Oral History Transcript - Barbara Tidwell - January 29, 2008

Interview with Barbara Tidwell

 

Interviewer: Barbara Thibodeaux

Date of Interview: January 29, 2008

Location: San Marcos, Texas

_____________________

 

 

Interviewee: Barbara Tidwell – The original director and choreographer of the Strutters, Texas State University’s famed precision dance team, Mrs. Tidwell groomed the Strutters for two Presidential Inaugural Parades.

 

Topics:  Beginning of Strutters, development of the program, 1961 and 1965 Inauguration, Houston Oilers, Jim McLemore.

 

(This transcript has been edited for nonessential words and conversation for the sake of clarity).

 

BARBARA THIBODEAUX:  This recording is part of the LBJ Centennial Celebration Oral History Project sponsored by Texas State University.  Today is January 29, 2008.  My name is Barbara Thibodeaux.  I am interviewing Barbara Tidwell at San Marcos, Texas.

  Mrs. Tidwell, even though you have agreed to the terms and conditions of the release pertaining to this interview in writing, will you also verbally acknowledge your acceptance with a yes or no.

 

BARBARA TIDWELL:  Yes.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Thank you very much.  I was wondering if you could give me some background.  First how did you get to Southwest Texas?

 

TIDWELL:  Well, I graduated from college and decided I better go on and get my masters.  I applied for scholarships to work on my masters; and I applied at two or three different schools and Dr. Flowers asked me to come.  He was interested in starting a dance team and I was interested in teaching history.  He interviewed me, I guess in July or August, I can’t remember exactly which month, and he hired me pretty well on the spot.  But he wasn’t interested in me becoming a history teacher, he was interested in this team that he wanted to have at the university or at the college at that time – Southwest Texas State Teachers College at that time.

 

And so I came and at that time there was just a little, tiny, friendly little hill on the college.  I don’t really think he ever really realized what a tremendous beginning and boom when he started the Strutters, and that certainly President Johnson was going to give the university.  So it was an experiment and a new idea and something that really, really overnight was a tremendous success.  We started getting wonderful invitations to perform at Houston Oilers games.  We got full coverage at that time – the T.V. did not break away for commercials.  They covered the half-time, so for seven minutes every year for 23 years we got full coverage.  Well the university in San Marcos was given full coverage for seven minutes a year guaranteed. Sometimes we performed twice a year at the Oilers games, and then we started performing at some of the Dallas Cowboy games.  So it was pretty well an instant success.  The university got instant national coverage that they had never gotten before.  We went to the Sugar Bowl and received national coverage from the Sugar Bowl, and all of this was Dr. John Flowers.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So did you get your masters in history?

 

TIDWELL:  I got my masters in history, but I never got to teach history. (laughs)  But I crammed a lot of history into my Strutters. (laughs)

 

THIBODEAUX:  So how did the Strutters develop, put together the program?

 

TIDWELL:  Well we started at our first performance, we literally were still sewing buttons on when they went out on the football field.  We had zero money, we had practically no place to practice.  We practiced in stickers because we didn’t have football fields and we practiced in any place we could find big enough to practice.  We practiced in an old beat up, broken down gym which burned a few years later.  It was a condemned gym, but my girls loved it.  It was a big, old barn of a gym and every time we started to jump up and down in our dance, we had to take the music off, the record off because the music skipped.  The foundation gave way.  We practiced there until that building burned and then we practiced in the armory over there which still stands.  All my kids got shin splints and really never had a real place to practice ever until they finally built the gym over there now, I don’t know the name of it.  I can’t think of the name of it, but anyway they have a place to practice now.  They always practiced in some place where we could just find enough grass to practice on.

 

As far as money, I really never did have a lot of money and it was sticks and stones and whatever we could sew together.  But somehow they made it work and maybe the kids bonded together because of that.  As far as the program, I had great kids.  I had wonderful girls, just precious kids to work with.  And we were lucky to find Jim McLemore.  He was the publicity director for the Houston Oilers.  He started out as the sports editor for the Austin-American Statesman.  When I met him, that was my very first year here, and he was running around, I guess he came to interview one of our football coaches.  I don’t know this for a fact, he probably came here to interview Coach Jowers, but somehow I met him and that was kind of the beginning of a long friendship.  His little girl grew up to be a Strutter for four years and I still talk to her, love her.  She married a little boy who was one of my managers.  I talk to her frequently. And so I owe Jim McLemore a great deal of credit because he invited us to so many of the games there.  We got so much wonderful publicity nation wide because of those football games.  So many other things, the movies, we were in a few movies, and a lot of TV things we got to do were direct things we got because of our TV appearances there.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I read that your theme song was Giant.

