75th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION PLANNED FOR YEAR 2000

(KINGSVILLE, November 22, 1996)-- As the year 2000 approaches, Texas A&M University-Kingsville is making plans to commemorate and celebrate an important milestone in its history: 75 years of meeting the higher education needs of South Texas.

A steering committee for planning and developing the 75th anniversary celebration is being formed by President Manuel Ibáñez. "We want to encourage all university alumni, faculty, staff, and students, as well as area citizens, to share their ideas about how to make this historical year outstanding," said Ibáñez. "Such a historical event happens only once and we'd like the year 2000 to be truly memorable for the university."

"A variety of special events is being considered for inclusion in the celebration and will be part of the committee's recommendations," Ibáñez said.

University Archivist Cecilia Aros Hunter and History Professor Dr. Leslie Hunter

are currently collecting memorabilia and accounts of happenings dating from 1925 through the present. Any person with memorabilia or any story to tell can contribute to the collection by sending a letter, briefly describing the historical materials, to: Cecilia Aros Hunter, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Campus Box 216, Kingsville, TX 78363.

A collector's edition book of past moments in the university's history will be published in 2000.

A&M-Kingsville opened in 1925 under the name of South Texas State Teachers College, originating as part of the teacher college movement that swept Texas and the nation in the early 1900s. As the school grew to offer the typical programs of a comprehensive university, its role in educational excellence expanded and with it came a new name, Texas College of Arts and Industries in 1929. It was renamed Texas A&I University in 1967.

In 1993 the institution became Texas A&M University-Kingsville, one of ten universities and eight agencies that comprise one of the largest and most renowned systems of higher education in the nation, The Texas A&M University System.

-TAMUK-
-Mary Daniel