I found another box of clippings from my McMurry days. As I said earlier, Pat made a big difference in our show. He could play the piano, flute and drums. Our show now consisted of some satire, parodies, and jokes. Pat was the fall guy and Jerrel and I just had to react to him and play the straight men. It was really fun. Jerrel could play the guitar and the clarinet. I played the bass guitar, occasionally the piano, and sometimes the trombone. We had fun switching instruments. However, it was the vocals that carried us. We could sing!
A story that I like to tell is the one about our "Blanket Excuse" from missing classes at McMurry. Dr. Bennett ordered the dean of the faculty (Dr. Howard Ramsey) to make sure that we were not penalized for missing class since we were promoting the college and we often returned to Abilene very late on Sunday nights and often had shows during the week. However, I took one class (History and Principles of PE) taught by Pete Shotwell. He was a very well respected football coach in the State of Texas. His teams had won several state titles and he served as athletic director at McMurry. He also had the largest football stadium in Abilene named after him. Well. I often missed his class. I turned in all the required papers, passed all the quizzes, but when the final grades came out, he gave me an "F". Needless to say, I was upset, I thought the dean would "make it right", but I was wrong. In this case, Pete Shotwell was more powerful than the president or the dean of the faculty. I had to retake the whole course the next semester!
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