DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker records about Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College during World War II. Now settle in, because this is a story about a campus that got tested — hard — and didn't blink.
December 7th, 1941. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor pulls the United States into the war, and the very next thing you know, SFA President Alton Birdwell is calling together students and staff for an assembly. Not a pep rally.
Not a ceremony. A reckoning. What happens now?
That was the question hanging in the air over Nacogdoches. And the answer came fast. Students and faculty members poured into every branch of the armed services.
A county civil defense council, with many SFA leaders in its ranks, got to work on the homefront. And among those homefront efforts, somebody made sure the letters kept flowing — a concerted program to maintain active correspondence with the men and women serving overseas. Because sometimes a letter is the only thing keeping a soldier tethered to home.
Now here's something the marker wants you to sit with. It wasn't just the men. Many SFA women entered military service too.
And in February of 1943, the U.S. Army selected Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College as the first college in the entire nation to host the Women's Army Corps Training School.
First in the nation. That detail didn't make it onto this marker by accident. Back on campus, the numbers told their own story.
Student enrollment fell by sixty percent during the war. The scarcity of men, coupled with travel restrictions, forced the school's athletic council to suspend intercollegiate football. A campus quieter than it had ever been, holding its breath across an ocean.
And then there was the flag. Students made it themselves. At the height of the war, it flew on campus bearing more than a thousand blue stars — each one representing an SFA student or staff member in uniform.
And among those stars, twenty-four gold ones. Gold stars for the twenty-four who had already given everything. By the end, more than three dozen SFA students died in military service.
More than three dozen. Let that number stand on its own for a moment. When the war finally ended, the G.I.
Bill brought veterans flooding back to campus — a surge in enrollment, new buildings rising, the place rebuilding itself the way survivors do. And the college renamed its recreation facilities. Not to celebrate victory.
To remember. Memorial Park. Memorial Stadium.
For those who served. For those who died. The marker closes by noting that students and faculty have continued to serve the U.S. military in times of peace and war, right on down to today.
That flag with the thousand stars is long gone, but what it stood for — that's what got built into the name of every stadium, every park, every time somebody at SFA answers the call.
What the marker says
Immediately following the United States' entry into World War II after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College (SFA) President Alton Birdwell called together an assembly of students and staff to address the national emergency. Many students and faculty members responded to the call to arms by entering every branch of the armed services, and a county civil defense council, with many SFA leaders, worked on the homefront. Among the homefront efforts was a concerted program to maintain active correspondence with those serving in the military overseas. In addition to the male SFA military and homefront volunteers, many SFA women entered military service. Student enrollment fell by 60% during the war and the resulting scarcity of men, coupled with travel restrictions, forced the school's athletic council to suspend intercollegiate football. In February 1943 the U. S. Army selected SFA as the first college in the nation to host the women's Army Corps Training School. At the height of the war, a flag made by students was displayed on campus. It bore more than a thousand blue stars for SFA students and staff serving in the war, and 24 gold stars for those who lost their lives in service to their country. Ultimately, more than three dozen SFA students died in military service. Many students attended school on the G. I. Bill after the war, resulting in a surge in enrollment and construction of new campus buildings. The college's recreation facilities were renamed "Memorial Park" and "Memorial Stadium" in honor of those who served and died in the war. Students and faculty have continued to serve the U. S. military in times of peace and war. (1999)