Portrait Of Reveille I Found

By Sue Owen '94 

A valuable painting of Reveille I, missing for almost 25 years, was returned to Texas A&M after a former Corps commandant picked up the “cold case” in October and online appeals elicited key information. A&M unveiled the painting Wednesday at the Sanders Corps Center, where it will be displayed.

University police Lt. Allan Baron said the center was contacted with details that helped officers locate the person in possession of the painting, which had been in storage in San Antonio. That person brought it to UPD on Dec. 30, 2014, saying that during renovations to the Military Sciences building around 1989, he had found the painting next to a trash receptacle and thought it was being discarded, Baron said. 

The portrait of A&M’s first mascot was painted in 1943, when Reveille was in failing health (she died soon after and was given a military funeral at Kyle Field). Students and faculty collected money and commissioned the painting from Marie Haines, a nationally-known artist living in College Station.

Among guests at the unveiling was Homer S. “Daniel” Boone ’46, a member of the committee that raised $100 to have Reveille commissioned a “general” in a war fundraising drive and enough extra -- another $100 -- to have her portrait painted. Boone said Wednesday that Reveille “had made a place for herself on campus, and people were willing to give.”

He said, “She was just Texas A&M.”

Col. James R. Woodall ’50 said the painting’s value has been estimated at $20,000 to $50,000 if it were sold at auction, but he has a personal attachment to it: “It hung in my office when I was commandant.” 

Woodall checked in with officials on the investigation’s status, and retired A&M archivist David Chapman ’67 submitted an article on the painting’s history and disappearance, including a proviso that “no questions will be asked,” to The Association of Former Students, which published versions of it online in November and December. “That was what broke the case,” Woodall said.

Read Chapman’s story about the painting here: tx.ag/8pKH1sy. The Association had previously run a story on it in 1999.