Oral History Transcript - Lillian Dees - May 6, 2008
Interview with Lillian Dees
Interviewer: Barbara Thibodeaux
Date of Interview: May 6, 2008
Location: Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
_____________________
Interviewee: Lillian Dees – A retired Texas State administrator who continues to teach in the Sociology Department, Mrs. Dees received her bachelor’s degree from SWT in 1982 and her master’s in 1989. She worked in the College News Service for Dr. Bruce Roche during the years leading up to Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.
Topics: Campus visits: James McCrocklin’s inauguration (1964), signing of Higher Education Act (1965), Visit to President McCrocklin’s office and Star office (1966), SWT Homecoming (1970), LBJ visit with economic advisor Walter Heller (1973), national press, Secret Service, LBJ legacy.
THIBODEAUX: This recording is part of the LBJ Centennial Celebration Oral History Project sponsored by Texas State University. Today is May 6, 2008. My name is Barbara Thibodeaux and I am interviewing Lillian Dees at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.
Mrs. Dees, even though you have agreed to the terms and conditions of the release pertaining to this interview in writing, will you also verbally acknowledge your acceptance with a yes or a no?
DEES: Yes.
THIBODEAUX: Thank you, Mrs. Dees.
Let’s first get some background information. When did you begin attending or begin working at Southwest Texas?
DEES: September 15, 1962.
THIBODEAUX: Did you come as a student?
DEES: No, I came as a secretary to the department of journalism and news service.
THIBODEAUX: When did you become a student?
DEES: Oh, many years later. (laughs) After my kids were big enough to get around and help take care of themselves, I guess. I don’t know. I was trying to think. That would’ve been in the ‘70s, sometime in the ‘70s.
THIBODEAUX: How long did you work for the news service?
DEES: Five years.
THIBODEAUX: So you were here while Bruce Roche—
DEES: Bruce Roche was, right.
THIBODEAUX: Did you serve in that same capacity the whole five years?
DEES: Yes. Yes.
THIBODEAUX: Lyndon Johnson made occasional visits on campus formally and informally, so our focus is his campus visits. Can you tell me about when he came for the McCrocklin inauguration? Can you describe the event?
DEES: The main thing I remember about—no, I’m going to confuse that with the Higher Education Act I think.
McCrocklin’s inauguration was May of—
THIBODEAUX: ‘Sixty-four?
DEES: —’64, and the Higher Education Act was signed in November—
THIBODEAUX: Was that ’65?
DEES: —’65. I have them confused because I was pregnant with my daughter when we did one of them, and I think it was the inauguration because I got a lot of ribbing about was I really pregnant or what did I have under the smock kind of thing. And I remember—so it may have been for the McCrocklin thing—I remember the Secret Service and FBI and I don’t know who all, but being on top of the building with guns because it was done—the inauguration and the signing of the Higher Education Act was in what’s now the music building. Then it was the gymnasium, and they were on top of Lueders Hall and the science building with their guns aimed at the gymnasium or what’s now the music building. I remember having to get a pass to get in.
And I was not as impressed at the inauguration with Lyndon Johnson being there as I was getting to meet George Reedy, who was his press secretary, because I got to talk to him and got to visit with him. Of course, Johnson, you just—that was the first encounter, and so it was kind of like being at a distance and, yes, he was here but you didn’t get to get close to him. So I was more excited about meeting George Reedy than I was Lyndon being here. (laughs)
It wasn’t until later that on some of his later visits that we did get closer and did get to—and I think it may have been during one of his just casual visits that he wanted to look at a yearbook, and I had to find the yearbook. And he came and looked at it at my desk, so that was kind of neat. That was the one time I got pretty close to him.
And then years later he came back for a homecoming event, and we set up on the quad in front of Old Main and Lueders Hall—what was Lueders Hall back then. I remember standing at a table and I saw him come through between Lueders and Old Main from the street, and he was looking down the tables and he recognized me. It was clear, I don’t think he remembered my name, but he recognized me and he came over and shook hands.
But I saw him do that a lot when he came back to campus, he would recognize people. And sometimes he remembered their names. He was really good at remembering, and how he did that I don’t know because there would be months and years between visits but he remembered and recognized people, so, yeah, it was kind of an exciting time.
THIBODEAUX: What about the national press? Were you involved in clearing—
DEES: Oh, yes. Yeah. (laughs) I remember we wanted to get something for a souvenir for the press to take back. We made a packet for them. And the only thing we could afford—because back then we didn’t have a whole lot of money to do that kind of thing—I went to Aquarena and conned people at Aquarena to sell us at a cheap rate a little ashtray that had Aquarena and San Marcos in it to put in their packets for souvenirs. (laughs) So we got them something to put San Marcos on the map.
