Club History

A Brief History of the Greater Temple Area A&M Club By Vic Gillett ’53

It is my understanding that there was an active Temple A&M Club in the area in the 50?s, 60?s and 70?s, and then the club went dormant. In 1992, prior to moving to Temple, I looked in my Former Students Directory and found that I had 9 member of the class of 1953 living in the Temple, Belton & Salado areas. One classmate I knew very well. His name is Sam Guthrie, and like me he took Armored Cavalry Military Sciences at A&M. In other words we were tankers. Right after moving to Temple, I contact Sam and asked him when the A&M Club met. He told me that Temple no longer had an active club. He said the closets club was the Killeen-Fort Hood A&M Club. I suggested that we attend one of their meetings; Sam, Bob Gosney, Buck Prewitt and I went to one of the Killeen-Fort Hood club meetings and asked if we could join the club. Their answer was, No, we don’t want you in our club. I said, where do we have to go to find an A&M Club? Do we have to go to Abilene? They replied that they would like to see us have our own club in East Bell County. There was some rule about only 1 club in each county, but they would push the association to allow 2 clubs in Bell County. Sam, Bob, Buck and I came back to temple and got information from the Former Students Association. One requirement was to get 100 Aggies in the area to sign up as charter members. We set out getting signatures and in about 4 months we have over 100 signatures. Soon after, in the fall of 1992 we received our Charter and became a fully recognized Aggie Club. Our club is growing and prospering. The Greater Temple Area A&M club s board of Directors works diligently to get young Aggies into the club and mentor them to take positions of leadership and to eventually become officers of the club. We appreciate all the Aggies in the area that support our club, whose main purpose is to provide student scholarships to Texas A&M University.