 

TIDWELL:  Oh yeah.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Is that from the movie Giant?

 

TIDWELL:  It’s from the movie.  The first time I saw Giant, I thought if I ever do anything of any note, I love that song, and I am going to use the theme song from Giant.  I am going to have a giant team. (laughs)

 

THIBODEAUX:  I will have to go rent that movie because now I’m curious.

 

TIDWELL:  I just like the sound system.  I like the song Giant.  That seems to be something somebody in Texas should really use.

 

THIBODEAUX:  One other question about the drill team.  Was it the first four year college that had a drill team?

 

TIDWELL:  Yes. Yes.

 

THIBODEAUX:  In the nation?

 

TIDWELL:  Um hmm.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So did you get many people come down to look at your program?

 

TIDWELL:  Oh yes.  In fact, it started in the high schools all over the country.  When I started Strutters, people would call me and say come help us in the high schools form things.  I was getting so many calls, I started to count from that, started groups from that.  Now every high school and junior high in Texas has them.  Pretty well from kind of a spin off from that.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I wanted to move on to the Kennedy inauguration parade in 1961.  Can you tell the story of participating in that?

 

TIDWELL:  Oh, sure.  It was a fabulous.  I was just a kid myself.  I was working on a masters and very, very young.  [I] came here not expecting anything.  Then just all of a sudden we got to go to the president of the United States parade.  Still gives me goose bumps.  Of course, all of my family had been great Johnson supporters and I cut my teeth on Sam Rayburn and LBJ.  So to get to go march – see I get tears – march down Pennsylvania Avenue was a big experience. 

  One thing that wasn’t a great experience was the cold.  I think that was the coldest inauguration in history, and I had never been north in the winter, and oh, it was really bitterly, bitterly cold.  In fact they had told people to turn the buses back, but our bus driver said, “We are going to get you there.”  And they did.  And it was really cold.  My kids nearly froze to death.  I nearly froze to death, but it was worth every minute of it.  The kids had a great time.  It was a tremendous amount of pride.  Still, I guess that was the most exciting thing we ever did of all the things we ever did.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Were they able to meet LBJ?

 

TIDWELL:  No, they weren’t, but he appointed, now I wasn’t there and I didn’t hear this, but apparently, we were told that he pointed to President Kennedy and said, “These are my girls.”  So we’ll take that and hold on to it.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Absolutely.

 

TIDWELL:  I do have a letter from Lady Bird Johnson.  Do you want to see it?

 

THIBODEAUX:  Oh yes.  That would be wonderful.

 

TIDWELL:  It wasn’t about the inauguration.  (pause, moving to retrieve letter hanging on wall)

 

THIBODEAUX:  Oh you have it framed.  I think I will read it into the tape.

  “Dear Mrs. Tidwell,”

  And this is dated September 3, 1985, on stationary from Stonewall, Texas.

 

  Dear Mrs. Tidwell,

 

  Through the years you have become one of the legends at Southwest    Texas State University to the stadium crowds and most of the young    people, who most of all lives you have touched and enriched.  What pride    and satisfaction you must feel over the two and a half decades you     directed the Strutters.  To be regarded in such esteem and affection by    your students is high accolade indeed.

 

  May the future continue to hold the rich association which has marked    your long career.

  With a warm salute and many good wishes.

 

  Sincerely,

  Lady Bird Johnson

 

THIBODEAUX:  How fabulous.  I would have that framed also.

 

TIDWELL:  It was exciting for my girls.  It was exciting for me.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So your reputation was well-known among the Johnsons.  Going on to the inauguration of 1965 and there is one story I just heard snippets of, not so much of the Strutters but with the band, that there was a competition with the UT band.  Do you know that story?

 

TIDWELL:  Well, it was who was going to lead the parade, (laughs) our band or the UT band.  And to be honest, this is so many years afterward, I’m not sure which one of us led the band.  I know President Johnson went to school here; I’m really not sure which one lead the parade.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I think it may have been Southwest.

 

TIDWELL:  May have been Southwest, I just don’t know, but I do know there was a big hoopla over that.  I remember a big thing and I’m not sure which one led the parade, our band or the university band.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So can you tell us about the 1965 inauguration?

