ANRS & Rodeo Exes Association Information About Sul Ross

The 34th Annual Reunion will be held THIS WEEKEND July 23-25, 2010.

Below find some information about Sul Ross that we have gleaned from other sources. If there is any additional information that you would like for us to gather and place here - Let Us Know!

About Sul Ross State University
About Lawrence Sullivan Ross
The Birth of the NIRA

Information about Sul Ross State University

SUL ROSS STATE UNIVERSITY. Sul Ross State University, in Alpine in Brewster County, was authorized by act of the Thirty-fifth Legislature in 1917 as a state college to train teachers and was named for Lawrence Sullivan Ross, governor of Texas from 1887 to 1891 and president of Texas A&M from 1891 to 1898. The institution was a successor to Alpine Summer Normal School, which had since 1910 brought students to the pleasant Alpine climate each summer to study for teachers' certificates. With no other normal school in the broad region between the Austin-San Antonio area and El Paso, students and teachers in the Alpine Summer Normal School, the Alpine Commercial Club, and local citizens from communities scattered across the region petitioned the legislature for the establishment of a permanent state school in Alpine. The bill founding the institution required that the residents of the town provide land, water, and utilities for the college and housing for the students. This condition was met, and following a delay because of World War I, in 1919 the legislature appropriated $200,000 for buildings and equipment. Construction proceeded, and under the presidency of Thomas J. Fletcher, Sul Ross State Normal College began operations in the present Administration Building on June 14, 1920. Seventy-seven students enrolled in the summer of 1920, representing thirty-one communities, extending from Floresville and Carrizo Springs on the southeast to Ysleta and El Paso on the west. They studied education and liberal arts subjects leading to teachers' certificates and junior college diplomas. In 1923 the legislature changed the name of the institution to Sul Ross State Teachers College, and advanced courses leading to baccalaureate degrees were added. The first bachelor's degree was awarded in the summer of 1925. In 1930 coursework at the graduate level was initiated, and the first master's degrees were awarded in 1933. By 1985 10,925 bachelor's degrees and 4,862 master's degrees had been conferred.

Under the leadership of President Horace W. Morelock from 1923 to 1945 the curriculum was expanded, additional academic buildings and dormitories were constructed, the college was admitted into membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and enrollment increased to 500 students. A decline in enrollment during World War II threatened the continued operation of the college but was offset by the establishment of a successful United States Navy pilot training program and a Woman's Army Corps Training School on campus, programs that brought more than 1,500 military trainees and officers to Sul Ross.

Following the war the return of veterans increased the annual enrollments and prompted the expansion of the curriculum. Richard M. Hawkins became president in 1945. The college was reorganized into divisions of fine arts, language arts, science, social science, teacher education, and vocations. Athletic teams in football and intercollegiate rodeo brought home conference and national championships. In recognition of the broadened mission of the institution to prepare students for a variety of careers and occupations, the name was changed in 1949 to Sul Ross State College. The enrollment grew to more than 1,000 in 1960 and to over 2,000 in 1970. During the presidencies of Bryan Wildenthal and Norman L. McNeil, between 1952 and 1974, the academic programs continued to be strengthened; new fine arts, physical education, science, and range animal science buildings and a new library were constructed; and several new degree programs were begun. In 1969 the legislature again changed the name of the institution, this time signifying full state university status by the name-Sul Ross State University. In the 1970s enrollments declined because of the opening of several new colleges in West Texas. The general education requirements were revised, and new degree programs were added in criminal justice, business administration, and geology. Sul Ross also established Rio Grande College on the campuses of Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, Del Rio, and Eagle Pass to provide upper-level and graduate work in teacher education and business administration. In 2001 academic programs at Sul Ross were divided into the schools of agriculture and natural resource sciences, arts and sciences, and professional studies.

