The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 49, July 1945 - April, 1946 Page: 35
717 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Lester Gladstone Bugbee
and soon began to whittle down the deficit. On our first Thanks-
giving we served as the piece de resistance steaks from a huge
deer weighing nearly two hundred pounds. We bought a large
icebox in which we hung whole quarters of the best obtainable
beef (bought for three and four cents a pound). We tried to
serve all food piping hot. We won our accolade of popular
approval when the entire football squad moved to B Hall for
their meals. A special student committee inspected the rooms
each month, not for the purpose of finding fault but of picking
out for a prize the best ordered room. I recall that Robert
Richey, now of San Antonio, won the first award.
Successive Hall committees kept up the standards of the first.
B Hall did not grow sissy, but it did win the respect of thought-
ful people. Before the end of three years the deficit was
completely wiped out, and the doors of B Hall were kept open
to a fairly well satisfied clientage.
Meanwhile Bugbee and I, in adjoining rooms, held many con-
ferences. Our job was not an easy one. Unexpected problems
came up almost daily. But not once did we seek help from
President Prather or Professor Houston, though we often called
a meeting of the Hall committee of students and asked their
advice. In looking back I know now that over and over again
Bugbee's sound judgment, his knowledge of human nature,
his patient and persistent insistence that young men may be
led but not driven, saved the B Hall experiment from disaster.
For a period of several years during which his ideas were
followed B Hall became a decent place to live for students who
liked freedom and who had slender purses.
While I did not help much, if any, in the transformation, I
shall always look back on this incident with pleasure. I came
then to know, as I think few others did, something of the
unselfishness and greatness of Lester Gladstone Bugbee. Before
the end of our first year as B Hall supervisors, ill health took
him away from Austin. I never saw him again, though I was
present to witness his body put away in the red clay out of
which grow the post oaks in the Alvarado section of Johnson
County.35
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 49, July 1945 - April, 1946, periodical, 1946; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146056/m1/44/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.