 

TIDWELL:  It was not so cold (laughs) and wasn’t quite as exciting for us because we flew.  There was just something about those, I guess two, three days, it was three days up there on the buses.  While it sounds like an awful trip, it really wasn’t because the kids, everyplace we went, it seemed like when we got to Kentucky they had a military school that was there and they had these military cadets lined up to take our luggage inside.  I don’t know, it was all beautifully done.  We were there three days and really got to see Washington the first time.  The second time, we were there two days so the kids didn’t see as much.  But it was, of course, exciting both times and the second time they weren’t as cold.  By the second time we went, I was a lot more prepared than the first time.  But of course it was exciting because this was our president.  We were very proud of him as vice-president, the fact that he was our president made it of course just wonderful, and they were both exciting.  I can’t say one was more exciting, but the first time for me personally was the first time, but the second time was just as exciting.  The first time was more difficult and more trying.  It was harder to get there and it was more of a, it was just more difficult.  So I guess it meant a little bit more.  Anything that is harder to get to and more of a challenge, and I guess when you get there, it is more of an accomplishment.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So did the girls get to meet LBJ on the second trip?

 

TIDWELL:  No, no.  He did go over toward them or something, but I can’t remember.  He did try to make the effort, but somehow, I don’t even remember what happened.  They were disappointed.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I bet.  So did they get national coverage?

 

TIDWELL:  Yes, both times. Uh huh.

 

THIBODEAUX:  It was clear what drill team was there?

 

TIDWELL:  Both times they got national coverage, so the national coverage wasn’t as important at those parades as was just the excitement of this is our president and vice-president and they got to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. And that was exciting.  The national coverage came through things like the Sugar Bowl and the Cowboys and the Oilers, the TV things, but they were so excited to be there, so excited.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Were there any sponsored events while you were there?

 

TIDWELL:  No.  I’m trying to remember who did this for us and which inauguration it was.  While we were there I think we stayed in housing on one of the bases, I don’t remember which one, but they had a dance for the girls.  I don’t remember if it was officers or enlisted people, I don’t know.  But I remember trying to chaperone and I was very young.  There were a jillion guys, a jillion, and of course there was just the Strutters.  I said, Okay, you can dance, but you can not go outside this building” (laughs) “You will not walk outside those doors for any reason.”  But the girls had a wonderful time and it was really nice of them to set that up.  They had lovely food, and I kind of think that was the first time.  Whether it was set up by the Democrats for Johnson, which may have been or the base people, I don’t remember, but it was fun for the kids.  It was just a lovely event.  It was done very well.  The boys wore their dress uniforms and the girls wore their dress-up things.  Of course, I at that time didn’t let my kids wear pants of any sort.  They had to wear high heels and dresses.  I mellowed through the years, but back in those days they had to dress up.  So they were all very, very pretty in their little outfits.  So anyhow that was a big event.  Then they all got to tour all of the Smithsonian Institute, and Arlington Cemetery, and had good tours set up to see Washington.  So that was wonderful.  I’m almost sure that was when President Johnson was the first inauguration.  I don’t think we had time to do that the second time.  But this is fifty years after the fact.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Did you see LBJ on campus?

 

TIDWELL:  No, but he brought some of his senators’ wives and things like that on campus and some of my girls played hostess to some of the, they played sort of ambassadors at will at some point too.  Some of the people he brought on campus, I don’t know at what point he did that.  I tried to train my girls to be ready for any occasion, any event to know everything they could about the university from what a guardian law was to answer any questions for any event no matter what.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So your girls served a double role?

 

TIDWELL:  They did in those days.  Dr. Flowers insisted on that.  He said, “I want those girls to be my ambassadors.”  I tried very hard to have them prepared to be ambassadors.  Later on, I didn’t have the facilities to do it as much, but in the beginning, oh boy, Dr. Flowers came to all the practices.  He came at least once a week and sometimes every afternoon.  He lived right across the street from where we practiced most until the gym burned down.  So we were his pet project (laughs) and he made sure that we learned everything he wanted us to know.

 

THIBODEAUX:  How much did the girls practice?  How much time did it take?

 

TIDWELL:  We practiced every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Monday nights and Saturday mornings.  We had classes on Saturday then so we had to practice 5:30 to 7:00 a.m. on Saturday.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Oh my goodness.

 

TIDWELL:  Of course, later on when we didn’t have Saturday classes, we made that Saturday practice from like 8 to 10 or sometimes 9 to 10, depending on how well they did Friday afternoon. (laughing)

 

THIBODEAUX:  That certainly showed their dedication to be their at 5:30 on a Saturday morning.

