June 5, 2024 • 33 mins
Can geographic history reveal the secrets of Texas' booming oil industry? This episode of Talking Texas History welcomes Helen Cozart, assistant librarian at Ranger College, who shares her captivating journey from military service to academia. Helen enlightens us on the transformative Ranger oil boom of 1917, illustrating the massive impact it had on the region's landscape and infrastructure.
Helen breaks down the process behind the Ranger College Library exhibit, "Black Gold, a History of Texas Boomtowns." Learn about the technological advancements and environmental challenges of the early oil industry and how the infamous Ranger oil boom set the stage for future developments.
More information on the Ranger College Library exhibit: https://library.rangercollege.edu/oilexhibit
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the past.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
(00:44):
I'm Gene.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Preuss, I'm Scott Sospe, gene.
We have another one of ourround-out guests of people here
that are making waves in Texasand places like that.
This one is Helen Cozart.
She's the assistant librarianat Ranger College.
That's correct, helen,assistant librarian at Ranger
College.
That's correct.
Also, she's a historyinstructor.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
She taught history classes.
I know you were doing classesat Cisco College at one time
when we first met, correct?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I taught at Cisco and Dallas and Ranger.
Yeah, like a lot of people inthis profession, they have to
spread themselves out quite abit just to make a living and
how that works and all.
So I want to start off withHelen why don't you tell
everybody about yourself, yourbackground, how you got into to
your current position and alsoabout an exciting we'll start
the conversation.
(01:35):
We want to talk about anexciting exhibit that the
library there at Ranger Collegeis about to open.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
All right.
So it took me a long time tobecome a librarian.
I didn't even start collegetill I was 30.
And at that time I just neededsome extra money.
So I applied for my GI bill andyou have to take college
classes to go along with it.
I decided at that point that Iwas in love with higher
education.
I felt like I was accomplishingsomething, and when I was
helping my classmates I feltlike I was doing something and I
(02:04):
could really see teaching in myfuture.
So I mean, just highereducation in general really
started to mean something to me.
But the history aspect kind ofcame together.
This is one of my favoritestories I was teaching, taking
ancient Greece and World War IIat the same time.
And in ancient Greece we weretalking about the Anabasis of
(02:25):
Xenophon.
And at one point they stop atthis location on the Black Sea
and Xenophon goes on and onabout what a great site it would
be for a colony and there'sgood defensibility, good river,
good soil, all these otherthings.
And I'm thinking, well, if thisis so great, why wasn't it
already settled?
And then in World War II, thatexact same week, we're talking
(02:46):
about the Lebensraum of AdolfHitler and how they needed this
extra living space for Germanyso that they would have access
for their resources and allthose kinds of things.
And to me that just screamedgeography matters.
Geography is one of the mostimportant parts of history and
so I kind of focused ongeographic history at that point
(03:09):
.
And then, after I finished thatbachelor's degree, my military
career needed me to get a degreein intelligence studies and I
really focused on thegeographical aspect of
collecting intelligence.
And so you know, war today isall about resources, whether
it's oil or water or somethingelse.
You know it's all about that.
(03:31):
So that really the geographicaspect of it really came
together for me in all of thoseareas of history.
So when I get to my master'sthesis, after I decide after all
that time I'm going to go aheadand become a history teacher,
first step is a master's thesis.
And when I, or a master's, whenI get to the thesis, I'm living
(03:53):
in Ranger and I have access toall of these amazing primary
sources.
And we had the.
We had an oil boom in 1917 herethat really changed all of
Texas history.
At that point Everythingchanged for Texas.
So I focused on justinfrastructure for that master's
and that was tedious and boring.
(04:16):
Nobody wants to ever read thatpart.
But there were some veryexciting things.
You know how many miles of roaddid they put in and what did
the contracts look like, and thesewage and plumbing and all
those infrastructure details.
That are, like I said, tedious.
But there's aspects that arereally exciting, like 100,000
people at its absolute maxestimate.
(04:39):
100,000 people showed up hereover a three-month time period
when the population had been 800.
So what do you do with that?
