Dr. William C.
Tinus ’28
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Year Awarded: 1970
Chicago, IL
Tinus received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 1928 and an honorary Doctorate of Engineering in 1954. In 1938, he began a 40-year career with Bell Telephone Laboratories. He conducted Bell Labs’ first work on “radio object location” which became the basis for the U.S. Navy’s first shipboard fire control radar equipment.
He is also responsible during World War II for development of many radar systems for aircraft, naval vessels, submarines, and ground forces. Tinus received the Naval Ordinance Development Award.
Col. Edward Vergne
Adams ’29
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Year Awarded: 2015
Col. Edward Vergne Adams, Class of 1929, received a bachelor’s degree in English from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, where he played in the Aggie Band and later returned for a master’s degree. He studied music at the Cincinnati Conservatory and other institutions and was a high school teacher and band director before serving as a U.S. Army chemical warfare officer during World War II. He organized the first bands at Humble, Nederland and Bryan high schools. He also directed bands at Donna and Palestine.
He is recognized by the Texas Bandmasters Association as having had a major impact on the early development of bands in East Texas and is in the Phi Beta Mu band director Hall of Fame. He served as director of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band longer than any other individual for 27 years from 1946 to 1973, pioneering maneuvers other band directors called “impossible.” He is credited with inventing the two-way crisscross at close interval and the minstrel turn (co-invented with Roy Ben Wallace at Palestine).
He grounded thousands of young bandsmen in discipline and dedication and is remembered for his kindness and understanding as well as his precision; he, insisted on a strict military cadence of 120 beats per minute and specified 30 inch strides. He gave the Aggie Band its style and its look such as filling the bugle rank with seniors for an unbroken line of boots and its standard of perfection shown in televised performances that spread its fame nationwide.
His entry in the Corps of Cadets Hall of Honor notes, “Colonel Adams retired in 1973 with 209 consecutive halftime victories.” The band hall was renamed for him. Adams passed away in 1982.
He and wife Ida Belle Higgs Adams had a son, Edward V. Adams Jr. ’61; their grandson is E.V. “Rusty” Adams III ’96.
"E.V. Adams was more than a band director. He was a leader, a role model, and a mentor to generations of Aggies, whose impact extended well beyond our lat Final Review."
- Excerpt from letter from Class of '66 Aggie Bandsmen
J. H.
Galloway ’29
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Year Awarded: 1970
Sour Lake, TX
Galloway received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1929. He joined Humble Oil and Refining Co. in 1930 as a Petroleum Engineer and advanced to Vice President and Director in 1967. Galloway implemented many revolutionary innovations which are common practice in the petroleum industry today.
He has served on the University of Houston College of Business Administration Advisory Committee and the Houston YMCA Board of Directors.
Francis C.
Turner ’29
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Year Awarded: 1969
Dallas, TX
Turner received a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering in 1929. He joined the Bureau of Public Roads in 1929 as a Junior Highway Engineer, rising to Federal Highway Administrator with responsibility for all highway activities in the U.S. Department of Transportation.
He has served throughout the United States, in Canada, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories in connection with the construction of the Alaska Highway, and in the Philippines. Turner is known in the United States and abroad for his many contributions to the advancement of highway and traffic engineering and has participated in a number of international conferences devoted to these pursuits. He has received many notable rewards for his accomplishments, including the Thomas H. MacDonald Memorial Award in 1962 and the George S. Bartlett Award in 1965.
Michel T.
Halbouty ’30
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Year Awarded: 1968
Beaumont, TX
Halbouty received a bachelor’s degree in Geology in 1930 and a master’s degree in Petroleum/Geological Engineering in 1931. Halbouty is a renowned earth scientist and engineer whose career and accomplishments in geology and petroleum engineering have earned him recognition as an outstanding geoscientist.
In addition to endowing student scholarships at Texas A&M, Halbouty received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Dwight Look College of Engineering, served as a Visiting Centennial Professor, was a founding member of the President’s Endowed Scholars Program, and was influential in bringing the George Bush Presidential Library to Texas A&M.
