says. “If something is supposed to be universal you should be able to drop it into any timeframe and it should work.”

She said the director’s use of opulent sets enhanced with computer-generated images makes the film feel like an animated fairy tale. She argues that in that context, the characters and Fitzgerald’s eloquent dialogue actually seem more acceptable; realism is no longer important.

“You can have all kinds of excesses in a movie once you’ve said this is just a fairy tale, it bears no resemblance to the real world and that’s the approach this movie sees to take.

“That stylistic choice almost saves the movie in a way,” she adds. “You don’t have to judge it the same way, if it’s like an animated film, then anything can happen.”

Biology's Hartman named new dean

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

TCU named Dr. Philip S. Hartman as dean of the College of Science & Engineering in April. Hartman will begin his role as dean June 1, 2013, having served as the college's interim dean since April 2012.

“Dr. Hartman is an excellent choice,” Nowell Donovan, TCU provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said in a statement. “He has provided TCU with many years of service. I am confident TCU’s College of Science & Engineering program will continue to grow and reach new heights of excellence with Dean Hartman.”

“I am so thrilled to have been chosen for this position,” said Hartman. “My time as interim dean has given me the opportunity to understand the needs of the college and I am excited to have the opportunity now to lead the college in its quest for excellence.”

Hartman earned a bachelor’s degree in bacteriology from Iowa State University in 1975 and a doctoral degree in microbiology from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1979. Hartman became a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellow in 1980 and an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellow in 1981 through a program at the University of Minnesota.

Hartman began his tenure at TCU as an assistant professor of biology in 1981. He was promoted to associate professor in 1987 and professor in 1994. Since 1992 Hartman has chaired the Health Professions Advisory Committee. In addition, he is faculty advisor to TCU’s chapter of Alpha Epsilon Delta, the pre-health professions honor society, and chair of the Pre-Health Professions Program.

Directing a difference

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Caten Hyde and Aaron Pennywell grew up together, playing baseball and going to Boy Scouts in Lafayette, La.

Even after the Pennywell family moved to the Houston suburbs, the two kept in touch. But in the early morning hours of June 25, 2011, Pennywell was on his way home from grabbing a late night burger near his Cypress home when his Mustang was slammed into by a van. The man behind the wheel had a blood alcohol level of .241, three times the legal limit.

Everyone who knew and loved Aaron was devastated. The Pennywell family, parents Dennis and Kae and his brother Jack, didn’t want anyone else to have to go through the pain of losing a loved one because of one bad decision to drink and drive. They began speaking at churches, schools and community events, bringing the crushed remains of Aaron’s Mustang with them as a sober warning.

Then Kae had an idea. If they could make a film, Aaron’s story would reach an even wider audience. She turned to her son’s longtime friend, Caten, who was honing his filmmaking skills at TCU where he is a senior majoring in Film Television and Digital Media.

“She just wanted a way to further tell Aaron’s story in a visual way, to encourage people to plan ahead and not drink and drive,” Hyde says.

He quickly went to work, bringing together family films and photos and adding footage from the police squad car’s camera and audio of the 911 calls from that fateful night.

The result is the documentary "1:36," named after the exact time Pennywell was killed that fateful night.

“With this documentary you really get a chance to know Aaron and really feel his family and friends’ pain after he was killed by a drunken driver,” he says.

The film made its debut March 16 in Pennywell’s hometown with his parents there for the red-carpet event held at Cypress United Methodist Church.

Now Hyde is hitting the film festival circuit, and "1:36" was shown in March as part of the Glen Rose Neo-Relix Film Festival about 45 minutes southwest of Fort Worth. Anmong 30 films at the festival, Caten's won The Rellie for 2013 Texas Film of the Year.

“Aaron's wrecked car will be there at the car show that is held in conjunction with the film festival,” Hyde says. “Aaron's parents and I will be out there all day and have been asked to speak after each screening. The Sommerville County Sheriff's Department will also be giving a presentation before the 1:30 screening, allowing patrons to drive a golf cart on a course with "beer goggles" on to demonstrate the dangers of drinking and driving.”

Hyde’s film will also screen on Monday, April 15, 2013, at 7 p.m. at the Worldfest- Houston International Film Festival as part of the Texas Shorts Showcase.

On the Web:

"1:36" trailer:

Kathryn Hopper's interview with Caten Hyde:

Piano teacher of the year

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Professor of Piano Tamás Ungár is certainly pleased to be named Teacher of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association, but topmost in his mind this spring isn’t that accolade. It’s his students who will be competing in the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which begins in May.

This year, two of his students — one current, one former — are among the 30 finalists for the 2013 quadrennial competition.

Ungár is no stranger to the competition: Over the years, six of his students have made the cut into the top 30 for the Cliburn. Marcin Koziak, a current student of Ungár’s in the competition this year, says he’s impressed by the seemingly endless amount of time Ungár devotes to any student.

“I was preparing for the Cliburn Competition audition and I really needed Professor Ungár’s help,” recalls Koziak. “And the only time we could find was between midnight and 1 a.m. — but he had no trouble doing that. He really sacrifices everything for his students.”

A native Hungarian, Ungár’s route to TCU was circuitous, but in the 35 years he’s been on campus, he’s trained and mentored hundreds of talented pianists with exceptional success, says Gary Ingle, executive director of the Music Teachers National Association.

“Tamás is not only considered a highly rigorous and demanding teacher, but also one of the most warm-hearted and nurturing as well,” he says.

Each year, Ungár takes on just 18 piano students so that he can give them the kind of attention TCU is known for.

“I know there are a lot of teachers who are technically better pianists than I am,” admits Ungár. “But what I bring is such passion for the music, combined with wanting to share as much of my insight as possible into whatever piece of music my students are working on.”

At the heart of Ungár’s pedagogic approach is the elimination of that often intimidating barrier between professor and student.

“I don’t have any wall between me and them,” admits Ungár. “As a teacher, I realize the students are like a sponge that wants everything you can give, and I feel that intense need to help them understand what is behind the notes.”

In his classroom, Ungár makes sure his students grasp the context of the times in which the great pieces of classical music were written. If his students are working on a piece by Tchaikovsky, Ungár will urge his pupils to immerse themselves in works by Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, all describing the social fabric of the epoch in which Tchaikovsky composed.

And Ungár heartily recommends his students visit some of Fort Worth’s prestigious local museums, say, the Kimbell Art Museum, to take in several Impressionist works in order to understand how those paintings influenced Debussy and Ravel.