And that was the core of thethesis, and now it's been the
core of a lot of the other workI've done since then.
All of my books andpresentation and things like
(05:00):
that are all based oninformation I learned during
that experience.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, that's really a fascinating study
because you're absolutely right,I spent time after my degree as
a landman.
That's one of my famous 27 jobsthat I've had.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I think it's more like 37, James.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I've had a lot of jobs.
The thing about being in thelandman and looking at that
aspect of the oil business, theleasing of land, uh, to do
drilling on is you're exactlyright?
Is you know in those contracts?
Uh, the landowners say you canbuild this many roads, or they
in in some more recent ones,they want a right.
(05:42):
It has to be a certain way.
And how do you deal with allthe people coming in and leaving
the facilities?
All of that is something thatprobably as historians we kind
of gloss over.
But it's really thatinfrastructure that leaves a
lasting mark on the landscapeand I think we ignore that a lot
(06:09):
in history.
So I think that's veryinteresting.
And I agree with you aboutgeography.
You know, scott and I, one ofour professors was Don Walker
for Texas History, epitech, andDon always talked about
geography, geography, I mean hedidn't emphasize a lot, but in
texas history we look atgeography.
Today, students come in andthey really don't have much
(06:33):
geography back they really don't.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I I still.
I remember because don walkertaught us is.
I still start every one of mytexas history classes.
The first week is te geographyand what it is.
You know the old how old is DWmining's book now?
But it's still.
You know, it's still aproposfor teaching that.
It's just well.
The geography is such a bigthing.
I think it's interesting.
You say that.
I mean now when you starttalking about Greece and Rome,
(06:57):
you're way out of Gina and I'sleague.
So we don't know anything aboutall that stuff.
We can't even pronounce it, soyou're way ahead of us.
But I always like to point outthe same thing.
I mean, we think about it.
You know, the Spanish came insettlements in the south and in
Texas early.
The Spanish didn't build anytowns on the Gulf Coast.
You know why?
Because hurricanes hit it andit did it.
(07:18):
It's not until the 20th centurywhen idiots decided to come in
and build houses right on thecoast.
So yeah, I can get lost in amap.
Geography is extremelyimportant.
I think that that's where didyou get?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
your degrees, helen?
Uh, so my first historybachelor's was at austin p
university in clarksville,tennessee, and then I got my
second history or myintelligence studies degree and
my master's thesis throughAmerican military university.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, my MLIS came fromuniversity of Southern
Mississippi.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh, so were you stationed?
You said you were in the, inthe military.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Were you stationed at Fort Campbell?
I am retired army.
Yeah, was you at Fort Campbell.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Was that where you were?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Right Fort Campbell.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Helen, can you tell me what the Helen Cozart
collection at the library of?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
No, Am I in there?
Oh, I've done a bunch of theVeterans History Project oral
interviews and they might beunder my name, but they
shouldn't be.
They should be under theindividual names.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
They're in the Ellen Cozart collection.
They're under your name in theLibrary of Congress, if you
haven't ever looked that up?
You should.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Oh yeah, I've never looked it up.
I've actually never gone backto follow up any of them.
I just send them off to theLibrary of Congress and be done
with them.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Well, helen, tell us about this upcoming exhibit that
you have You're talking about.
It has to do with the oil boomand ranger, the famous oil.
I mean, whoever teaches Texasdoesn't talk about ranger.
It is the epitome of a boomtown in Texas that it came on.
So tell us about the exhibit,things like you know.
I mean, when did you decide toput it up?
What's it about?
(08:53):
What did you decide to includein the exhibit, maybe?
What did you decide not toinclude in the exhibit?
All those things are relevant,so tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
We had to cut so much , oh my gosh.
So once I got hired here almostfour years ago, we started
doing a traveling exhibit in thelibrary every semester and we
get that funding for theshipping and the advertising and
stuff from humanities Texas,which is a really great
organization.
They are a part of the nationalendowment for the humanities,
(09:26):
so they get a pot of money andthen they can distribute it
around Texas.
And we've done those travelingexhibits.
