Southwestern University - Souwester Yearbook (Georgetown, TX)

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J. FRANK DOBIE A prolific writer and a great man, J. Frank Dobie (1888- 1964), was editor of the Sou ' wester in 1910, his Senior year. It is to his memory that we dedicate this, the 1985 Sou ' wes- ter, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of that volume.

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ttth tntiatsttt Vol. LXXXII MCMLXXXV Published by SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY GEORGETOWN, TEXAS

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J. Frank Dobie The year was 1906. Compulsory education in Texas was twelve years away and Southwestern operated a fitting school on the old campus. Oil, temperance, and woman ' s sufferage were emerging as topics of debate within the meeting rooms of the Alamo and San Jacinto Literary Societies. Southwestern was the leading Methodist university in the Southwest and Dr. R. S. Hyer, a brilliant experimenter in radio and x-rays was its regent. J. F. Dobie, an eighteen year old from a Live Oak County ranch, enrolled that fall because his parents expected him to get a college education. Frank brought with him the values, attitudes, and perceptions of that rugged ranch environment and he found a cadre of professors that encouraged creative scholarship, broad literary and cultural involvement, and social arrangements reflecting turn of the century Methodist beliefs. By 1907 Frank was recorded as being a Marshall of the Alamo Society. His first published work A Cow Drive appeared that year in the Southwestern University Magazine because his English professor, Albert Shipp Pegues, believed that freshmen should read broadly and sophomores should attempt writing and publishing. While his college career included a broad sampling of social, organizational, and reflective opportunities, he continued to write and contribute to the magazine. In all, he published four western stories and a clutch of critical essays. By 1910, Dobie was editor of Volume VII of the Sou ' wester, an annual launched in 1904 by the Athletic Association of Southwestern University. This volume was to be one of the great editions of this venerable series, as it included humor, dedication, a broad perspective, and a good sampling of Dobie verbiage. From the present vantage point we can believe that his college experience unleashed the Dobie genius for recognizing and expressing pioneer and folk insights. J. Frank Dobie, as an alumnus, is one of the Southwestern University greats and it is right and proper that we call attention to this fact in the 1985 edition of the Sou ' wester. Judson S. Custer • ' - , v t% And u August Amal|a naf6 •-- : „ ' - Association %i Alcoholic Annihilators, whose aim Ws, to destroy as much strong drink as .possible, in response Jo the- Prohibition .Movement.. %?-r ■ •