“Students don’t fully appreciate how important the bridges are between fine arts and classical music of the same period,” says Ungár.

Ungár’s globe-trotting path to the teacher-of-the-year mountain top started with his earliest piano training, at age 5, in his birthplace of Budapest, Hungary. When Ungár and his family fled revolution-torn Hungary for Australia in 1956, he continued his rigorous piano training at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Barely out of his teens, Ungár left Australia for Indiana University where he eventually earned his doctor of music. Several years later, he secured a teaching post at the University of California-San Diego. In 1978, the eminent pianist, Lili Kraus, an artist-in-residence at TCU, happened to hear Ungár perform — and was clearly impressed.

“Lili definitely was key to persuading me to try out TCU,” recalls Ungár. “She approached me 16 years after the first Cliburn Competition, so I was already fascinated about possibly moving to the place so associated with the Cliburn.”

Clearly Kraus’ efforts paid off as Ungár joined TCU’s music department in 1978 and has never left.

Only a few years into his tenure at TCU, Ungár hatched one of his proudest achievements: PianoTexas. First christened the TCU/Cliburn Piano Institute but renamed in 2005, PianoTexas allows young, aspiring pianists the rare opportunity to meet, during the quadrennial Cliburn Competition, various Cliburn jurors, competitors, music managers, and other members of the classical piano community.

“My goal was to utilize the music and manpower of all the people around the competition and expose young artists to that,” says Ungár.

Through the 1980s, Ungár’s festival grew at such a rapid clip that, by 1990, it became its own annual festival, unyoked from the Cliburn. Since then, for three-and-a-half weeks every June PianoTexas all but dominates the musical landscape at TCU.

Some of Ungár’s PianoTexas progeny have gone on to win numerous highly touted competitions, while others teach at colleges and privately. In addition to the Cliburn competitors, this year students Anna Bulkina and Mikhail Bersestnev have been invited to participate in the Queen Elizabeth Competition, Belgium, one of the biggest in Europe.

He says his success today stems from his early mentors.

“I feel that it is in those teachers,” says Ungár, “that form the biggest part of my legacy.”

4 Frogs among Van Cliburn contenders

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Fort Worth will again host the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition this May 24-June 9, but the chance to see some of the world’s best pianists on campus is happening this week.

Leading up the competition, the 14th Van Cliburn holds a series of screening auditions in major musical capitals all over the world, including Moscow, Hong Kong, Milan and New York. Fort Worth is the final stop and spectators can take a seat in Ed Landreth Auditorium each afternoon from 2 to 5:20 p.m. and evening from 7:30 to 10 p.m. for the chance to hear some of the best pianists in the world playing for one of the 30 spots in the official competition.

Each artist performs a 40-minute recital, and there’s always the chance that you might happen to catch one given by the next Van Cliburn gold medalist.

Pianists will be notified in March if they have made the cut to compete for the coveted $175,000 in prizes and awards, and three years of career management valued at over $1.3 million.

Four TCU students are auditioning this week to make the final field. Here is their audition information:

Mikhail Berestnev, an artist diploma student from Russia, on Wednesday, February 20 at 2:00 p.m.
Anna Bulkina ’11, currently a graduate student majoring in piano performance from Russia, on Wednesday, February 20 at 2:50 p.m.
Marcin Koziak, an artist diploma student from Poland, on Thursday, February 21 at 2:50 p.m.
You You Zhang, a graduate student in piano performance who hails form China and the United States, on Friday, February 22 at 8:20 p.m.

Berestnev, Bulkina and Koziak are students of Tamás Ungár, professor of piano, and Zhang is a student of John Owings, professor of piano.

Held every four years and named after native Texan Van Cliburn, the competition is was organized by a group of music teachers and citizens from Fort Worth in 1962 to commemorate his historic achievement and is dedicated to the discovery of the world's finest pianists.

"We are looking for a true artist who can connect with audiences and touch their hearts,” says Cliburn Interim Executive Director Jacques Marquis. “We give the competitors multiple platforms to present us with their artistic personality and communicative power. The winners will be offered an unparalleled opportunity to build a meaningful concert career, and we are honored to be a part of launching them onto the world stage and celebrating classical music."

All performances in the competition will be streamed live in their entirety and available on-demand at Cliburn.org.

VC Larry Lauer announces retirement

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:00:00 GMT

After serving TCU for 46 years, Larry D. Lauer announced that he will retire as Vice Chancellor for Government Affairs on Aug. 31, 2013. On Jan. 1, 2014, Lauer will become Senior Fellow in strategic and international communication at TCU’s John V. Roach Honor’s College and Schieffer School of Journalism.

Lauer spent the last five years in Washington D.C. and in Austin, helping build TCU’s reputation as an industry leader in higher education, but he is best known as TCU’s first Vice Chancellor for Marketing & Communication, a position he held from 2000 to 2009.

“Larry Lauer is an accomplished professional whose work in higher education marketing impacted TCU as well as numerous universities across the country and abroad,” said TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini. “Larry was instrumental in designing the Commission on the Future of TCU, the University’s strategic plan that laid the foundation for our current strategic plan; the development of TCU’s mission statement and the redesign of the University’s logo. He also recently established a foothold for TCU in the Washington, D.C. area through a partnership with the Schieffer School of Journalism and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”

With the publication of two bestselling professional books on “integrated marketing,” he gained the reputation in the U.S. and abroad as a pioneer of “integrated marketing” by bringing a much more sophisticated and integrated approach to advancing institutions. In 1999, he was appointed by then Chancellor Michael Ferrari to direct the Commission on the Future of TCU, an integrated process that engaged community leaders, alumni, trustees, faculty, administrators, and students in imagining what TCU might become in the years ahead.

"Larry Lauer’s imprint on TCU is deep and substantial,” said TCU Chancellor Emeritus Ferrari. “I recognized early on that he had the talent, knowledge and instincts to make a significant impact in the area of integrated marketing and communication. He also had the capacity to contribute more to TCU, so I asked him to serve as the University’s first Vice Chancellor for Marketing & Communication. In that role, he advanced TCU to greater visibility and prominence in higher education, was instrumental in assisting other institutions’ integrated marketing and communication strategies and became internationally respected throughout higher education marketing circles. His extensive years of service have resulted in close connections to faculty, staff, students, alumni and the community. The University community has been deeply blessed to have someone of his caliber in key positions for so long and I wish him all the best as he proceeds to the next chapter of his career.”

