Mrs. John L. Morris (Marjorie)

The Globe began as a class project. In 1948 Marjorie Morris's senior English students at Odessa High School proposed a Shakespearean theater, the school's Shakespeare Club took it up, and architect J. Ellsworth Powell drew the plans for free. Morris wrote her master's thesis on it, studied in England and joined Odessa College in 1951, when the college gave land and fund-raising began. Ground was broken on March 7, 1958, the main structure was finished in 1961, and the theater, octagonal and seating 410, was dedicated in May 1964.

What the plaque says

Mrs. John L. Morris (Marjorie) Originator, promoter of the Globe of the Great Southwest, world's most nearly authentic replica of the Globe Theater in England made famous by the plays of William Shakespeare. Mrs. Morris was educated at North Texas State University and joined the English faculty at Odessa College. In 1961 the college named her "Teacher of the Year." She was honored 1961 as an outstanding teacher in Texas colleges. She also founded the Permian Basin Museum and area "Writers' Roundup" contest, both of which are sponsored by Odessa College. Outstanding Women of Texas series - 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• White-Pool House — 1.9 mi
  Odessa's oldest standing building, an 1887 brick house of a family the Texas and Pacific drew west, later cut into apartments for the oil boom and now a free house museum.
• Odessa Meteor Crater — 9.3 mi
  A shallow bowl in the ranchland southwest of Odessa where a shower of iron meteorites struck in the late Ice Age, with a trail down into it and a small museum on the rim.
• Midland Army Air Field Museum — 11 mi
  A hangar museum at Midland's airport, run by Commemorative Air Force volunteers, telling how a 1927 grass field became the bombardier college that graduated 6,627 officers in World War II.
• Permian Basin Petroleum Museum — 19 mi
  Midland's museum of the oil basin it sits on, from a restored diorama of the Permian reef to a 40-acre yard of drilling rigs and Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars.

More markers nearby

• W.T. Barrett Stadium — steps away
• Site of Odessa College — 0.2 mi
• The Jackrabbit — 1.1 mi
• Odessa — 1.1 mi