I've done seven or eight nowbut we started to kind of run
out.
Humanities Texas has a handfulthey do and we've gotten them.
Like just recently we had onefrom the National Health
Libraries and it was aboutmedical experimentation.
(09:50):
So that came here, it was herefor about six weeks and then we
ship it on to the next school.
But even those are kind of thin.
There's not.
I don't think I could sustainthat level one every semester
for the next 15 years.
There's just not that many outthere.
And so when I was talking tothe director of library services
(10:10):
about it he says well, whydon't we just make our own?
I jumped all over that.
We figured out what we wanted totalk about and we applied for a
grant from Humanities Texas.
They funded the entire thing.
And it starts out because Ifeel very strongly about Ranger
being an important part of Texashistory.
We don't do enough tourism herebut I would love to develop
(10:33):
that.
I'm on the Ranger HistoricalPreservation Society and I was
in the Historic Commission thatputs up the historical markers,
those kinds of things, and soI've done a lot of the history
around Ranger with a little coregroup of people that we work
with, about a dozen of us tryingto get that started, and Ranger
(10:54):
College is working hard to getintegrated good into the
community so that we all worktogether to develop the
community even more.
And we decided this exhibit.
It starts out focusing onRanger but it's called Black
Gold, a History of TexasBoomtowns, and so we talk about
all, not all.
There's no way you could talkabout all of the boomtowns but
(11:16):
many of the other boomtowns inTexas and how the booms
progressed across the state.
Because you know, once we gotstarted here in Ranger in 1917,
there were a lot of things wedidn't know about technology and
environmental resources andprotection.
That caused real environmentaldamage.
(11:36):
But it also used up all of ourreadily available oil and just
about that time then we have oilbooms opening up further down
the road, moving down towardsMidland and Odessa and then up
into the panhandle and stuff.
So those booms walked acrossthe state.
As each one got used up and aswe progressed across the state
(11:57):
we also became better atmanaging them and better at
getting in the infrastructure.
In Ranger we had places wherethey literally would dig pits
and put the oil on the surfacebecause there were no pipelines
to move the oil out.
And that's a scary thing tolook back on 100 years later and
not know if your land was anoil pit Right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So let me ask you a question about that.
Has one?
Has there been any ecologicaldamage, as far as knows, from
that open pit wells that theyused to drill in those boom
towns like you're mentioning?
And it also just shows us howfar technology you know, and in
(12:42):
those days natural gas was seenas waste, so it was just let go
Right At that time wasn't capped.
Now you've got what's calledchristmas trees that regulate
the oils whenever it first blows, but in those days it was just,
you know it, just like shakingup a coke can and pulling the
(13:03):
tab right, uh, and that's whyyou had those open pits just to
collect the oil that was blowingout.
So much technology has changed.
I don't think most peoplerealize that.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
So the gushers are part of what we talk about and
how bad they are for theenvironment.
It took an average of 10 daysto seal a gusher and that just
meant that much oil constantlyblowing out into the air which
got into the ground.
And I don't know if there'sbeen a modern survey taken of
the environment here.
There should be, but there'slike in the Big Thicket part of
(13:38):
Texas.
There's been all sorts ofenvironmental surveys done there
and they've even turned it intoa national preserve so that
they can try to recover some ofthat land.
But it just it destroyedhabitats.
It gets on the animals.
They can no longer insulatethemselves.
Very, very bad for theenvironment to do those gushers.
(14:00):
Also, a problem at the time wasthe rule of capture and so the
rule of capture.
You and I have property nextdoor to each other.
I have oil, but we're really inthe same oil pit basically.
So if I take all the oil, youdon't get any.
So you put your own well, inthere real fast and we're both
taking oil but neither of us hasanything we can do with it
(14:22):
because there's no pipelines orany place to get it out.
Now there's proration.
You're only allowed to take acertain amount of oil out of a
hole.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Right, yeah, it was seen as like a wild animal right
and wherever it runs that'swhere, that's who owns it and
that's how early Texas famouslyit's spindle top, of course, the
big gusher that ushered inreally the modern Texas oil
industry, so you know, spewedover a hundred thousand gallons
a day for a week before theycapped that sucker.
