50 YEARS OF SERVICE TO WEST TEXAS AGRICULTURE Format: PB - PAPERBACK

Republished fifty years after its initial release, Fifty Years of Service has gone beyond the political and organizational focus that often dominates histories of institutions. The central theme of this volume is the close working relationship between the College of Agricultural Sciences at Texas Tech University and its grassroots constituency, the men and movements responsible for the realization of the vast potential of West Texas agriculture. The coordination and cooperation between the college and the interests of West Texans are traced through its first half-century, which spanned the cotton boom of the early years, the development of the super feedlots of the 1960s, and the expanding research efforts that will continue to help provide not only West Texas but other parts of the world with vital technology.

In relating the development of the College of Agricultural Sciences and, necessarily, of Texas Tech University, Green provides the reader with a rich supply of absorbing and candid detail. The struggle of West Texans for their own center of higher education was long and hard, and the period of the Depression presented hardships and challenged the wills of those who staunchly defended the institution and its growth. The honest accounts of conflict lend particular insights into the character of the rapidly growing university, and the book as a whole is largely a narrative of human nature, citing anecdotes, letters, and newspaper reports that provide the volume with an unmistakable West Texas flavor.

Donald E. Green is a native of the Texas Panhandle, born at Wellington and reared on a Collingsworth County ranch. He received a BA degree from Abilene Christian College, an MA from Texas Tech University, and a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. His interests have been primarily in the history of Southwestern agriculture. He is the author of Land of the Underground Rain (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), The Creek People (Phoenix, AZ: Indian Tribal Series, 1973), and Rural Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1976). Land of the Underground Rain, a history of Texas High Plains irrigation, was awarded a Texas Institute of Letters prize in 1973.