Texas A and M University - El Rancho Yearbook (Kingsville, TX)

Page 10 text:

MR. JEFF D. SMITH

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 Hey, fella, your Instructors say you turned In some pretty neat scrapbooks last term, so, we're going to run you for next year's El Rancho editor. What 'cha say, huh? What could anyone say? Anyway, that, literally, was how the 1948 El Rancho got Its editor, and, now, one year later, the completed product Is yours. How successful it Is and how near it comes to represent- ing a year of life at A I, as is its purpose, we, the staff, cannot say. That is for you to decide. We can say only that because of certain events that occurred at very criti- cal times In the book's production, many of the original plans had to be abandoned in order that we could meet our printing deadlines. This left the 1948 El Rancho measuring short of our original conceptions. The net result, then, is now in your hands. It is our wish and desire that whether you are turning the pages in haste, or thumbing through them in future reminiscence, we have preserved for you, at least in part, a record of this year of life at A I. 1948 EL RANCHO

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Although the original intentions of the editors were not to make a personal dedication of this year's EL RANCHO, the passing of Mr. Jeff D. Smith was an event too historically decisive in this year of fife at A l not to be commemorated in this record of the school year. With his passing an era closed—the formative period of A l's tradi- tion of frankness and friendliness. Mr. Smith’s academic integrity and deep concern In the aims, welfare and ultimate achievement of the individual student were the kind of spiritual substance from which the college’s traditional friendly tone and enviable student- faculty relationship have been created. As Professor and Chairman of Foreign Languages, Mr. Smith was a skillful, though exacting, teacher, as chairman of the athletic com- mittee, he worked incessantly for creditable football teams, good spirit and fair play; as fhe unofficial confidant and personal friend of fhe student, he was a democrat and a champion of one s right to the rewards of hard work. As A l moves up the quantitive scale from the small-college to the larger-college class, we shall remember Mr. Smith’s voice of good will, his quick, cordial greetings in the administrative hallways-— and our immeasurable debt to the generous and genteel mode of academic life perpetuated by him. To his memory, then, we dedicate this 1948 El Rancho.