Historic Walker County

❖
Above: An aerial view of Sam
Houston State University, c. 1960.
COURTESY OF THE SAM HOUSTON STATE
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES.
Below: Dan Rather (center, standing),
1953 editor of SHSTC’s student
newspaper The Houstonian.
COURTESY OF THE SAM HOUSTON STATE
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES.
country’s thirty-fifth president, John F. Kennedy
in Dallas, Texas. A 1953-graduate of SHSTC, Dan
Rather broke the story of Kennedy’s assassination.
From editor of his college’s newspaper, The
Houstonian, and reporter for Huntsville’s KSAM
radio station, Rather joined CBS News in 1962 as
chief of the network’s bureau in Dallas. As the
result of his coverage of the assassination, CBS
executives promoted him to positions as White
House correspondent and foreign correspondent
in London. Rather continued to gain notoriety
with his coverage of the civil rights movement
and Vietnam War, and he later became a news
anchor with CBS. 99
By 1966 the United States had deployed more
than 395,000 soldiers to Vietnam. In contrast to
the unified national effort in World War II, Walker
County citizens were now called into service for a
cause that divided the nation. While many college
and university students from other campuses
participated in anti-war demonstrations, students
at Sam Houston State College (the word
“Teachers” was dropped at the end of the 1964-65
academic year) continued along in their
traditional, patriotic style. Although the campus
did recognize the Vietnam War Moratorium day
in 1969, peace activists did not demonstrate or
march. Dozens of students served in the war, and
their classmates, at least, supported them.
The Vietnam War may not have turned
Huntsville’s college students into protesters, but
they did have a voice in other matters. Policies
ranging from desegregation and student’s rights,
to curricula and curfews were covered in an
underground newspaper called the Hyde Park
Corner established in 1967. Short lived as it was,
the paper had an effect. The president of the
college, Dr. Arleigh Templeton, took notice of
student concerns and agreed to a full-scale reevaluation
of the undergraduate program. What
this meant was not immediately clear, but one
thing was for certain. The students, faculty, and
residents of Walker County had changed in the
1960s, and a new era awaited them in the
coming decades. 100
4 6 ✦ H I S T O R I C W A L K E R C O U N T Y