Lauer came to TCU in 1966 to teach media studies and soon launched The Media Project to inform the public about the social and psychological impact of the television revolution. He moved into academic administration in 1974 as head of the evening college, summer school and non-credit programs, where he focused on bringing innovation to adult and continuing education. Then, in 1980, he joined the advancement division, where for more than 20 years he led initiatives in public relations, advertising, publications, alumni relations, athletics marketing, crisis communication, Texas legislative relations, and community relations.

John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, who has worked with Lauer on many different projects and initiatives noted that Lauer is among the tops in his field.

“When Larry began working with CASE, he was a one-man revolution,” said Lippincott. He set out to change the way communications and marketing were viewed within the academy and within the advancement profession. As a CASE author, teacher, and trustee, he argued for an integrated approach to marketing and a holistic approach to communications. The ‘Lauer legacy’ is that his one-man revolution is now best practice for tens of thousands of professionals working in schools, colleges, and universities around the world.”

In July 2012, Lauer received a professional lifetime achievement award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the largest international higher education association in the world, and in October the association’s highest teaching award, the Crystal Apple.

“TCU has been a wonderful place to make a career. Its evolution has been simply astounding. I was to fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with incredible colleagues. And I am thrilled that I will still be collaborating with students, teaching seminars, continuing to write, and working on special projects in strategic and International communication, and on the future of higher education,” said Lauer.

Trustee Emeritus Ruth Carter Stevenson dead at 89

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:00:00 GMT

TCU trustee emeritus Ruth Carter Stevenson, a Fort Worth philanthropist and nationally known supporter of museums and the arts, died Sunday, Jan. 6, after a lengthy illness.

She was 89.

TCU lowered the university flag to half staff on Friday, Jan. 11 in her honor.

Daughter of city pioneer Amon G. Carter, Stevenson fulfilled her father's wishes after his death in 1955 and organized a museum of Western American Art started from his own collection. It became known as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The Amon G. Carter Foundation would support it and numerous other Fort Worth institutions in medicine, education, social services and the arts with Stevenson guiding its efforts.

In addition to purchasing land for the museum at its present-day site at the corner of Lancaster Avenue and Camp Bowie Boulevard in Fort Worth, she hand-picked the plans for the building's layout and oversaw the construction until the museum was opened in 1961, according to the Amon Carter Foundation.

Stevenson also was instrumental in the growth and development of the TCU campus, including the funding, design and redesign of the Moudy Building. In the 1980s, she led the university's effort in selecting the facility's original builder Connecticut architectural firm of Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo Associates, which lent the firm's signature "glass clad" design to the complex.

Stevenson and the Carter family also contributed to the $5.6 million expansion effort of the south building in the facility, which houses the College of Communication and Schieffer School of Journalism.

At the February 2010 dedication and ribbon-cutting, Chancellor Victor J. Boschini gave a special thanks to Stevenson, crediting her with making the renovation possible.

“The original building is because of you, the expansion of the building is because of you,” Boschini said then. “You and your family have permitted us to have a wonderful facility that has educated generations of students and will continue to educate generations of students.”

On the Web:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram obituary
TCU360.com obituary

Talking politics

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 06:00:00 GMT

A conversation with Joanne Green, chair of political science and an expert on the role of gender and money in national elections:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which effectively ended limits on corporate campaign spending, this presidential race has brought in more money than ever. Do you think whoever raises the most will win?

The relationship between campaign expenditures and electoral success has generated a good deal of research. While the candidate who spends the most money is more likely to win, the relationship is complex. For example, research shows that a diminishing return exists for campaign expenditures and that money spent by different kinds of candidates (incumbents, challengers and open-seat candidates) and for different types of offices (the House, Senate, state legislature, executive) impacts the vote differently. For example, incumbents often spend money reactively — meaning they spend more money when they face stronger challengers. Therefore, simply spending more money does not necessarily equate to electoral success for challenged incumbents.

Money allows campaigns to ascertain the public’s interests (via public opinion polling and focus group studies) and develop campaign strategies. Key in this dynamic is communicating with the public to deliver the candidate’s message. Communicating with voters is expensive (more so in some areas of the country than in others). Campaign expenditures tend to suffer from diminishing returns as candidates reach saturation levels with regards to delivering their message. There is a significant advantage to better-funded candidates, but greater expenditures do not always equate to greater electoral success.

One last point to keep in mind is that the corporate money is being spent independently — which can complicate the job of the campaign as the independent groups may be sending messages that do not coincide with the message, tone or theme which the campaign would like to convey. Consequently the money can be a mixed blessing for candidates.

The last presidential race brought in a lot of new voters; do you think this election will have a similar turnout?

We have seen a steady increase in turnout rates since the historic low evident in 1996 (in which less than one half of eligible voters participated). Turnout in 2008 was the highest we’ve seen since 1968. Clearly it is too early to see if similar rates will occur this year, but indications are positive for high levels of turnout. Record amounts of money are being spent — at all levels. Elections that are more hotly contested tend to have higher turnout. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of congressional elections are considered competitive this year.

Moreover, negative advertising has been linked to higher levels of voter cynicism and decreased turnout. This year’s ads are highly negative earlier than usual. Also, some are concerned about the voter ID laws currently being challenged in several states, arguing that they will depress turnout. Despite these concerns, I think turnout will be high this year — perhaps not as high as last time, but considerably higher than we saw in 1996 and 2000.

What demographic groups are going to be key in the election?

Clearly the heightened levels of participation among Latino, African-American and young voters garnered significant attention following the 2008 presidential election. Participation among these groups continues to be very important for the Democratic Party. One key demographic is women. While women voters are not monolithic, they are a considerable force as they participate in higher rates than men (66 percent of eligible women voted in 2008 versus 62 percent of men) and outnumber men.

In every presidential election since 1980, between four and seven million more women have voted than men. Some analysts are now considering women the most important demographic group — key to securing the presidential victory for both candidates.

All spooks day extravaganza

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Every head turns toward the back of the chapel as six hooded monks bring a casket down the aisle. Monte Maxwell ’86, in long-tailed tux and red bow-tie, is a much more comfortable corpse this year.

“After I complained last year, a few of the midshipmen fitted my coffin with padding and a pillow,” laughs the director of music and chapel organist at the U.S. Naval Academy. “They even put in a light for me.”