Early in its history Sul Ross State University became the cultural and educational center of the mountainous, remote Big Bend region. The institution developed an importance in relation to its environment unique among institutions of higher education in Texas. It became a pioneer in promoting international goodwill by sponsoring fifteen annual educational tours to Chihuahua, Mexico, during the 1920s and 1930s, and it continued in the 1980s to participate in joint endeavors with the University of Chihuahua. The state-supported Museum of the Big Bend in the Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library was organized to provide a permanent depository and research facility for regional manuscript collections. The university promotes scientific research in biology, geology, and range animal science, with particular emphasis on Chihuahuan Desert studies, and is involved in cooperative projects with the private, nonprofit Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute, which is headquartered on campus. Through the university's Center for Big Bend Studies, research and educational activities are conducted in the historical, cultural, and economic development of the Trans-Pecos and adjacent areas in Mexico and New Mexico. A conference called Acculturation in the Rio Grande Borderlands: The Spanish Era, 1492-1821, was held in October 1990 by the center in conjunction with the Columbian Quincentenary. The outdoor summer theater of the university's Theatre of the Big Bend performs for many visitors each year, and musical productions and athletic events are popular attractions. The university was a founding member of the nonscholarship Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association. It was the birthplace of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, and it has been designated as the home of the NIRA Hall of Fame. All these activities complement the educational programs of the university, which in 2000 included thirty-eight undergraduate and twenty-six graduate degree programs that enrolled 2,010 students.

- Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/kcs21.html (accessed November 18, 2009).

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Information about Lawrence Sullivan Ross

Lawrence Sullivan (Sul) Ross (1838–1898), soldier, statesman, and university president, second son and fourth child of Catherine (Fulkerson) and Shapley Prince Ross, was born at Bentonsport, Iowa Territory, on September 27, 1838. His parents had moved from Missouri to Iowa in 1834; the family immigrated to Texas in 1839 and settled initially in Milam County, where young Sul had his first encounter with hostile Indians, then for a period at Austin, where the older children attended school, and finally in 1849 at Waco, where Shapley Ross became a pioneer settler, entrepreneur, and landowner. Sul's love for action and horses involved him in his first Indian fight while he was still a boy. Although his early ambition was to be an Indian fighter like his father, he recognized the value of education and enrolled at Baylor University in Independence, Texas, and then at the Wesleyan University in Florence, Alabama, where he obtained his A.B. degree in 1859. He apparently trained for no profession but desired instead a military career in state service. His opportunity came the summer of his junior year; while at home on vacation, the youth signed on with the United States Army as leader of a band of Indian auxiliaries from the Brazos Indian Reservation, which was then located in Young County. During the ensuing campaign against the Comanches in Indian Territory in September and October of 1858, Ross won the praise of regular army officers for his skill and courage, but nearly lost his life from a serious wound received in a battle at the Wichita Village near the site of present-day Rush Springs, Oklahoma. He recovered enough to return to college and graduated the next summer. About this same time he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Back in Texas, Ross joined the Texas Rangers and took part in the unsuccessful campaign of Middleton Tate Johnson against hostile tribes in the spring and summer of 1860, initially as a first lieutenant and later as captain of the Waco Company. Despite the general public contempt for the results of the Johnson expedition, Ross won the approval and trust of Governor Sam Houston, who empowered him to raise a company of his own for service in the area of Young and surrounding counties. In his defense of the frontier, Ross had the cooperation of regular troops, and his aggressive boldness in pursuing a Comanche raiding party in December 1860 resulted in the battle at the Pease River in which Cynthia Ann Parker was recovered, an exploit that gained him much popularity in Texas. With the coming of the Civil War he resigned from the rangers. He subsequently joined the Masonic order. He married Elizabeth Dorothy Tinsley, daughter of a Waco planter, on May 28, 1861. After acting as state peace commissioner to various Indian tribes, he enlisted in mid–1861 in the Confederate Army as a member of the Waco company raised by his older brother, Peter F. Ross, which was incorporated into the Sixth Texas Cavalry. First as major and then as colonel of his regiment, Ross took part in numerous western campaigns, including those of Pea Ridge, Corinth, and Vicksburg. He was promoted to brigadier general in early 1864 and commanded the Texas Cavalry Brigade (see ROSS'S BRIGADE, C.S.A.), made up of his former regiment, the Third Texas Cavalry, the Ninth Texas Cavalry, and the Twenty-seventh Texas Cavalry or First Texas Legion, for the remainder of the war. Under his able leadership, his brigade saw action in the Atlanta and Franklin-Nashville campaigns, although Ross was in Texas on furlough when his men surrendered at Jackson, Mississippi, in May 1865.