 

TIDWELL:  We had to practice by car lights because we didn’t have stadium lights.  So boys or girls used their own lights – just put their lights on the football field or whatever field we were practicing on.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I read in some of the articles that you helped train them in different areas like job interviews, how to get a job, that type of thing.  How did you work all of that in with practice?  How were these other things done?

 

TIDWELL:  The second semester, the football season is over by Christmas and we usually performed at Houston Oilers game at Christmas or Thanksgiving.  So we really weren’t over until Christmas.  Then the second semester we didn’t have as many obligations.  We did some basketball games, but not all of them.  Then we started performing at San Antonio Spurs games.  Of course, in the beginning we went to two a year.  Of course now it’s one a year and that is wonderful.  But I worked that second semester and we did a whole six weeks course in grooming and self-discipline and stuff, interview skills.  And when they left Strutters, I wanted them to be able to interview for a job and to have good table etiquette.  I always told them there would be a woman president at Southwest Texas and maybe one president of the nation someday.  I told them that and that they could be CEO.

 

When I was young my daddy said you can do things in life: you can be a nurse, a schoolteacher, a secretary.  Well that burned me up, but I grew up in the 40s and 50s.  But now you can be anything you want to do.  So I tried to train them.  I have girls out now that are doctors and lawyers and CEOs and mothers and all walks of life.  I am very proud of that.  I trained them first to make good grades and I never tried to get a girl in school; I never tried to get a girl to take an easy teacher.  I wanted them to make good grades on their own and go for the gold.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Do you think that is still part of, not just the Strutters program, but drill team programs?  Do you think they still strive to do that with girls?

 

TIDWELL:  I hope so.  I hope so.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Did you have an assistant or did you work on your own?

 

TIDWELL:  On my own.

 

THIBODEAUX:  So did you make up all of the routines yourself?

 

TIDWELL:  Yes.

 

THIBODEAUX:  How did you change the routines throughout the years?  Did that become difficult at any point?

 

TIDWELL:  It did towards the end because my health was not as good toward the end.  I’m ambidextrous, so I think being able to do things and see things kind of backwards helped a little bit.  I don’t know.  I had a little bit of talent from my daddy.  He was a really good, fine dancer and the Lord blessed me.  You know I just think the Lord brought me here and put me in front of a bunch of kids.  I don’t think I was ever a great dancer and not great at anything.  I was just mediocre at everything.  But I like to think that I was pretty good with kids.  This is in retrospect looking back.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Were your girls able to choreograph some of their own dances?

 

TIDWELL:  I didn’t let the girls choreograph because they couldn’t see it from overall.  I did a lot of choreography from the top of the football field.  They could make up their own dances to try out for Strutter routines and they had wonderful suggestions.  But they couldn’t see it from the top of the field.  What they think looks good down low might look terrible from up high.  I think looks good.  They look terrible from below.  I had a lot of squabbles with them through the years.  It really has to essentially look good from up high.

 

THIBODEAUX:  I think I remember reading that your set-up was so poor, under-funded, that you didn’t even have paper to draw out…

 

TIDWELL:  Oh, there might have been paper, there might have been paper out, I didn’t do that.  I just did it as I went.  Lot of time I did it on my way to school, but mostly I just did it from the top of the football field.  I put little girls here, I’d put them here, I pretty well had it in my mind what I wanted to do with them.  Toward the end it really did get harder to run from upstairs down.

 

THIBODEAUX:  Thirty-seven years of coming up with routines.  That took a lot of creativity.

 

TIDWELL:  I was better the first thirty (laughs) that the last seven.  I didn’t do a very good job of it.  But I loved it.  I really loved my kids and I love the university – really love the university, it just kills me to give up that.  When I retired I gained.  Nothing fit. Go eat pies and gain weight. (laughs)

 

THIBODEAUX:  I know.  I was thinking on the way over that must have been great to keep you in shape all those years.

 

TIDWELL:  It did.  It did.  I stayed really thin for all those years and now I’ve gained a lot of weight since I retired. 

 

THIBODEAUX:  You certainly collected a lot of accolades from Lady Bird Johnson, and I believe they also declared a day, the Barbara Tidwell Day.  I forgot which representative did that.  So when you retired that was a major event.

 

TIDWELL:  It was very sweet.  I appreciated it tremendously.

  Would you like to go up to my Strutter room?

 

THIBODEAUX:  I certainly would.  Thank you.  (end of interview)