Historical Marker
Texas Tech Alumni Association
Lubbock, Lubbock County · Texas
Erected 2019
The college those graduates left was four years old. West Texans had won a branch of Texas A&M in 1917, only to see the law repealed after Governor James E. Ferguson falsely reported Abilene as the locating committee's choice. A compromise bill by Senator William H. Bledsoe of Lubbock and Representative Lewis Carpenter of Dallas became law when Governor Pat Neff signed Senate Bill 103 on February 10, 1923. A locating board visited thirty-seven towns before choosing Lubbock, whose committee bought 2,008 acres for the state. Classes began on September 30, 1925, with 914 students in six buildings.
What the plaque says
Texas Tech Alumni Association The first graduating class of Texas Technological College received their diplomas on May 30, 1927. Wanting to stay connected to their alma mater, these students immediately formed the Alumni Association of Texas Technological College. Offices were originally located in the Administration Building and supported by a small staff. Texas Tech Magazine, with news of current and former students, debuted in 1937. The association formed a governing board with 31 "district committeemen," one from each of the senatorial districts in Texas. Over the years, the organization took on variations of its original name to include those who completed degrees and those attended. For more than 50 years, it was called the Ex-Students Association. After World War II, a group of 100 contributors pledged to give $100 for three years to keep the association solvent. This group became known as the 100 Club, later revived as the Century Club. In 1950, the new Texas Techsan Magazine featured campus activities, alumni achievements and fundraising efforts to support academic scholarships. The school and association experienced rapid growth during the 1950s and 1960s. Through the college's transformation into a university, as the association continued to grow, so did the need for additional office, event and meeting space. The association relocated to the former president's home in 1969, and renovated and expanded the facility in the 1990s. The Merket Alumni Center was completed in 1995, renovated again in 2010 and renamed the McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center. The Frazier Alumni Pavilion, near the football stadium, has been a gathering place for game days and special events since opening in 1999. The association marked its 75th anniversary in 2002 with a new official name, the Texas Tech Alumni Association. (2019)
Where it stands
33.57928, -101.87241 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- National Ranching Heritage Center — 1.0 miA Texas Tech outdoor museum where ranch houses, barns, windmills and a depot from across the ranching country were moved one by one onto a single park beside the campus.
- Buddy Holly Center — 1.7 miThe city's museum of Buddy Holly and West Texas music in a 1928 railway depot, with the house where the Crickets worked on That'll Be the Day moved next door.
- American Windmill Museum — 2.8 miLubbock's park of restored water-pumping windmills and early wind chargers, more than 70 of them turning outdoors and the rare ones under roof, with a megawatt-era turbine overhead.
- Lubbock Lake Landmark — 3.1 miA bend of Yellow House Draw on Lubbock's north edge where digging has found nearly 12,000 years of people on the Southern High Plains, layer on layer, from Clovis to the 1880s.