THE CLASS OF '55

by Bill Armstrong

This article appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of New Mexico Resources.
Photography: Courtesy Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives, NMSU Library.
Illustrations by Rex Lacey, as they appeared in The Swastika 55

In 1955, some of the most significant news events of the 20th century were unfolding. The White House announced that U.S. scientists planned to build and launch an earth-circling satellite by 1958 to collect scientific data available to all nations. West Germany established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The new Salk polio vaccine debuted in public schools.

Other noteworthy events colored the times. Film star James Dean, the rebel without a cause, died in a car crash. The city of Los Angeles reported its worst year on record for smog. A Marine Corps captain made television history by correctly answering the $64,000 question on CBS network television. A new amusement park was built in Anaheim, Calif., under the name Disneyland. America was the world's breadbasket, and the drive for greater yields through technology was relentless. But New Mexico was in the midst of a devastating drought that was lasting longer than that of the 1930s.

And in Las Cruces, armed with their degrees and shaped by a time of war and technological advances, the 1955 class of NMSU Aggies headed out to the working world. The 1950s, on campus and off, were cast in a military hue, by hot wars and cold. World War II, the Korean conflict, and the cold war kept the nation in a state of readiness, with reservists, the draft, and a weapons development program that was at home over the mountain from NMSU on the White Sands Proving Ground. New Mexico A & M was home to the G.I. Bill student -- the everyman with a pass to higher education.

Today, those alums still carry vivid memories of their college days. There was no Gerald Thomas Hall, no Knox Hall, or any of the present-day dormitories. Enrollment in the mid-1950s was close to 2,500, compared with more than 15,000 today.

Two words come to mind when Keith Avery thinks about his college days: hard work. Avery is now a famous Western painter and cowboy poet, a career that brought him national fame after getting his degree. NMSU's College of Agriculture and Home Economics recognized Avery's lifetime contributions to agriculture in 1983 by naming him a Distinguished Alumnus.

In 1951, Avery came off the ranch to enroll in what would be today's College of Agriculture and Home Economics to study biology and agricultural education. Avery believes being over 30 helped him understand the seriousness of his education.

"In those days, if a student missed a class three times in one semester, that student was out of the class, so we were careful to be at class on time every time," he says.

Before heading for NMSU, Avery served in the Army during the final days of World War II. He remained stateside during the war, and drew top secret circuit diagrams for classroom instruction on radar systems. After leaving the Army in 1946, Avery met and married his wife, Carol, and took a ranch foreman job in Carrizozo.

Later, while Avery was attending classes at NMSU, Carol worked for the Physical Science Laboratory, tracking missiles fired from White Sands Proving Ground. The Proving Ground was pressed into use directly after World War II, testing German rockets with the help of their German developers. As early as 1946, a spate of NMSU scientists were hard at work on guided missile systems.

Carol came home to married student housing.

"Back then, married housing was basically a tarpapered shack," Avery says. But housing was sufficient for the Averys to start a family, and the pair had two of their three children before Keith's graduation.

Avery's days began earlier than most students'. One of his jobs involved rising before the sun to milk cows at a Mesilla Park dairy. "I would go over to Bob Conley's dairy and milk 128 cows at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. every single day," Avery says. "The best part about that job, in addition to the pay, was a gallon of milk to take home to my family everyday. I got to choose which cow to get the milk from, and we binged on whipped cream."

Avery's skills as a farrier paid off in college. He picked up extra money shoeing horses for the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Posse and the College rodeo team. Avery says his engineering shop teacher did not know how to run a forge or shoe a horse, so he helped teach those skills to his classmates.

Despite his family responsibilities, school work, and earning a living, Avery found time to ride his horse in intercollegiate rodeo events.

Word of Avery's artistic abilities with paint and canvas spread quickly across campus. In his spare time, he painted portraits. Today, he admits subject matter for portraits was not his concern when cash was involved.

"I would have done anything back then for $25," he says with a laugh. He also wasn't shy about using his talents to boost an occasional grade. "I began college at a high school level in biology and chemistry, but I found that by drawing beautiful charts in biology, I could get a quick 'A' in the course."

While Avery's unique talents took him away from the military and back to the ranch, Emilio Zamora's campus experience took him in a decidedly different direction. In 1951, he came from a Lincoln, N.M., farming and ranching family of 10 to a new world at New Mexico A & M to study agricultural education.

"I was lost and lonely when I first came to Las Cruces straight out of high school," Zamora says.

But he spent a year in the freshmen dorm where he made some lifelong friends. Zamora ate his meals in Milton Hall, which then served as the student commons area. "The food was really good," he says. "It was genuine New Mexican food; not just beef, potatoes, and gravy."

A buddy lured Zamora into pledging the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, which turned out to be pivotal. "We studied every Friday night and partied after games on Saturday nights, but we were a dedicated bunch of boys," he says. "We had several scholars in the fraternity, and earned the top grade point average of all fraternities on campus."

