The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 86, July 1982 - April, 1983 Page: 121

Affairs of the Association
L. TUFFLY ELLIS
With the Texana Auction of the Decade held this past November,
the Association successfully completed its efforts to raise $500,000 over
a five-year period to fund projects and to establish an endowment.
Many members and friends of the Association generously contributed
their time and money to assist in obtaining our goals, and to all of you
we express our deepest gratitude. Two members, J. P. Bryan and Rob-
ert A. Nesbitt, deserve special mention. J. P. and Bob headed up the
Fund-Raising Committee, with J. P. serving as chairman; he also was
responsible for assuring the success of the Auction. The Brown Foun-
dation, the Moody Foundation, Houston Endowment, Inc., the Leland
Fikes Foundation, the Texas Educational Association, and J. Conrad
Dunagan contributed over one-half of the total amount raised.
When the campaign began in the fall of i977 the Association's assets
stood at $360,ooo; today they are over $i,ooo,ooo. The income from
the Association's investments is enabling it to increase its range of ac-
tivities, strengthen its staff, and expand its educational and research
programs. We can take pride in our gains, but we have a long way to go
to make this Association the intellectual and educational force that it
should be. To accomplish that goal, the financial base will have to be
enlarged considerably.
Now that the Association has begun work on a completely new, re-
vised edition of the Handbook of Texas-a thirteen-year project-
large annual outlays of money will have to be made for an able staff
sufficient to see the work through. Annual efforts will be made to raise
funds for that purpose. But the Handbook project will act as an enor-
mous stimulant to research and writing in Texas studies and will set
the standard for the next half century.
The Association's educational staff needs to be enlarged. Hundreds
of schools around the state ought to have Junior Historian chapters.
But we have only one full-time staff member engaged in promoting
this area of activity. We ought to have at least four.