I am including a link to a photo gallery of UTEP homecoming parade photos. There are lots of unidentified photos in the gallery. If you recognize the photos please let me know.
October 23, 1983
59 men, 1 woman in 1916
By Rick Cantu
Times staff writer
Ruth Brown McCluney recalls being surrounded by young men when she entered the State School of Mines in 1916.
After all, she was the first woman – ever – to register at the school, now called the University of Texas El Paso.
McCluney, now 83, was invited by UTEP President Haskell Monroe to join homecoming ceremonies this weekend. She was the guest of honor at a banquet honoring the university’s golden graduates Saturday at the Student Union.
When speaking of her years at the mining school, McCluney said most people have one question on their minds: What was it like going to school with 59 men?
“I never really thought about it in that fashion,” she said. “I had known a lot of the boys from high school for from Asbury Methodist Church, so it wasn’t as if I was a stranger.”
Later, she said with a laugh, “Nothing ever happened with those boys because they were busy getting their mining degrees.”
Another girl, Grace Odell, enrolled at the school with McCluney but she left after one semester and no information could be found on her whereabouts.
McCluney said she transferred to the University of Kansas in 1920 to earn her chemistry degree.
McCluney, 16 at the time, entered the mining school because she was too young to leave El Paso. Her father had read in the local newspaper that the school was allowing women to enroll for the first time.
“My father wanted me to stay in town and I guess I wanted to stay here, too,” she said. “I understood that there were two years of instruction available to me in my field and that I would leave after that.”
She said expansion of the school over the past 67 years has been “amazing.” She recalled there were only four buildings when she attended the school.
“The thing that amazes me now is how today’s students need to use their cars to drive one block from the dorms to get to their classrooms,” she said.
McCluney, who has lived in Fort Wroth the past 42 years, taught high school chemistry after she graduated from Kansas. She and her husband, Eugene, soon will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary.
Eugene was unable to attend the banquet because of an illness. But McCluney’s sister and brother-in-law, Gladys and Jack Carnes, sat with her at the guest-of-honor table.
About 70 people attended the banquet, including 17 graduates of the class of 1933.
The gallery photo that shows the "One Price Optical" sign advertising glasses for $12.90 has to be from the early '60s at the latest. A pair of glasses today costs at least 20-times that.
Posted by: A Hillbilly | October 12, 2008 at 07:05 PM