His fraternity's reputation for academic excellence prompted Zamora to study harder and adjust his career goals. "For a while, I felt like I 'held anchor' for a lot of the guys in my fraternity, but the pressure to excel eventually improved my grades."

The son of a World War I veteran and brother of a World War II South Pacific vet, Zamora developed an interest in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) on campus. Several military science courses and rifle drills later, the Army commissioned Zamora as an infantry second lieutenant right after his May 1955 graduation.

"As I dug foxholes at Fort Benning, Georgia, I would look up and see Army aircraft flying over me, and I wanted to do that," Zamora says. "So I transferred to the Transportation Corps, applied for flight school, and became a helicopter pilot."

Zamora also found time in 1960 to earn a master's degree in business administration at the University of Tennessee. His "gung-ho," AGR attitude earned him promotions. His tour of Southeast Asia included several action-packed flights over Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Zamora was shot down three times. Miraculously, he walked away from the wreckage each time without injury.

After retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1978, Zamora worked 15 more years for the Spokane Transit Authority. He attributes his two successful careers to the discipline he developed in college, as well as his religious convictions.

"I rarely miss Mass, and I truly believe that my faith has had a lot to do with my success," he adds.

In the wake of World War II, attending New Mexico A & M was a lot like being in the military. Lester Dawson of Estancia enrolled in 1949, right out of high school. He recalls being surprised and greatly disappointed by the lack of female students on campus. "I remember that there were very few girls in college, which made dances and other social activities kind of tough for the guys," Dawson says.

Dawson first lived in a barracks-type dormitory near the center of campus. In his room were two cots and a small desk to share with his roommate. Barracks residents also shared a large restroom down the hall. "It was pretty bad," Dawson says. "I just wasn't happy in the barracks."

After his first semester, Dawson moved "up" to Kent Hall, a larger dorm with a more civilized atmosphere. But when his New Mexico National Guard anti-aircraft unit was called to active duty in 1950, Dawson left school to once again live Army-style, and defend the skies over Chicago against potential air attacks.

"My job was to get information from radar and plot approaching planes on a huge round table," Dawson says. "Our unit ringed the city of Chicago with big, 120 mm guns to protect it from enemy planes."

Returning to school in 1952, Dawson found college life much more agreeable. He joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and worried less about expenses. "Coming back as a veteran under the G.I. Bill, I just didn't have to work as hard to make ends meet," he says. "There was more money and more time, so I was able to concentrate on my studies in general agriculture."

Dawson completed his degree work in 1955, and spent the next year as an assistant Extension agriculture agent in Union County. Later, he spent most of his career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Arizona, working with the Hopi, Pima, and Maricopa.

Like Dawson, Jack Ewing of Lordsburg experienced a National Guard interruption in his early college days. He had enrolled at the College in 1949, following an older brother here. Ewing lived on campus at Garcia Hall, predecessor to today's dorm of the same name, and a step up from the barracks. "It was brand new then, and the living conditions were excellent," he says.

He had grown up on a ranch, but Ewing felt his athletic abilities could help pay his way through school. He was wrong.

"I really wanted to get a football scholarship here," Ewing says. "But there were only five or six freshman football scholarships available, and my grades were not quite high enough in high school to qualify for an academic scholarship. So I had to leave the team and get a job to support myself."

Ewing's lifeline was his social fraternity, Alpha Delta Theta. "If the fraternity hadn't fed me, I would have starved. They also let me pay them back when I could."

From spring 1950 to fall 1952, the Army trained Ewing in electronicsÑtraining that later proved to be worth its weight in gold because it translated into academic credits and earned him a full electronic engineering minor. Ewing's Army training also guaranteed that he would never again skip a meal for lack of money.

"I came back to college and discovered I was qualified for one of the top-paying student jobs on campus," Ewing says. "The Physical Science Laboratory hired me to work on the towers near 'A' Mountain in antennae research development, and those towers are still operating there today."

Ewing also returned to campus as a married man. On-campus housing would not warrant a Robin Leach visit, but the newlywed Ewings found it adequate. "It was good shelter," he says. "We first moved into some older barracks-type buildings with cellotex walls that, in some places, were knocked out. But the price was right, since it only cost us $25 per month."

Ewing's degree in general agriculture emphasized ranch management. He briefly ranched with his father after graduation, then began an electronics career that pulled him into the space race with the Apollo moon missions.

"I worked with Grumman Aircraft, and we built the lunar module," he says proudly. "Seeing the film Apollo 13 really brings back a lot of memories for me."

Today, Ewing's career has come full circle. He's back working in the agricultural industry, this time as a full-time consultant for Cummins Engine Company, maker of natural gas-fueled engines for pumping irrigation water on farmers' fields.

John C. Owens, College dean and chief administrative officer, lauded the class of 1955 for its spirit, when members of the class visited campus for their 40th reunion.

"This year, the class of '55 reminds us of a great era of tremendous faith in the future, when the things America could accomplish seemed limitless. A refrain of a song written about that era goes, 'What a beautiful world this will be. What a glorious time to be free.' It was a glorious time."