Lights are a signature of Maxwell’s annual Halloween extravaganza, a musical mix that features him (once he exits his casket) at the five-manual, 268-rank Academy organ, playing everything from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to The Addams Family theme song to theBattle Hymn of the Republic for a talented brigade of singing, acting and dancing midshipmen.

Maxwell, who plays at Chapel weddings, memorial services, funerals and both Protestant and Catholic services year-round, instituted the show his first year of employment at the Academy.

“In 1997, there were only about 300 people in the audience. But the following year, 3,000 people showed up. Now, we give two performances to a full house of two thousand each time.” The tickets are sold out weeks in advance to a faithful local community and graduates who fly back each year from all over the world.

Maxwell’s road to the Academy — and the role as a zombie organist — began when he was just a kid. At age 9, he convinced his parents to let him take piano lessons. The first time he heard an organ, in church, he was smitten. Lacking an organ teacher in his hometown of San Angelo, he began to teach himself. He bought and borrowed LPs of organ music, playing them until he “nearly wore the grooves out.” When he felt he was ready, he asked the church organist if he could practice when church wasn’t in session. Not long after, he was playing Bach at services.

Maxwell found both organ teacher and mentor in emeritus professor Emmet Smith ’54 MM, who encouraged him to apply for the Nordan Scholarship. Winning the competition allowed Maxwell to study at TCU tuition-free.

“Emmet was a major catalyst in my career,” says Maxwell. “He introduced his students to the wider world of music, by bringing organists to TCU from all over the globe.”

Smith could also recognize talent, and two weeks before Maxwell graduated, encouraged John Weaver, then head of the organ department at The Curtis Institute, to audition him. After hearing Maxwell play, Weaver invited him to attend the Institute, then later Juilliard. He also recommended him for the Naval Academy post.

Last year Smith, now an emeritus professor, and his wife, Judy Oelfke Smith ’61, took the train from Fort Worth to Maryland to see the All Saint’s Day concert. “Monte played for one hour and fifty minutes, all from memory,” said Emmet Smith. “It was the finest non-Broadway Broadway show I’ve ever seen.”

Judy Smith says the genesis of the Annapolis program was something Emmet arranged when he was chairman of the music department in the mid-1980s and Maxwell was a student. TCU presented the Lon Chaney silent movie Phantom of the Opera Halloween evening, and invited the campus and community in their costumes to Ed Landreth Hall. Student Tom Helms ’82, who was carried onto the stage in a casket, jumped out in tux and cape and sat down at the organ console and began playing the “Bach D Minor,” accompanying the entire movie with improvisations and effects on the organ.

Maxwell was painfully shy as a child, but the organ, he says, demands that you stand up to it. The Halloween show, which features more than 100 midshipmen, professional makeup artists, costumes, lighting, and even a fog machine, is centered by the organ’s magnificent sound. And Maxwell is clearly its master.

His other passion, roller coasters, whisks him out of the driver’s seat. But playing the organ and riding a coaster are really not so far apart as they might seem.

“They are both thrilling experiences,” he says.

When he plays, Maxwell is in complete control. But when he’s riding, “the roller coaster has control of me. There’s a balance there."

On the Web:
http://www.usna.edu/Music/Accessable/halloween.html

Remembering Betsy

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:00:00 GMT

They grew up together. Shared every birthday party. Roomed together at TCU. Pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma. Shannon King Cave ’95 and Betsy Anne Clement were destined to be lifelong best friends. Then freshman year, Betsy’s life ended in an automobile accident on University Drive.

“Betsy lit the room up with her smile and had a laugh that was contagious,” Shannon remembers. “This November, we would have been celebrating our 40th birthdays together.”

To honor that birthday and Betsy’s memory, Shannon will run in the New York City Marathon on November 4. “My husband, Jonah, and I will be running together to raise money for The Betsy Clement Memorial Scholarship at TCU,” she says.

This scholarship benefits students, and it will keep Betsy’s memory alive as long as there is a Texas Christian University. To support Shannon and Jonah’s effort, you can make a gift at crowdrise.com/betsyclementmemorial/fundraiser/shannoncave. You can also send a check made out to Texas Christian University to the Donor Relations Office, TCU Box 297045, Fort Worth, Texas 76129. In the memo line, be sure to write “Betsy Clement Memorial Scholarship.”

The Carter

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:00:00 GMT

If you listen to the few comments the news media coaxes out of Coach Gary Patterson, one refrain keeps rising to the top: TCU and Fort Worth weren’t “together” when he arrived in town in 1997, but they are now.

He’s right, and surely that has the real Amon G. Carter grinning in his grave. Carter, founder and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram —and generally just known as Amon — was arguably the best barker the city and West Texas ever had.

He loved his Frogs and promoted them relentlessly, and though he was chairman of the first fundraising drive for the new stadium back in 1929, his name did not grace the facility until 1951, when it was named in his honor at homecoming. Four years later, he was dead.

To better understand his role in the building of Amon G. Carter Stadium and his promotion of the team, we turned to Flemmons, whose aw-shucks style brought Carter to life in his delightfully readable Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America.

On rivalry with Dallas:

Q: What is the fastest thing on two wheels? A: Amon Carter passing through Dallas on a bicycle. That satirical question was asked as the bitterest Amon v. Dallas confrontation was stalemated. It was a vicious little sniping war waged over the post-season bowl decision of TCU’s Fightin’ Horned Frogs — the 1938 national collegiate football champions, undefeated and untied and hardly tested, and completely under the influence of Amon Carter, who at last had a proper weapon with which to bloody Dallas. Page 212

On winning:

Always busy, Amon only had time for winners. Before the Cats reached for their first Texas League pennant, he was a lukewarm baseball patron. TCU had been playing football for decades, but until it was taken into the Southwest Conference and began winning consistently, Amon was uninterested. When the Frogs neared the winner’s circle, however, they became, as Fort Worth and West Texas, his.

He participated in every pep rally. Once, before a big game with Southern Methodist University, the Dallas school and traditional rival of TCU, Amon taunted students and team members. “Give ’em hell, but do it in a good Christian spirit.” A school official later spoke and said his definition of Christian spirit probably did not “jibe with Mr. Carter’s.”