"Michael Halbouty was a great Aggie, a great Texan and a great American who was respected around the world. His contributions to Texas A&M—materially, in active support for a broad range of programs, and helping secure the Bush Library for Texas A&M—are of immeasurable significance and will be remembered for generations to come, as will his contributions to the fields of geology and oil and gas exploration."
- Robert Gates, Past President of Texas A&M University
Dr. Edward F.
Knipling ’30
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Year Awarded: 1962
Port Lavaca, TX
Knipling received bachelor and master’s degrees in Entomology and later a Doctorate degree from Iowa State University. He was instrumental in establishing the USDA Cotton Insects Basic Research Lab at A&M and developed methods of control for typhus disease, malaria, yellow fever, plague, dysentery, and other human diseases during WWII. He also developed a system for eradicating the screw worm which saved the livestock industry millions of dollars and authored 118 scientific papers in the Entomological Field.
Knipling has been awarded the President’s Medal of Merit, Distinguished Service Award, U.S.D.A., and Progressive Farmer Man of the Year in Service to Southern Agriculture.
Dr. William E.
Morgan ’30
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Year Awarded: 1969
Fort Worth, TX
Morgan received a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Administration in 1930 and a master’s degree from the University of California in 1933. Morgan studied at Harvard University under a Rockefeller Fellowship. He received honorary Doctor of Law degrees from University of Peshawar in Pakistan, Texas A&M, University of Denver, and New Mexico State University.
He served as President of Arkansas A&M College from as 1946-1949 and President of Colorado State University from 1949-1969. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Gamma, Western Farm Economics Association, Elks Lodge, and the Rotary Club.
He has served as chairman of Economics Research Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Agriculture, President’s Task Force for study of implications of agricultural advisement on university administrative organization, executive committee of Associated Rocky mountain Universities, and committee on water resources for the Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
"Emerson wrote, `A great institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.’ In my judgement, realizing the great contributions from a fine faculty and a group of able administrators, Colorado State University is the lengthened shadow of one man- William Edgeworth Morgan. May the good Lord bless him forever."
- Dr. Tyrus R. Timm, '34, Former Research Economist and Professor Emeritus
Field
Scovell ’30
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Year Awarded: 1982
Wichita Falls, TX
Scovell studied Liberal Arts while at A&M College of Texas. He spent 20 years in sporting goods sales as store owner and as regional sales director for Rawlings Sporting Goods. He joined Southland Life Insurance Company and later served as Vice President. Throughout his career in the sports and insurance industries, he was a Director of the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, received the Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, and served on the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Committee.
"There’s no bigger Texas Aggie than Field Scovell. Aggie jokes really hurt him. He can get fighting mad!"
- Felix McKnight '32, Editor, Times Herald
Walter C.
McGee, Jr. ’31
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Year Awarded: 1969
Dodd City, TX
McGee studied Civil Engineering while attending A&M College of Texas and later attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard. He served as Chairman of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, the longest and one of the nation’s largest natural gas transmission systems.
He joined the Tennessee Gas Transmission Co. advancing to President in the mid-1950’s. His professional memberships include the Southern Gas Association, the American Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institution, the Independent Natural Gas Association of America, and the Petroleum Club. McGee served The Association of Former Students as Class Agent, and President from 1960-1961.
Frank H.
Newnam, Jr. ’31
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Year Awarded: 1980
Temple, TX
Newnam received a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering in 1931. He worked to establish procedures for designing and testing bridge foundations and large embankments, later turning his attention to military projects. Following WWII he headed Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam, Inc. as Chairman of the Board and Co-owner.
Newnam worked on the design and construction of projects at Texas A&M including the cyclotron building, dormitories, expansion of Kyle Field and on road, street, parking and drainage improvements. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and six other states and served as president of American Society of Civil Engineers and Texas Society of Professional Engineers.