Texas A&M Years Launched Perry — and a Rivalry

Texas Tribune ^ | August 2, 2011 | Chris Hooks with Jay Root

[Cincinatus' Wife]

COLLEGE STATION — When Rick Perry arrived at Texas A&M University in 1968, it was at the end of a summer in which Soviet troops crushed the Prague Spring, protesters at the Democratic National Convention were met by a police riot and the United States reeled from the twin assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

With its conservative culture, military tradition and focus on agriculture, few places in the U.S. might have seemed more insulated from the prevailing currents of the age. But A&M was in the midst of its own political awakening.

Facing falling enrollment, the school had begun admitting women and had made participation in the ROTC-like Corps of Cadets — long mandatory at this military academy — optional. This created a sudden and deep divide on campus between the civilian and military undergraduates. Many corps members shunned civilians (one corps leader even forbade them from speaking to non-corps members), and civilians sought student government posts to encourage the changing climate.

Among these civilian reformers were several future Texas politicians: Garry Mauro, who would go on to serve as land commissioner and was a Democratic nominee for governor; Chet Edwards, who would become a state senator and then a U.S. congressman; and Kent Caperton, a future state senator. They found a like-minded ally in the corps: John Sharp, who would serve in the Texas House and Senate, as a railroad commissioner and as the comptroller of public accounts. But not Rick Perry.

[Liberty Valance]

bttt

[lonestar]

Wonder if Sharp will be heading up Democrats for Perry?