Instantly, Amon interrupted and defined his conception of Christian football: “Knock ’em down. Pick ’em up, dust ’em off and ask ’em how they feel. If they can answer, knock ’em down again.” Page 212

On Carter giving money and gifts to TCU players [prior to NCAA rules disallowing the practice]:

As TCU’s locker room and pep rally activist, Amon expounded on his theory that losing a football game was detrimental to the future of Fort Worth. To help the Frogs understand the seriousness of their role, he resorted to bribes. In 1931, Texas A&M had a standout team. TCU merely was adequate. Neither school could score in the first two quarters and at halftime Carter charged into the locker room.

“Men!” he shouted. “If you win, I’ll give $1,000 to the athletic fund. If you tie, I’ll give $500!”

He sweetened the deal: “ . . . and I’ll give every player a watch!”

Encouraged by Amon’s intense and passionate speech, and perhaps some bit of youthful avarice, TCU knocked off the Aggies 6-0, and each man received his watch. Wee Horned Frogs substituted for numbers around the dials.

On support for the Frogs and a new stadium:

Shepherding his team to victory after victory, Amon guarded against the players’ complacency with lectures stressing the Frogs’ vulnerability. “You guys don’t want to be like Lot’s wife, so proud of your past you’ve got no future,” was one rebuke. He even ordered the Star-Telegram’ssports department to write stories “playing up” the Frogs’ opponents.

He gave the TCU teams expensive Shady Oak hats and threw banquets for them. When TCU won its first Southwest Conference football championship in 1929, the hero was a sophomore fullback, Harlos Green, who kicked an extra point to tie SMU, giving the Frogs a clear conference title. Amon collected Green’s magic shoe and had it bronzed and mounted. [ This shoe is now in the Amon Carter Jr. Suite on the Founders' Level.]

With the impetus of a conference championship, Amon was able to sell the community on supporting construction of a new football stadium seating 40,000 fans. The publisher personally sold $500,000 worth of onds, and the concrete arena was named — no surprise here — Amon Carter Stadium. Page 213

On Amon’s football spirit:

Amon, said Nenetta, “went crazy” when TCU was winning. He strutted and yelled, whooped and stomped his purple and white Justin handmade boots with Horned Frog designs cut into the heels. And he would lead the band through rousing numbers, sometimes even the “Amon Carter March,” written specially for him by director Don Gillis. TCU’s band played swing music in the mid-1930s, and Amon’s baton led it across the nation. He hauled the band on train trips and, at each destination city, Amon’s influential friends provided motorcycle escorts and sirening fire engines as the whole entourage marched to its hotel, band out front, led by the strutting, big-hatted cowboy. Page 213

On washtub full of money bet on TCU in San Francisco:

In San Francisco to play Santa Clara University, the team and band and Amon marched down Market Street to the Mark Hopkins Hotel where Amon was guest of honor at a welcoming banquet. He joshed, joked, and bragged of his TCU Frogs’ great football ability until the audience began yelling for him to put his money where his mouth was. Grinning slyly, he commanded the hotel staff to bring out a “number two washtub, right out front here, and you fill it up. I’ll cover anything you bet.” The huge tube overflowed with money — tens of thousands of dollars, estimated witnesses — and Amon guaranteed every bet. He won it all on TCU’s victory. Page 214

On TCU vs. Fordham:

When TCU played Fordham in New York, Damon Runyon trailed the Texans from the train depot to city hall for an Amon-staged pep rally, then on to the polo grounds. Runyon wrote that Carter “went in for the yip-yip-yippy businesses . . . especially in the early stages when Texas Christian whipped a score over on Fordham faster than you could say Wojciechowicz. Between the football halves, Mr. Carter, in person, led the band in a parade around the field and upwards of 25,000 inmates . . . cheered the imposing figure. The field was muddy. Mr. Carter’s high heels sank to his fetlocks in the ooze of every step.”

TCU lost, 7-6, and Runyon recorded Amon’s reaction when a woman fan asked for an autograph. She inquired, “Well, how did you like it?”

“I didn’t like it, Ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t cry about it. It was a wonderful game.”

“I’m not crying, Ma’am. And it was a wonderful game. But you asked me how I liked it and I tell you I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it. In West Texas, Ma’am, truth always comes first.” Page 214

On the TCU band:

That evening Amon appeared on Robert Ripley’s national radio program extolling TCU’s swing band. “Well, Bob” explained Amon, “Believe It or Not, we’ve got the biggest horns of any college in the country and how we can blow them.”

The bass horns were Amon’s idea. He wrote TCU’s president, Dr. E.M. Waits, “On the subject of the band, I would like to see about 75 pieces for next season, supplemented by a couple more bass horns. With all the brass SMU has, we are certainly not going to let them get away with six bass horns to our four.”

Dallas again. Always Dallas. Amon led the TCU band one year in a pre-Cotton Bowl game parade, and the marshal placed SMU’s band out front. Amon, furious, threatened to take his TCU band home. “Fort Worth never gets behind Dallas,” he shouted. The Marshal explained that the bands were arranged in alphabetical order, and Amon relented. P. 214-215

On the Cotton Bowl 1938:

From the mid-1930s, TCU dominated the conference and became an innovating force in American football. Coached by Leo “Dutch” Meyer and starring, first, the inimitable Sammy Baugh, then the micro-quarterback Davey O’Brien, the Horned Frogs became an aerial show. They threw footballs as no team ever before, and Meyer declared in a Saturday Evening Post article, “The Southwest is just now being recognized, footballically speaking . . . “

In 1938, TCU was undefeated and Dallas promoters of the three-year-old Cotton Bowl were joyous, confident that the Frogs would play there New Year’s Day. They would have the nation’s number-one bowl game. Well before the season’s conclusion, Cotton Bowl supporters were visiting TCU, offering, rumor had it, fistfuls of money and other enticements, including a new automobile for Coach Meyer.

Politely, the Frogs refused all offers. Tempers began rising in Dallas.

Amon was busy. With two games remaining, TCU’s name popped into national sports columns urging that it be selected as visiting team in the Rose Bowl against the University of Southern California, the probable host school. Runyon wrote, “We have half a notion to write those Rose Bowl people . . . and tell them that if they want the greatest show they have ever seen in all their born days they are suckers if they do not invite Senor Amon Carter, the Hidalgo of West Texas, and the Texas Christian University football team to play on New Year’s Day.”

