All hail the patron saints! Among the varied schools and colleges at the University of Texas, a few have taken on mascots, or "patron saints."
The Law School boasts the famed Peregrinus, Business lauds the wily Hermes, and Architecture claims the mysterious Ptah. But the most recognized is the Patron Saint of UT Engineering, the legendary Alexander Frederick Claire, who celebrates his 102nd birthday today.
In January, 1908, fifteen sophomore engineering students organized the Tecem Club (which stood for Texas Engineers: Civil, Electrical and Mining), whose purpose, according to Dean Thomas Taylor, was to "promote practically everything but learning and scholarly attainments." The club met regularly, and while gathered on the evening of March 31st, decided that the following day, April 1st, should be a university holiday. To encourage their fellow students to cut classes, the club planned to smuggle a few dogs to the top floor of the old Main Building, tie tin cans to their tails, and let them loose during the first class hour. The group adjourned to find the required canines, but the neighborhood dogs weren't very cooperative, and the idea was dropped due to a lack of volunteers. Instead, the club retired to Jacoby's Beer Garden, just south of the campus on Lavaca Street.
Just after midnight, as the group was about to leave, they spied a five-foot tall wooden statue under a porch shed near the exit. It was an oaken likeness of King Gambrinus, the chubby, bearded and jolly patron saint of beer still seen in many pubs and taverns. Seized by an inspiration and certain that Mr. Jacoby was occupied elsewhere, the group spirited the statue away to old B. Hall, the men's dorm, until the following morning.
Just after the 9 o’clock bell on a sunny and balmy April 1st, the entire Department of Engineering skipped class, formed a parade in front of the original Engineering Building (today’s Gebauer Building), and marched once around the campus with their new patron saint held high. In front of Old Main, Alexander Frederick Claire was officially unveiled as a handkerchief tacked on to his head was removed. A grand speech was made, and credited Alec with such engineering feats as the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the aqueducts of Rome. The engineers then swore allegiance with their right hands resting on "holy" calculus books.
The celebration became an annual ritual, much to the chagrin of the rival law students, who conspired to use Alec for their own purposes.
In November, 1913, Alec was briefly captured and taken to a farm near Pflugerville. Placed in a pig sty and knee-deep in swine, Alec was photographed for the Cactus yearbook. "This," claimed the lawyers, “shows Alec in his true element."
"No!" retorted the engineers. "That is Alec feeding the laws."
Alec was kidnapped again in 1916, when law students approached Mr. Jacoby's widow and "legally purchased" the statue. Armed with a bill of sale, the laws brought Alec before the Justice of the Peace, had him declared a vagrant, and sent to the city jail. Dean Taylor and the engineers appealed to Texas Governor James Ferguson, who issued a full pardon and warned Alec to beware of "out-law-yers."
Because the Laws still held a bill of sale, Dean Taylor elected to retire the original statue. In 1917, Alec's right leg was cut into small strips, branded "CELAFOTRAP" ("Part of Alec" spelled backwards) and sent to Texas Engineers fighting in the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War. A second statue was commissioned and fashioned by local woodcarver Peter Mansbendel. The new Alec was kept out of sight from mischievous law students, secured in a vault in the Littlefield Building downtown, where he could make brief but safe sojourns to the annual Engineer's Banquet at the Driskill Hotel next door.
But on February 21, 1919, the evening of the Engineer's Banquet, the laws took Alec once again. Sixteen law students scaled a fire escape to enter a hotel room guarded from the hallway by Dean Taylor and several engineers. The laws dismembered the statue, sent the head to Governor Daniel Moody, and delivered other pieces to law alumni. The torso was hung in a tree on the campus for a brief time, and then disappeared, only to turn up years later in the Law School library.
Governor Moody returned Alec's head to Dean Taylor, who ordered a third rendering using the head and other salvaged pieces of the beleaguered patron saint.
As retirement approached, Dean Taylor was very secretive about Alec. The statue was seen in public only a few times, always surrounded by an armed guard of engineers. After Taylor's death in 1941, Alec remained in hiding, stored by the Texas Memorial Museum in a house north of the campus. A group of journalism students discovered him there in 1964, after a report that someone had spotted a coffin in the basement. Alec was restored, and in 1972 was put on permanent, though secured, display in the engineering library.
In March, 1987, word reached the College of Engineering that the dismembered torso of the second Alec had recently been put on display in the Tarleton Law Library, a prize that loyal engineers could not resist. On March 30th, David Walker and Chris Flynn, then engineering seniors and members of the newly formed "Order of Alec," approached Julia Ashworth, an archivist at the law library. They claimed to be on the staff of the Cactus yearbook, and asked if they might take a photograph of the torso. Ashworth politely agreed. Claiming there was not enough light in the library, Walker persuaded Ashworth to take the torso outside. Once outdoors, three masked "unknown and unnamed ruffians" rushed by, grabbed the torso and disappeared.
The events seemed far too coincidental. Law School Dean Mark Yudof wrote a scathing memo to his engineering counterpart, Dean Earnest Gloyna, demanded the torso's return, and labeled the scandal "Gloynagate."
On April Fools Day, Gloyna was subpoenaed, along with a few engineering student leaders, to appear in court. The laws argued that the engineers had waited too long to claim ownership of the torso, and demanded Alec be returned to them.
The two groups met in court on Friday, April 3rd. On one side were the "law nerds" while the others wore buttons that read "unknown and unnamed engineering geeks." Judge Harley Clark, a law school graduate who as the 1955 head cheerleader introduced the “Hook ‘em Horns hand sign, presided, and patiently listened to both arguments. In the end, Clark made no decision of ownership, hoped that Alec's "thieves" would keep him safe, and that the rivalry between the two schools would continue.
By Jim Nicar, The Texas Exes