THIBODEAUX: So did you have much interaction with some of the national press?
DEES: Just to give them their packets, to check them in, and to get them—if they had questions about needing directions or that kind of thing, but I don’t remember any real—anything of substance between them.
THIBODEAUX: Were there many questions about the campus?
DEES: It was directional questions, how to get from one place to another or something, but that was it.
THIBODEAUX: They just weren’t interested in our history?
DEES: No. (laughs)
Now, they may have asked Bruce or someone else, but my role was more of being a help—help them get what they needed to get their job done, so that was how they looked at me.
THIBODEAUX: Was that one of your roles in the inauguration?
DEES: Yes. Yeah.
THIBODEAUX: And then again at the Higher Education Act?
DEES: Right.
THIBODEAUX: Going back to the inauguration, was there—this is the speech where he introduced the Gary Job Corps Center idea.
DEES: Um hmm.
THIBODEAUX: Was there any advance notice of that speech or if that was going to happen?
DEES: I don’t remember there being. And I probably would’ve seen it or heard about it, but because we were so small, it was just Bruce and I and one other person for part of that. And then Pat [Murdock] was there for part of it too. Pat and I overlapped. When I first went into the journalism, she was not there. She was off teaching somewhere—or, no, maybe she was there the first year and then she left and then she was gone a couple of years and then she came back. So there was a time period, and I’m not really sure. I don’t remember exactly, but Pat may have seen something, but I never saw any advance notice. I don’t think we knew. The president might have, but I don’t think we knew. I don’t think we were privileged to that.
THIBODEAUX: So no one knew that he was going to announce the Gary Job Corps Center?
DEES: Not to my knowledge.
THIBODEAUX: It turned out to be a big surprise.
DEES: Yes. Yes.
THIBODEAUX: Going on to the Higher Education Act, can you describe that event, what you remember?
DEES: All I remember is it started raining and we had to scramble to move—we were supposed to be on the mall in front of Old Main, and it started raining and so we had to move everything to the gym to handle that. So it was chaos as my memory of that time period pretty much, and a lot of it is a blur because of having to change what we were doing and move everything.
THIBODEAUX: So how did you manage moving the national press over?
DEES: I’m not real—to be honest I don’t remember how we did some of that. I’m sure we just gave directions of where they were to go and what they were to do, but I don’t remember. To me the worst was having to move the tables and do all of that, and Bruce probably was handling—more closely attuned to the press than we were because we were taking care of some of the other logistics of furniture and tables and chairs and getting somebody to do that and help move. We had—everybody pitched in—we had the registrar, Al Brieger, who was registrar at the time, pitched in and helped. There were lots of people who just saw what had to be done, and we just got it done. I think Bruce ended up being the one that handled moving the press and getting them down to the gym.
THIBODEAUX: Do you remember if that caused a problem for the Secret Service?
DEES: I’m sure it did, but I don’t think we were aware of what the details of that was. They kind of just go with the flow and handled things, so there wasn’t a whole lot of notice either for us to make the move. So I’m sure they weren’t real thrilled either about that.
THIBODEAUX: Was it a large audience from San Marcos?
DEES: Yeah, I think so, and if I remember correctly, I think there were some schools who brought children from the public schools in the area. I know the gymnasium was full. There was a good crowd there, and a lot of people came for both the inauguration and the Higher Education Act. It was probably the fullest the gym had ever been. (laughs)
THIBODEAUX: Well, you mentioned some other times that he was on campus that you saw him.
DEES: Um hmm.
THIBODEAUX: And one was the informal—I think he had come after a funeral when you were talking about—
DEES: Something, yeah.
THIBODEAUX: —and had just asked to just spend some time with Mr. McCrocklin and some of the other campus leaders.
DEES: Yeah.
THIBODEAUX: Are there any other times that you remember he was on campus?
DEES: No. Those two times, the homecoming and the yearbook incident were the only other two. I think he was on campus some other times, but I don’t remember. I don’t know that I was aware of that.
I left journalism in ’67, and it was after that—it was after ’67 when he came for homecoming because I was not in journalism then, but I was at a table working, I guess, for the dean’s office at the time when I saw him. But I watched him work the crowds, and he knew the students and if he saw one that he remembered, he made a point to go to that person, and you could tell by his facial reactions that he recognized people. And I always was in awe of that because just the time periods between when he would come, you would think he would’ve forgotten that, but he evidently had a fantastic memory for that kind of thing.
THIBODEAUX: So the yearbook, did you show him the yearbook from when he was here?
