Mississippi State University - Reveille Yearbook (Starkville, MS)

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Brackin Beverly Professor Brackin knows as much about Modern English authors and their books as anybody could unless they lived with them, maybe, and talked with them around the tire and knew the neighbors, and all the children. You might find something he hasn ' t read, but the chances are he can tell you more about it than you can the day after you read it. He knows how to put it out, too. That ' s the main reason his sections fill up so soon. Professor Carpenter is the kind that makes a student glad to work lor him. Somehow, you don ' t feel like he is a professor at all. He is all business, though, and you know something- about drainage and ditching when you get his course off. He knows his course, and you don ' t mind working for a professor like that. Dr. Mitchell is the college surgeon. He knows students so well by now that he can .iust look at a fellow that wants to miss class on account of a headache and tell right away that he is trying to get around a quiz. On account of that the health of the student body is excellent. Fellows go over to the hospital with everything from a toothache to fallen arches, but the minute their eye lights on the six-man size dose of salts, the pain disappears in a cloud of dust making ninety miles an hour. Mrs. Beverly is one of the cashiers in the cafeteria. If anybody was to run a popularity contest around here, all the other contestants would just naturally withdraw the minute they saw her name on the list. She has a pleasant word and a smile for everybody, and it ' s always a pleasure to pass down her side of the line. She ' s always there, too, and you look forward to speaking to her. She sort of reminds you of the folks back home. Professor McKee teaches botany. He knows more about a plant that it does itself. He ' s the kind that makes you want to work for him, too. He knows how to put it out without you needing- five botanical dictionaries and L,uther Burbank as confidential adviser in order to understand what it ' s all about. Most professors sporting a Dr. in front of their names arc not in his class, and we wouldn ' t be at all surprised to see him blossom out with one most any time. Professor Lucas teaches Machine Design, Machine Shop, and Welding. If you have a notion that a welded .ioint won ' t stand up alongside a rivited one, for the love of Mike, don ' t let him read your mind. Never call a lathe job an exercise, either. Anything else would be better. If there ever was anybody that ' knew their stuff, though, Buddy knows his. He can tell you what you want to know without an unnecessary word, too. He is always at work on something for the Military Department when he has no classes, and he is one of the big reasons why A. M. Artillery unit stands at the head of the list in the United States. 25

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Professor Wallace, better known as Graveyard, has the correct idea that Freshmen don ' t know anything about math when they come out of high school, so lie starts them off right in Engineering by giving them something to worry about in the shape of Algebra and Trigonometry. He bears down on Factoring. He likes to see) you know something about functions of an angle, too. A lot of the boys go back to the hardware and grocery business after taking a few of his quizzes, so he is quite a help to the engineering- profession. Professor Gladney, otherwise known as King, heads the Civil Engineering department. If you know Strength you are all right. Otherwise, he would rather see you back at home with the folks. Don ' t ever intimate to him that all Civil Engineers do is survey ground. It might be dangerous, or worse. He goes over to the window occasionally and puts his foot 1 on the radiator. When that happens, sit tight and hold everything, because he is getting ready then to put up some bending moment equations about twenty-seven feet long. Professor Carroll, known here affectionately as Shorty, dispenses Chemistry in hourly doses. He knows Chemistry front, back, and sideways, as well as up and down. He likes Ionic Equilibria pretty well, and also the Atomic Theory, but he is long gone when he reaches the Periodic System. He lectures from the top of a high stool, so as to see everybody — making thirty or forty round trips over to the blackboard per hour, but when he reaches Mendelejeff ' s Law he gets so interested he forgets all about sitting down. Professor Cooper teaches English and likes it, mainly because he gets a lot of laughs out of the dumb things Freshmen say on themes. If all the themes he has waded through were laid margin to margin, nobody would know how far they would reach — but we make a guess at about Flagstaff, Arizona, or maybe Greybull, Wyoming. He likes chess about as well as anything, and he enjoys springing something new on Professor Towles, causing the latter to smoke up a whole can full of Prince Albert trying to figure out what his idea is. Professor Patterson, known by everybody as Prof. Pat, is the head of the Electrical Engineer- ing department. He has taught Electricity so long that he knows what students can understand, and what they can ' t, so he picks Alternating Current apart in little pieces and makes it so clear that you can ' t help knowing something about transformers, and synchronous motors and converters. He makes circle diagrams of Sink motors darn near talk, and that ' s not all. When Dr. Butts talks you can ' t help but listen. He knows Political Science, and he knows how to make it interesting. He walks in class just as the whistle blows and says ' . ' Where were we? Then he gets down to business and you get so interested you forget all about taking any notes. He says they had the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia because Benjamin Franklin, who was pretty old then, could reach up and get his hat when lunch time came and get home and back again without any trouble. It ' s little things like that that make his courses full of life and interest. 24 wmm

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Professor Barnes, better known among the fellows as Theta because he used to be particularly partial to that letter in denoting angles, keeps the engineering Sophomores on the jump writing up physics experiments on sunshiny afternoons and ' way up into the small hours of the morning. He likes radio and photography a whole lot, and whenever he discovers a photograph that is artistic, he feels good all day. He is particularly noted for illustrating the right hand motor rule in electricity, and a lot of acrobats you see on the stage aren ' t in his class until he gets it like he wants it. Major Dusenbury is in charge of the Coast Artillery Cadet Corps. He believes in giving a fellow a job to do, and then letting him go to it on his own hook. He thinks the world of his outfit, and declares with considerable pride that they look better every day. That sort of attitude keeps every- body working hard. He has an open mind, and an ever present willingness to co-operate on every- thing that ' s worth while, and as an all ' round good sport he ' s hard to beat. Professor Stafford, affectionately known as Bo, teaches bugs so effectively that anybody with that subject on his schedule is ready to go to any extreme almost to get him. He can draw a bug on the board that looks so real that you expect it to say, Well, I ' ll be seeing you down at Cousin Will ' s, and then sell out through the window or door, as the case may be. He knows them all by their first names, and by all in this connection, we are speaking of everything that even resembles a bug that anybody ever heard of. Sergeant Nowlin takes care of the clerical end of the Military Department. When he decides to do anything, its already done, brother — that ' s just one of his little eccentricities. He has personal charge of Battery I, and the way he makes the boys put out is something worth seeing. He tells the first platoon that the second platoon says they are a bunch of swabs, and then goes over and tells the second platoon that that ' s what the first platoon thinks about them. Then the boys get red-headed, and decide to show the other platoon a few things about close order drill that they never heard of, and that accounts for a lot of those blue ribbons you see on the standard of his battery. Professor Vestal teaches Geology in a way that makes you like it whether you are interested in it or not, and that ' s going some. He believes in work while you are in his room, but he is one of the fellows on a field trip. There may be some rocks that he can ' t identify, but they haven ' t been gotten up out the earth, yet. We heard that one fellow handed him a piece of a brick to identify once, and the Professor remarked that that was the sort of rock that certain folks ' heads were made out of. The student laughed that one off by bumming a cigarette and smoking it nonchalantly, and in a minute it exploded on him. Well, life is that way around here. You get it going and coming. Professor Garner teaches Economics. He doesn ' t think the free and unlimited coinage of silver is such a swell idea, and if you think differently, don ' t brag about it, because; he is thinking then that your upper story is unfurnished, or worse, although he wouldn ' t tell you that, of course. In Economics a good may not be good at all, it may be distinctly ungood, but all those little things don ' t worry him any. Where the money comes from, and how, and where it goes to; that ' s what he is concerned with. He knows it, and expects you to. You find the latter out on quizzes. He likes people, and is interested in them. That ' s the way everybody ought to be. 26