RUDDER THE BOOK

I finished reading RUDDER by Thomas Hatfield and posted my comment on Amazon. I was surprised that they posted it because they restrict comments to books that are purchased from Amazon and I bought this book from Glenn Dromgoole in Abilene. I had him sign it because he is mentioned in the book as one of the editors of The Battalion, the student newspaper that Rudder battled with during his entire tenure.

The book is an interesting and detailed look at Earl Rudder's military career, but I was disappointed in the history of his tenure at A&M because no mention was made of Dean Fred J. Benson or of the Aerospace Engineering department, or of Robert Gilruth, who was running NASA during the Apollo program. We worked closely with NASA and Gilruth was often on the campus. He was also often in Washington working with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Dr. Wainerdi is mentioned but he was an assistant dean to Benson who was never mentioned.

It was a great read as I came to the campus the year Rudder was made president and went through all of the history of moving from an all-male military campus to a fully integrated campus with women. My wife, Lou, was one of the first women students and later my daughter was one of the first women to live in a dorm on campus, so I saw the whole thing.

I think the A&M Methodist Church should have been mentioned a little more. He did talk about Rudder growing up in the Methodist church. That is where I met Rudder and where many of his Deans and professors went to church. I taught his children in the first SS class I taught there and then taught the college age SS class for the next 20 years. His successor, Jack Williams was also a member.