Backstage, Amon spent $740 Star-Telegram dollars for more than 100 telephone calls to California, eliciting private support for TCU’s Rose Bowl invitation. He contacted every sports writer and publisher in the state. At the behest of C.R. Smith, American Airlines executives called on Norman Chandler of the Los Angeles Times. Amon enlisted W.R. Hearst who sent down an order to Frank Barham, publisher or the Los Angeles Herald Express, to “help get TCU in the Rose Bowl.” Carter wired California Governor Frank Marrian and the USC president, signing, without authorization, the name of Governor W. Lee O’Daniel.

In the beginning, Amon’s letters to newspapers promised “3 or 4 thousand” Texas fans for the Rose Bowl, brought there on Star-Telegram chartered trains. At the end he was estimating “25,000 TCU supporters.”

“Frankly, we can’t blame the Trojans for preferring as soft a spot as possible,” he twitted, daring USC to take on the Horned Frogs.

At selection time neared, Amon grew fidgety. Walter Winchell revealed on his Sunday-evening radio program that Duke University would be invited to the Rose Bowl and TCU would play in the Cotton Bowl. Amon angrily telephoned Winchell on the air. After a commercial break, Winchell, subdued and chagrined by Amon’s mad spell, admitted to his audience that “nothing is for sure yet for the Rose Bowl.”

The Rose Bowl selection committee, under siege by Amon’s sales blitz, delayed its announcement one day, but in the end named twice-beaten Duke as USC’s opponent. Amon had failed.

Enraged, he telephoned columnist Bill Corum, who was drinking at Toots Shor’s in New York. Corum, who said Amon “had on his six-gun voice,” recorded the publisher’s tirade: “It’s a shame!!! It’s a shame!!! Let me tell you it’s a downright outrage, a reflection on the fair name of Texas and an insult to the greatest football team that ever walked in cleats. Our boys will play any two teams in the country on the same afternoon.”

Dallasites chortled, and prepared to receive the Horned Frogs on New Year’s Day. Suddenly, TCU announced it had accepted a bid to play Carnegie Tech in the Sugar Bowl. Dallas exploded, and pointed its trembling civil finger at the one man it held responsible for the defection.

“The boys just wanted to take a little train ride,” alibied Amon.

What followed was the most vitriolic get-Amon crusade in the long Dallas/Fort Worth feud. The theme seemed to be that stealing a business was one thing, but robbing the Cotton Bowl, messing with football, was high treason, a heinous crime, and committed not just on Dallas but against all of Texas.

“The news that Brutus had stabbed Caesar couldn’t have been more unbelievable,” gasped columnist Eddie Barr. Amon “manipulated the Frogs out of town” and was a “small town poo-bah,” Barr raged. Letters to the editor called for a boycott of Fort Worth, its citizens, its products, and especially Amon Carter, who responded caustically: “Sour grapes just naturally grow in the shade of sour dispositions.”

Amon was the “publicity-mad Fort Worth publisher,” said the Dispatch-Journal, most vituperative of the Dallas newspapers. It printed a cartoon captioned, “The Bowl Weevil,” which depicted Amon’s head on a football body. The vicious insect gnawed on a stalk of cotton. Sports columnists mused that Amon “With money for everything else” should build a stadium of his own and call it “The Stockyards Bowl.”

The Dispatch-Journal published a one-page editorial explaining Amon’s great sin: “The spleen against Dallas which Amon Carter has cultivated in his overwhelming devotion to Fort Worth sometimes blinds him to common sense and the opportunity to do something beneficial for the state . . .[this] narrow small-town conduct will live long in the memory of Dallas, we fear.” 215-217

On Davey O’Brien and 1938 Heisman Trophy:

Amid all this vociferous babble, Davey O’Brien won the Heisman Trophy, annually given by the Downtown Athletic Club of New York. Earlier he had been named recipient of the Washington Touchdown Club Trophy and Philadelphia’s Maxwell Trophy – all symbolic of the greatest football player in America. O’Brien, the Frogs’ minute quarterback, was 145 pounds and five feet and a couple of handshakes high, as Amon described him. He was a “pony-built, piano-legged boy” who threw nineteen touchdown passes and led TCU to its undefeated season and ranking s America’s number-one team.

O’Brien and Dutch Meyer were in Amon’s office when word came via Associated Press that the little quarterback had won the 1938 Heisman. Immediately, Amon telephoned the Downtown Athletic Club president in New York. O’Brien and Meyer could hear only Amon’s side of the conversation: “Liston, this is Amon Carter down in Fort Worth. We’re bringing our boy, Davey O’Brien, up to get your award. What kind of thing is this? Is it a little affair? We’re not coming if it’s something small . . .[pause] . . .Get Jack Garner. Will LaGuardia be there? . . . [ pause] OK. I’ll call him, too. What kind of entertainment you having? . . . [pause] That’s no good. I’ll get Paul Whiteman.”

Amon hung up, called Whiteman and received the bandleader’s acceptance, then placed a call to the White House and left word for FDR. Having fully arranged the Downtown Athletic Club’s award program, Amon turned his attention to getting there. He chartered an American Airlines plane for the quarterback, O’Brien’s mother and uncle, TCU coaches, the team’s captains – Ki Aldrich and I.B.Hale – and Texas Lieutenant Governor Walter Woodul.

The plane swooped off to New York and landed at Floyd Bennett Field, where thirty men on horseback (Staten Island Sheriff’s Guard members, reported Corum) and a Knickerbocker stagecoach drawn by six white horses were awaiting the Texas group. Amon placed Woodul and Meyer inside the coach. On top, he sat O’Brien beside him, picked up the reins, called to his white steeds, and away they went.

Thousands of usually blasé New Yorkers gawked that day at the sight of cowboys and a stagecoach in lower Manhattan. Amon drove straight down Wall Street, waving his hat, shouting, “Hooray for Fort Worth and West Texas,” saluting friends along the way. O’Brien sat beside the exuberant Amon, embarrassed.

The convoy halted at city hall, where Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia presented keys to the city to every Texan and posed for photographers with O’Brien and Amon. Then Amon drove the coach on to “21” restaurant, where he hosted a luncheon.

Back in Dallas/Fort Worth, the tirade against Amon slowly abated. Texas Tech played against, and lost to, the Galopping Gaels of St. Mary’s University in the Cotton Bowl while TCU beat Carnegie Tech 15-7 in the Sugar Bowl. Eleven hundred fans filled three Star-Telegram trains to New Orleans, and the Amon-led Texans paraded on Bourbon Street, danced barefoot in Jackson Square, drank Ramos gin fizzes in the Roosevelt Bar, ate at Antoine’s and had themselves a high old time in the Crescent City, courtesy of Amon G. Carter, who hated Dallas and loved to lead a band.