DEES: Um hmm. Yes. Yeah. That’s what—he wanted to see that.
THIBODEAUX: Was there anything in particular that he was interested in?
DEES: Not that I remember, but my memory is—I just remember him standing in front of my desk. He didn’t sit down. He just stood there and flipped the pages and was looking at the yearbook, so that’s my memory now. He may have said things or been looking for something in particular, but I don’t remember that part of it.
THIBODEAUX: Did he have anyone with him?
DEES: Always the Secret Service, but I don’t remember anybody else. I just fibbed. I do remember when he came back—I don’t remember what year it was—but he met with some students. He wanted to have dialogue and that was—I believe it was the beginnings of the Distinguished Lecture series, when he came and he just sat down in a group of students and—they knew he was coming—and he wanted to visit with students, but just talking with the students. And I think that was the beginning of the LBJ Lecture series he wanted to— [LBJ brought former economic advisor Walter Heller to campus January 16, 1973 as the first participant in what later became the LBJ Distinguished Lecture Series established in 1982.]
THIBODEAUX: When Mr. Hardesty was here? [Interviewer mistakenly referred to the wrong University president. Mr. Hardesty was president 1981-1988.]
DEES: Yes. Yeah.
THIBODEAUX: So that was when you were a student?
DEES: Well, I was also working because I worked and went to school at the same time, so I was both student and employee all the time, so, yeah.
THIBODEAUX: So did you continue working for the news services at that time?
DEES: I worked for journalism and news service from ’62 to ’67, and then I moved over to the dean of liberal arts office, and I stayed there from ’67 until ’80, 1980. And I moved to—or the early ‘80s—the vice president for student affairs office, and I was there until ’84. In January of ’84 I became director of the student center and was there until 2000. Director of student center from ’84 to 2000, and that was my official retirement, June of 2000 when I officially retired but I didn’t go away.
I kept teaching. When I finished my master’s in late ‘80s, the chair of the department called and said, “Would you like to teach a course?” and I said, “Sure, I’d love to,” because I’ve always wanted to teach but I never thought I could do it here because of getting both degrees here. They usually don’t like that. He said, “Well, I have good news and bad news. I can hire you to teach one course, but I can’t pay you,” and I said, “I don’t care. I’ll teach for free.”
So the first semester I taught for free because they had to work out the pay situation because I was employed 100 percent. At that time there was not any mechanism to pay somebody over 100 percent, and so they had to work that out. When they got that worked out, then the next semester I got paid. So I taught a course from 1990 all the way to retirement. When I knew I was going to retire, I asked Dr. Day if I could keep my course, and she said, “Yes.” And then she added another course to it, and she added some other projects to the plate since I wasn’t working full-time, and now I’m up to teaching three classes. So I’m here—I’m still here.
THIBODEAUX: That’s amazing. You and Pat and I think there’s a couple of others I talked to that came and never left, like home here.
DEES: It is.
THIBODEAUX: And that’s one comment that President Johnson made in several of his speeches, that it was always like coming home to be on campus—
DEES: Home. Yeah.
THIBODEAUX: —even though I know it changed tremendously during his lifetime.
DEES: Oh, it has changed a lot. I’m sure in his it was really a lot, but when—the first year I came here we had less than three thousand students enrolled.
THIBODEAUX: Well, this is an opinion question.
DEES: Okay.
THIBODEAUX: In my questions, I ask it of everybody I’ve interviewed. Since you’ve been around San Marcos for a very long time now, what do you think is President Johnson’s greatest legacy in the Central Texas area?
DEES: Probably rural electric because he started the whole thing with Pedernales Electric way back there. So probably that brought to a lot of the rural areas progression that might not have occurred for a long time if it hadn’t been for that.
But I always like to give him credit for putting Texas State—Southwest Texas—I have trouble with Texas State—it’s Southwest Texas to me—he put us on the map. No one probably knew who we were. In fact, I know they didn’t, particularly national press didn’t have a clue who we were until he became president. And then we were suddenly in the limelight, and I think we got a lot of national recognition while he was in the office of president. Then I think we may have lost some of that for a while after he left office and after he died specifically. But I think it really gave us some national recognition that we deserved and wouldn’t have had if it hadn’t been for him. And we’re still the only school in Texas that has graduated a president.
I think all of what he did, his Great Society and all that, I think started here and what he learned here.
THIBODEAUX: Well, thank you. Is there anything else you could think of that we’ve passed over?
DEES: No. Those were just exciting times. I just feel very fortunate to have been here and gotten to live through those and be around for that because that was exciting.
THIBODEAUX: Thank you, Mrs. Dees.
DEES: Oh, you’re welcome.
(End of interview)