The wartime period undermined Ross's health, and he spent the eight years of Reconstruction farming near Waco with his wife and growing family. Eventually nine children were born to the Rosses, although only six lived to maturity. In 1873 the citizens of McLennan County elected Ross sheriff. In his two years in office he ended a reign of terror and helped form the Sheriffs' Association of Texas. He urged needed reforms and helped write the document that governs Texas today, the Constitution of 1876. Service as a constitutional delegate gave him experience in public office and a reputation for honesty and ability. During the next four years Ross did not seek political office on his own, despite the willingness of his comrades to support him in a bid for the office of governor on the Democratic ticket. He did agree, however, to become a compromise candidate for the state Senate from the Twenty-second District in the election of 1880. As senator, Ross made a record of solid achievement, but a reapportionment bill reduced his four-year term and he declined to run for reelection. Nevertheless, from the Senate it was an easy step to the governorship; by 1886 Ross's friends and supporters had persuaded him to enter politics on the state level, and he won easily on his first attempt. During his two terms (he was reelected in 1888 and served until 1891) the new Capitol was completed, the state attained new heights of industrial, agricultural, and commercial growth, and state eleemosynary and educational institutions flourished. Even more important, Ross's time in office was later considered one of exceptional good will and harmony. When he left the statehouse, he stepped immediately into the presidency of the seriously troubled Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University), a position in which he rendered his greatest public services. Under his presidency the number of students grew, many new buildings were built, and public faith in the institution returned. In 1893 he was elected commander of the Texas Division of the United Confederate Veterans, and two years later he turned down an appointment to the Railroad Commission that would have taken him away from A&M. It was a blow to the university when President Ross died suddenly at his home in College Station on January 3, 1898. As an editorial written after his death stated, "It has been the lot of few men to be of such great service to Texas as Sul Ross." Sul Ross State University, in Alpine, is named in his honor.

- Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/RR/fro81.html (accessed November 18, 2009).

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Birth of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association

On November 6, 1949, Sul Ross College held an invitational rodeo, as was the custom with schools who had enough cowboys to do the work. At this rodeo Hank Finger, a Sul Ross student, asked permission to hold a meeting with the cowboys from the various schools to talk about the need for some sort of organization for college rodeo cowboys.

Representatives from 12 colleges throughout Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado attended, and it was the consensus of the group that they wanted a year long point-award system, standardized rules, leadership and responsibility on the part of its members.

Hank Finger was appointed constitutional committee chairman to draw up some ideas and plans into a votable form and they would meet again in two months in Dallas to discuss the constitution. This historical event became the birth of what today is known as the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.

News spread quickly that the "colleges may organize," and at the meeting in Dallas Carl Garrison, manager of the San Francisco Cow Palace, offered an invitational championship rodeo to start the new year with purpose. The rodeo was held in conjunction with his Grand National Junior Livestock Exposition and was open to any college with enough cowboys to field a six-man team. This was the first N.I.R.A Championship Rodeo and was held in April 1949.

Though everyone thought the more sophisticated west-coast team of Cal Poly was sure to walk away with the finals, it was Sul Ross that took it with an "unknown" cowboy by the name of Harley May. Sul Ross went on to win the National title in 1940, 1950 and 1951. They are still a force to be reckoned with and have won a total of eight national titles, placed in the top 10 at the College National Finals Rodeo 33 times and has had six all-around cowboys and cowgirls.

- from http://www.sulross.edu/pages/3245.asp (accessed January 29, 2010)

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