Years later, City Editor John Ellis sat in the Worth Hotel coffee shop, adjacent to the Star-Telegram, awaiting breakfast. Outside, a Shrine Circus parade passed on Seventh Street. There were marching clowns and elephants, roaring motorcycle teams, high-stepping majorettes, and loud bands.

The waitress served Ellis his eggs. She heard the noise and wondered aloud, “What’s that?”

Without looking up, Ellis muttered, “Just Amon comin’ to work.” Pages 217-219

On fundraising for Amon G. Carter Stadium:

Another convenient cache of money belonged to old Pappy Waggoner, a multimillionaire with penurious ways with a dollar. Once Waggoner had his shoes polished and handed the shine man a two-bit tip. The man complained, “But your boys usually tip five dollars.”

“They got a rich daddy, and I ain’t,” snapped Pappy.

When Amon was raising funds to construct TCU’s new football stadium, a finance committee member approached Pappy and secured a thousand-dollar pledge. Proudly, the man bragged to Amon of the contribution. Amon snorted and said, “I’ll show you how to raise money.”

He telephoned Pappy: “I’m putting you down for $50,000. That’ll buy a whole section. Your ranch brand is 3-D. I’ll have a 3-D put into the concrete in your section.”

A Star-Telegram photographer was once assigned to take Waggoner’s picture and the rancher/oilman held up a silver dollar.

“Here, take a picture of this,” commanded Pappy. “It’s one dollar Amon Carter didn’t get.” Page 292

On Carter’s honorary doctorate from TCU:

[During one of Amon’s reminscences]: He spoke of his honorary doctorate from Texas Tech — the first given by that high plains university — and of another from TCU, and most proudly of having his name on a school — “It’s sorta nice to have your name on a high school when you never had the opportunity to go through one.” P. 310-311

A country music success

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:00:00 GMT

With those front-loaded initials for his name, JT Hodges ’00 just sounds like a country music artist.

For the record, the Fort Worth-born and raised Hodges’ full name is Justin Taylor Hodges. Twelve years after graduating from TCU, he is starting to leave a serious imprint on the hyper-competitive country music scene.

Only a year ago, his first important single, Hunt You Down, began ascending the Billboard Top 40 charts, and it led Hodges to being one of eight semifinalists nominated for the Academy of Country Music’s New Artist of the Year.

Bonafide country super-star Toby Keith was so impressed with Hodges that he enlisted him for his Locked and Loaded tour and then, in a career two-fer, signed Hodges to Keith’s Show Dog-Universal Music label.

With the ink barely dry on that deal, Hodges finished 10 new songs, eight of which he wrote himself, for his major label (Show Dog-Universal Music) debut CD — released on August 21.

“I’m pretty proud of this one,” says Hodges of the self-titled CD, recorded in Nashville, his home for the past three years. “It’s a big-frame album with lots of observational songs about the trials of love gained and lost.”

For anyone familiar with Hodges’ background —his father started, in the late 1970s, Buffalo Sound Studios, Fort Worth’s first multi-track recording facility — the rising singer-songwriter clearly didn’t have to wander far to get the first musical inspiration to launch his career.

“Growing up, my Dad would always play music at home and let me know that it was always going to be about listening to a great song,” recalls Hodges, who started out noodling on piano before taking up the guitar in earnest during his high school senior year.

What appeals to Hodges the most, and clearly what he tries to emulate in other artists, is a gut-level honesty about how he delivers a song.

“If any artist offers a real and emotional interpretation to a song, then I become a really big fan,” says Hodges.

When asked, Hodges gladly volunteers that his vocal idol is Don Henley of the Eagles, and he has always admired the vigorous strumming style of Richie Havens and Dave Matthews.

Already an accomplished road warrior, Hodges regularly finds himself in a different concert venue three or four nights a week. A typical week might have him doing a weekend show with Miranda Lambert in Boston before flying across country to San Diego to perform a sold-out radio show.

Hodges’ frenetic schedule is bound to slow down a tad as he and his wife, Kasey Hodges, are expecting their second child, a girl, in October.

Despite all of his recent success, Hodges is the first to adopt a very level-headed approach to his career, while avoiding getting too far ahead, or full, of himself.

“There is so much more for me to get better at in music,” admits Hodges. “I’ve fallen on my face plenty of times and thank God I’ve gotten better. I just love the process of writing songs, doing what I do. That’s why I will always take it one day at a time.”

VC emeritus Newcomer dead at 100

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Dr. James William Newcomer, vice chancellor emeritus for Academic Affairs, who served the TCU administration for parts of three decades has died. He was 100.

TCU will lower the university flag to half-staff on Tuesday in his memory.

Newcomer taught Horned Frog students and guided the university's academic efforts from 1965 to 1982, serving as the director of TCU Press and holding the Trustees Chair of English, in addition to his duties as vice chancellor. He retired from TCU in 1987 as vice chancellor emeritus.

Newcomer was instrumental in establishing a TCU chapter of national honor society Phi Beta Kappa in 1971, just the fourth chapter in Texas at the time. He also is widely recognized for attracting the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition to the university and Fort Worth in 1965. A year later, Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus was invited to judge the competition. Soon after, Newcomer asked her to become artist-in-residence at TCU. She accepted, bringing national acclaim to the School of Music.

Through more than 20 years of friendship, Newcomer kept a journal from which he fashioned a memoir - Lili Kraus and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, published in 1997. Writing was a lifelong hobby of Newcomer, who wrote and published many volumes of poetry, essays and short stories as well as books on noted Irish novelists of the 18th century.

A first lieutenant in the U.S. Army in World War II, Newcomer treked through the battles of Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe. He participated in the liberation of Luxembourg and became a lifelong scholar of the history of that country, resulting in the first complete history of the country to be written in English, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: The Evolution of Nationhood for which he was awarded the Commander of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

He and late wife Ruth traveled extensively in Ireland, England and Luxembourg, spending months studying and researching for his writings. He was a member of Christ's College Cambridge.

