Monthly Archives: March 2016

50 Years Later, ESPN to Air Texas Western’s Victory over Kentucky

1 Reply

Wednesday night ESPN will air original footage of what may have been the most important game in the history of college basketball.  Although some controversy has arisen about whether ESPN is showing the actual TV footage or re-editing coaches’ film, that pales in comparison to the controversy at the time.   The championship game at Maryland’s Cole Field House between Texas Western (now UTEP) and Kentucky featured an all black line-up against the all white Kentucky team coached by virulent racist Adolph Rupp.  Rupp refused to recruit black players and gloried in his white supremacist rhetoric.  Don Haskins, the TW coach, had no such prejudices.  In fact, after hearing Rupp’s comments, Haskins was determined to play an all black line-up the entire game.  None of the 5 white players on the TW squad saw any minutes on the court in the championship game – the first time that had happened all season.  The game forever exploded the sick myth that black players could not win without the guidance of white players on the floor.  Rupp complained for years that the championship was stolen from him.

Today in Texas History – March 29

Leave a reply

From the Annals of Flood Control – In 1965, the Army Corps of Engineers began the deliberate impoundment at Sam Rayburn Reservoir.   Construction on the reservoir had begun in 1956 at which time the project was known as “McGee Bend Dam and Reservoir”, because of its’ location immediately upstream from McGee Bend on the river.  In September, 1963, the 88th Congress adopted a special resolution changing the name to “Sam Rayburn Dam and Reservoir”, in honor of the recently deceased Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Sam Rayburn, a long-time champion of soil and water conservation.

The dam is an 20,000 foot earth embankment with a concrete power-intake structure and flood-control outlet works located near the right end of the dam. SRR can store up to 4,442,400 acre feet of water encompassing a surface area of 153,800 acres. At top of flood control pool, elevation 173 feet above mean sea level, the reservoir can hold 3,997,600 acre feet of water encompassing a surface area of about 142,700 acres.

Birds Gone Wild

Leave a reply

2016web_email.png

The Great Texas Birding Classic celebrates its 20th version this year.  The event has changed over the years, but it is a great opportunity for the amateur birder to strut his or her stuff.  The Palestine Herald Tribune has the details.  The event is open to anyone and you can sign up here.  The deadline is April 1, so don’t miss out on the worm.

Next month, hundreds of birders will flock to the coast, forests, prairies and mountains of Texas to compete in the nation’s biggest, longest and wildest bird watching tournament. The registration deadline for the 20th annual Great Texas Birding Classic, which runs from April 15 to May 15, is April 1.

Since the Classic started 20 years ago, a lot has changed. The competition has expanded statewide to record participation, and it’s no longer just for experts since new categories appeal to budding naturalists and avid birders alike.

Competitors can choose from more than 40 tournament categories to test their birding skills, participating for as little as half a day or as long as a week in a statewide tourney. Participants form a team and compete in such categories as the Big Sit!, in which birders must remain within a 17-foot-diameter circle to count their birds. Other categories include a sunrise-to-noon event, youth-only tournaments, a human-powered contest and one tournament held entirely within Texas state parks.

Red Supports Guns at the GOP Convention

Leave a reply

An individual or group going by the name of Hyperationalist has launched an on-line petition drive calling for the open carry of guns at the GOP National Convention in Cleveland.  The Quicken Loans Arena does not allow guns, and the weapons enthusiasts are up in arms (pun intended) over the GOP choosing such a site for its convention.  You can read the petition here and decide for yourself.  Red supports the drive to turn the Quicken Loans Arena into the nation’s must be ready to fire zone.  After all, what could possibly go wrong when well-armed Trump and Cruz supporters meet on the convention floor.

In fact, Red wants to take this one step further.  Red has never been one to bring a knife to a gun fight, so Red is considering a competing petition which would require every last GOP delegate to be openly sporting a loaded weapon that is at least .22 caliber and preferably in the thirties.  No gun – no admittance – and no vote.

Today in Texas History – March28

Leave a reply

From the Annals of the Irregulars –  In 1864, William C. Quantrill was captured by Confederate forces after reporting to Bonham.  Quantrill was already notorious at the time for his raid on Lawrence, Kansas in which men and boys were indiscriminately killed and other atrocities, but Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith found Quantrill to be useful to the Confederacy’s goal of instilling fear and terror in the western theatre of the war.  Kirby-Smith order Gen. Henry McCulloch to use Quantrill to help round up the increasingly larger numbers of deserters and draft-dodgers in North Texas. Quantrill’s raiders mostly killed those they found and were pulled from this duty.  Quantrill’s next mission – to track down a band of Comanche raiders – was equally unsuccessful.   Quantrill moved south of the Red River during the winter of 1864, at which time Quantrill’s lieutenant, William (Bloody Bill) Anderson, formed perhaps an even more vicious band.  The two competing renegade groups began raiding Grayson and Fannin Counties and the level of violence became such that regular Confederate forces had to be assigned to protect residents from the activities of the irregular Confederate forces.

General McCulloch finally decided to run Quantrill out of North Texas.  On March 28, 1864, when Quantrill appeared at Bonham as requested, McCulloch had him arrested on the charge of ordering the murder of a Confederate major. Quantrill escaped later that day and returned to his camp near Sherman, pursued by over 300 state and Confederate troops.

Quantrill’s raids in Texas were essentially over and he was supplanted when his gang of bandits elected George Todd, a former lieutenant to Quantrill, as their new leader.  Quantrill and an increasing small band continued raiding.  In Kentucky they were surprised by Union irregulars. Quantrill was shot through the spine, captured and died in a Union prison in Louisville, Kentucky shortly after the end of the war.