HomeMy WebLinkAboutAggie Annex-1 (3)Agges recall days at Annex
Plaque dedicated to
By KRISTY GII.LENTINE
Eagle StajjWriter
students crowded out of campus dorms
Skip Johnson Jr. was 18 years old.
when he arrived in 1949 at the Texas
Agricultural and Mechanical College..'
Not long out of high school, he said, he
never expected the conditions that
awaited. him.
The temperatures dipped just below
zero that day, but to make it worse, he
learned that he'd be moving not onto
the main campus but into a barracks
.without heat miles away where about.
?00 other men lived.
World War B recently had ended, so
by 1946 enrollment at Texas A&M,was
soaring. Returning veterans, aided by-
the G.I. B9Il; came to the college: to con-
tinue or start their education, but there
was no room. To manage the over-
crowding, the college made use of an
inactive U.S. Air Force base in Bryan..
that's now known as Riverside Cam-
pus.
Over the next four years] about 5,500
men lived, studied, ate; showered and
attended° classes at the Annex; where
the walls were made out of black tar-
paper.
' Ca6re Pao/uaonei w,nis~ewsv.
Ed Rk:hardson,•Rah Newman and 611nn
White look at a diagram of the Annex
Complex ion Saturday aRamoon at ahe
Texas A&M Riverside Campus.
Johnson's old home away from home
was honored Saturday with the dedica-
tion of a plaque as a permanent record
of those experiences: One by one, for-
mer students who graduated more than
five decades ago lined'up;to reminisce
about their lives in the Annex.` Even
though it wasn't the tlrst-year: pollege
experience they dreamed about, , ft
ended up creating memories. and bonds
cherished o this day.
"I came in January, so I only hued [m
the. Annex] for one semester," said
Johnson,: who eventually joined the
National Security Agency and later
retired in College. Station. "But I lived
with aA the freshmen who-had been
there a whole semester before me. They
took good care of me and showed me
the ropes,I was lucky.'`.:
The Annex was built in 1942 and
designed to stand four years. When stu-
dents began' lining there in 1946, the
building already was -in poor shape,
according to Lufkin resident Jack
Irish, who'graduated in 1950.
"We were isolated by ourselves out
here on the Brazos River hottomr
crammed into rooms with 15 to 20 other
guys," Irish said. "It was. de£mitely not.
what we expected."
Bob Conn 'said he arrived at the
Annex one year after Irish and saw the
same conditions: a single mess hall,
remote shared bathroom facilities and
no heating. or air conditioning.
"I was. a typical 17-year-old. coming
out of San Antonio. I had neveYbeen to
the campus of A&M before, so I didn't
See ANNFJC, Page A11