Born March 14, 1912, in Gibsonburg, Ohio, Newcomer was the son of Rolland Truben Newcomer and Vera Mabel Ervin Newcomer. He graduated from Gibsonburg High School in 1928, where he was the quarterback of the football team and a cheerleader. He received a Ph.B. degree in English in 1933 from Kenyon College, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa, of which he was an active member for 79 years. Later, he received a M.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Iowa.

Early in his career, he was assistant head master at Elgin Academy in Wheaton, Ill., where he met and later married Beulah Ruth Salisbury. Before arriving at TCU, Newcomer was dean of Hockaday Junior College in Dallas and head of the English Department (1946-51), dean of the College at Olivet College in Olivet, Mich. (1952-60) and dean of faculty and gradute school dean at Texas Woman's University in Denton (1960-64).

He enjoyed music from a young age and began playing violin, often accompanying the TCU Symphony Orchestra. In high school and college, he also played the saxophone and played in dance bands.

At the party on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Mayor Betsy Price read a city proclamation.

Banding Frogs together

Mon, 14 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

It started with a wild goose chase.

Entrepreneurial Management major Andrew Kline '12 had been looking online for a TCU-centric silicone wristband for himself and maybe to give away as a gift, but he couldn't find any anywhere.

He asked friends, classmates, friends of friends and strangers, and they all agreed on two things: No one had seen any either, and if Kline found some, would he let them know where to get them.

"I was just trying to solve a problem. But I discovered a need that wasn't being met," Kline said.

Suddenly, he had a business opportunity. He tracked down a manufacturer, which could mass-produce the bands for 42 cents each. So with a $252 investment, Kline bought 600 bands on the spot and started FROGbands in April 2011.

They sell for $2 and come in three varieties: a regular purple one with TCU HORNED FROGS, which is the biggest seller; a two-toned version inscribed BLACK AND PURPLE with a horned frog icon; and a "sassy" model proclaiming TCU GIRLS ARE HOT!

A year later, Kline has nearly sold out his initial supply, peddling them around campus in his backpack and online through eBay. He's got a Facebook page and spends a few bucks a day marketing the bands with online ads. He's also roamed parking lots during football games to find customers while they're tailgating.

Kline graduated last week and said that his side business is an example of his degree working in real life.

"I'm already doing what I'm supposed to be doing — finding a need and meeting it," he said.

Kline already has lined up a new U.S. manufacturer to make them cheaper and do away with the plastic packaging. He also plans for new varieties. He also has a poll on his page to get customer feedback.

The entrepreneurial spirit is not new to Kline, either. As a youngster, he ran a small business buying, breeding, and selling guinea pigs, hamsters and puppies. He also watched his mother Kathy start a year-round, highly personalized swim school swim school in 1995 called AquaKids, where Kline began working at age 15. He saw the vision for the project and realized that there will always be a need for swim lessons as long as there is water in the hot Texas summers. So he set out to begin a career with the company.?"I was interested in a way to make money after school, and my mom said, 'That's fine, but you'll have to start at the bottom.' "??Kline pulled lifeguard duty for a while, but he eventually worked up to the company's receptionist and then manager of its Keller location. Today, he helps perform all of the functions of the company, including teaching lessons, receptionist work, new receptionist training, manager-on-duty (Deck Managing), website development and all of the marketing for the company.

AquaKids currently has 70 employees, who work with up to 3,400 in the peak summer season. While selling the FROGbands, Kline is eyeing expansion for AquaKids around a number of locations in North Texas. Eventually, he'd like to see locations in the Houston, Austin, and San Antonio areas.

"It's a lifestyle business, but I'm interested in pursuing it."

On the Web:
To purchase FROGbands, contact Andrew Kline at Andrew@AquaKids.com.
FROGbands on Facebook and eBay
AquaKids.com

CASE award winner

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Larry D. Lauer, TCU's vice chancellor for government affairs, received the Frank L. Ashmore Award for Service to CASE and the Advancement Profession this week during the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement in Washington, D.C., a conference that he pioneered. The annual award honors individuals and organizations for extraordinary service to education and the field of educational advancement.

Lauer, who is also a distinguished professor of strategic communication at TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC., is a recognized expert in educational advancement and a trailblazer in integrated marketing in higher education. He serves as strategic marketing advisor to the American Council on Education (ACE).

Lauer also has served as a faculty member at numerous CASE conferences, a trustee on the CASE board and a member of the CASE Commission on Communications and Marketing. He has been a mentor to many in the profession and brought his principles and practices of integrated marketing to institutions around the world.

Lauer speaks at national and international conferences, counsels with associations, and has worked with more than 40 campuses on integrated marketing and strategic communication initiatives in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile, Columbia, South Africa, the Caribbean, United Kingdom, Poland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Singapore. His international experience includes serving seven years on the board of INPUT, an international public television producers’ association.

He is the author of four books: Learning to Love the Politics: How to Develop Institutional Support for Advancement (CASE Books, 2010); Communication Power (Jones & Bartlett, 1997); Competing for Students, Money and Reputation: Marketing the Academy in the 21st Century (CASE Books, 2002), which has become a CASE bestseller; and Advancing Higher Education in Uncertain Times (CASE Books, 2006), a CASE Books bestseller.

Lauer has also written more than 30 journal articles and book chapters on institutional marketing and communications. He edited the first-ever section on marketing in the third edition of the CASE Handbook of Institutional Advancement, where he is referred to as “pioneer of integrated marketing for our profession.”

He is the only person ever to receive CASE’s Alice L. Beeman Award for Research in Communication twice, first in 2003 at the International Assembly and again in 2007 at the Annual Summit for Advancement Leaders.

He also received the ICUT President’s Award in 2003 from Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas. It is presented for distinguished service to the organization and to the 32 independent colleges and universities in Texas. In addition, he received the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from CASE District IV.

Lauer was founding chair of the redesigned international CASE assembly in 2006, now named the Summit for Advancement Leaders, which annually examines the impact of the dramatic changes in higher education on the advancement professions. He was also the founding chairman of CASE Advanced Seminar on Integrated Marketing in Higher Education, and served on the advisory board of the American Council on Education’s (ACE) Solutions for America project.

He has been a faculty member and past chair of the CASE Summer Institutes on Communications and Marketing at Duke and Vanderbilt universities. From 1999 to 2009, he served as TCU’s first vice chancellor for marketing and communication and was executive director of its strategic planning initiative, The Commission on the Future of TCU.

In 2009, he became TCU’s first vice chancellor for government affairs.