| Page I: LMC Mural Introduction | Page 2: Campus Panoramas | Page 3: Central Panels | Page 4: Portraits | Page 5: Lower Panels, etc. |
Isaac Alexander, 1873- 1890: Alexander was named the first president of the school which bore his name in 1873 at it's chartering as a Methodist school in Kilgore. He had taught at the institution in New Danville since the 1850's. Alexander remained president of the institution until 1890. When Alexander Institute was moved to Jacksonville in 1894 Alexander accepted an appointment as the pastor at the First Methodist Church in Jacksonville. He also served as the chaplain for the college. He remained an actve supporter of the school until his death in 1919. Alexander's association with this school, while not as exclusive as that of Cecil Peeples, was, at over 60 years, the longest of any president.
G. J. Nunn, 1890- 1896: Nunn kept Alexander Institute afloat in Kilgore and secured the first Jacksonville campus in 1894. His task, following a widely known and respected educator as the president of the school named after him, was a difficult one. He did it well.
E. R. Williams, 1896-1904: Williams set a tone of high academic standards for the school now named Alexander Collegiate Institute. This made for difficulty in getting and keeping students even as it made for a glowing academic reputation.
W. K. Strother, 1904-1909 / 1915-1918: Strother established the second Jacksonville campus and was the person most responsible for the building of the Twin Towers. He would also be the only president to serve two terms.
F. E. Butler, 1909-1911: A stern disciplinarian, Butler established a drill corps for extra-curricular activities. In retirement he became popular with the students and was named the school's poet laureate.
J. M. Barcus, 1911-1912: Barcus's effect on A.C.I. belies the brevity of his tenure. He began to move the school from academy status to junior college status. Over the course of the next decade Alexander would be transformed from a school teaching primarily high school aged students to one teaching primarily college aged students. Barcus left Alexander to become president of Southwestern University in Georgetown, where he remained for many years.
M. L. Lefler, 1912-1914: Continuing the transformation to junior college status, Lefler established extracurricular team sports and began the publishing of school yearbooks. He coached the sports teams as well as carrying a heavy teaching load.
J. B. Turrentine, 1914-1915: Turrentine is shown immediately to the right of Lefler and does not carry a lamp. He served less than a calendar year and did that primarily for one purpose; to build a dormitory to replace the women's dorm which had burned in 1914.
R. G. Boger, 1918-1923: Boger is shown accepting the lamp from Lefler because it seemed redundant to show W. K. Strother twice. Boger is the youngest person to have served as President of the school, having become president at 26 year of age. He had originally served as coach for the athletic teams. Boger did a remarkably good job. He secured federal aid in the form of cadet corps during W.W.I.(see Lc9a, note the uniformed cadets standing with Boger in the Mural) Boger also established the school's first student theater group, the Curtain Club. The home now used as the alumni center for Lon Morris was given to the school by Boger upon his resignation.
G. F. Winfield, 1923-1928: Had the Great Depression not happened we might think of this man in the same terms we now associate with Cecil Peeples. George Winfield was brought to Alexander by M. L. Lefler, who by 1923 was serving the school as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. He was regarded at that time as the nation's leading authority on the junior college and could well be said to be one of the inventors of that type of school. He secured two major bequests which would have a lasting impact on the college. The first was the gift by Reuben Alonzo "Lon" Morris of his entire estate while he was still alive. The second was a bequest placed in the will of Jennie Tapp of New Boston which would eventually result in the school receiving some $50,000. In addition to these accomplishments Winfield utilized the School's golden anniversary as a Methodist institution to gather more than 7000 former students for celebrations and establish the school's first alumni association. He also traveled widely within the Texas Conference of the Methodist church familiarizing the people of the conference with the school they owned and that had supplied those churches with more than half of their preachers for over thirty years. Winfield is shown with Lon Morris passing the torch out of the Alexander side of the Mural and into the Lon Morris side.
Right Side
E. M. Stanton,
1928-1932: Stanton had been with the school, most
recently as Dean of the college, since 1922. During his tenure Lon Morris
was accepted into Phi Theta Kappa, the first Texas school to be accepted
into this national junior college honor society. Enrollment peaked at 400
in 1931, a level it would not see again until 1965. Despite the strength
of his leadership, however, Stanton could not overcome the crushing burden
of the Great Depression. Frustrated, he resigned in 1932.
H. T. Morgan, 1932-1935: Morgan made no bold new moves and was no more able to solve the problems presented by the Depression than his predecessor, but he maintained the high standards of the school and managed to keep his faculty fed.
C. E. Peeples, 1935-1973: Faulk Landrum would, in later years, josh that "...Cecil Peeples was possibly the worst college closer in history!" There really is no evidence Peeples was sent to Lon Morris charged with the task of closing the school, but it would be difficult to argue anyone expected better. They received better, much better than anyone could have hoped for.
Cecil Peeples saved Lon Morris from extinction by continuing Winfield's policy of stumping through the Texas Conference of the Methodist Church, by befriending the Jacksonville community, especially those in the community who were the school's creditors, by carefully husbanding every resource the school had, and by paying something, even if it was only a pittance on every bill. He had a keen sense of what business people respected and he set out to "...put the school on a sound business basis, so that it would command the respect of businessmen." In so doing he built a solid core of business leaders within the Board of Trustees who began to provide leadership in the practical matters of running a facility and keeping it in efficient working order. When general prosperity allowed these trustees were able to rebuild the college plant virtually out of their own pockets. ("The Builders", a group of trustees shown around Peeles holding tools, represents four of these men, Farnsworth, Paul Pewitt, T. E. Acker, and Eddie Scurlock). Peeples was also able to get extraordinary contributions from members of the faculty, as can be attested to by the Naval Aviation School opened by coach W. L. "Windmill" Phillips, shown with some of his cadets in the background. This school was the salvation of the college during W.W.II, as it made up for a sizeable loss of funding from enrollment.
Peeples tenure as president was the longest in the school's history. After his retirement he remained active as President Emeritus, raising endowment funds to ensure the health of the school he had brought back from the brink of death.
J. E. Fellers, 1973-1976: John Fellers had been the well respected, successful pastor of several large Texas Conference churches, none of which prepared him for the reality of being the president of a tiny church-affiliated junior college. What looked easy in the hands of Dr. Peeples for 38 years stubbornly remained as difficult as it had been for Morgan, Lefler, and Butler early in the century.
W. Faulk Landrum, 1976-1992: The first Lon Morris graduate to serve as president of the institution and the pastor of Jacksonville's First Methodist Church in Feller's final year at Lon Morris, Landrum had a head start in building a relationship with the local community. Like Peeples before him, Landrum made it clear that he was committed to the community. He continued the school's contact with Texas Conference Churches, utilizing a men's quartet (see Rc5a) to make traveling easier. Landrum had worked on the school farm during his years as a student at Lon Morris. This seems to have given him a clearer sense of what this kind of school was about than others raised in normal college culture could muster. An excellent fund-raiser, he left Lon Morris to head the Methodist Foundation of the Texas Conference. His tenure had been the third longest in Lon Morris's history.
Chappell Temple, 1992-1994: A man who, like John Fellers, had been a successful pastor and who held a doctoral degree from Rice University, Chappell Temple improved the technology base of Lon Morris and faced issues raised by federal laws concerning equality of athletic programming for men and women.
Clifford Lee, 1994- Present: The second Lon Morris president to have graduated from the school, Lee has faced issues which look very much like the issues of the 1910's and 20's; relationships with the Conference which owns Lon Morris, husbanding the school's precious resources, and dealing with a larger culture which does not fully understand what is special about a little, church-sponsored junior college.
Continue to page 4.
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