And if you go out there now andlook around where the original
(14:52):
spindle top is, nothing growsthere.
I mean it's a big flat.
You know Permian Basin has allthose out there around Kermit,
for example, and Wink Sink holesand everything else where
basically it's devastated,mainly from the oil they let
collect, just like you said, inthe 1920s and the 1930s into the
(15:13):
1940s, before they actuallycame up with ways to stop that
collection and things like that.
So when does the exhibit open,helen, tell us that, and how
will the public get to see itand things like that?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So it is in manufacturing now.
We expect to have it back inabout 10 days and in theory I
could go ahead and put it out.
We're going to have a receptionhere at the college that we
haven't decided the date yetbecause I don't know the exact
date I'm going to receive it.
We'll have a reception here andthen its permanent home will be
in the library.
So whenever it's not outtraveling it will be viewable
(15:48):
here at the Ranger CollegeLibrary.
We already have a few thingslaid on.
The Eastland County Museum isgoing to have it through the
whole month of August.
We've got arrangements with allof the schools in the county.
On a parent's day or a careerday or something, the exhibit's
going to go out there just for asingle day and that way people
can view it there.
(16:08):
We plan to take it out toevents like we have Rip Fest
celebrating Ulrip.
You know everybody knows ourfrog right, our horn toad.
So we go out to Rip Fest and weput it out with the rest of the
vendors that are out at RipFest and those are the plans.
I do have a webpage that has acalendar on it.
I'll send you guys the link sothat you can post it with show
(16:30):
notes and people can email me toschedule it Anything that's not
already scheduled.
On the dates that are scheduledI'm including the location and
the hours of the facility.
So if you want to schedule itfor yourself, go ahead and send
me all that information we canget it out with.
If it has to be shipped,because a lot of places I'll
drive to.
If you want it in Weatherford,I'll places I'll drive to.
If you want it in weatherford,I'll drive it over there.
(16:51):
If you want it in abilene I'lldrive it over to you.
But if you want it, you know,in houston or nacogdoches, then
it's got to be mailed and thereceiving museum or school will
have to pay for the shipping andany advertising of their own.
But the exhibit itself is free.
If you want to come get it, youcan do that and save shipping.
If somebody out in New York orChicago wants it, that's the
(17:13):
only cost they'll be to.
It is the shipping.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, that's great.
Have you contacted per se?
The Petroleum Museum in Midlandmight be a good place to put it
up.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
They were very helpful on approving some of the
photographs that we were ableto use on the exhibit and they
haven't scheduled anything yet,but it's entirely possible it
could end up out there.
I do know it's going to go outto the Midland Rockhounds minor
league baseball team.
It's going to go out there forat least one weekend, but we
haven't scheduled it yet.
But when I wrote him forpermission to use his icon for
(17:44):
the Rockhounds he was so excitedand I was so glad that somebody
was excited about it, you know.
So we haven't scheduled it butit's going out there.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, well, good, you know the president of Midland
College is a friend of Gina.
We went to graduate school withhim, david Kennedy.
Maybe they would want to dosomething.
We'll be glad to point in thatdirection, if that's a thing.
This is fascinating.
When you do come up with theseexhibits and this is probably a
big two for the Ranger Library,that's probably not something
that you do.
(18:13):
It's great.
So how did you come?
I know you've done lots ofthings.
How did you come to work?
You said that you took a longroad to being a librarian.
How did you come to work at theRanger College Library?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So after I got my first master's and I was
interested in teaching really,without teaching experience you
can't get a teaching job so Iadjuncted, like we talked before
.
I was at Cisco, I was at DallasCollege, I was at Ranger
College doing adjuncting and Ireally enjoyed that.
But after three or four yearsof that it kind of became more
(18:46):
about finding full time workthan it was about teaching.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Adjuncting's a young person's job, not for people
that are not just real young.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So I applied for a job at Ranger College in the
financial aid office but I hadalready been working here and
the HR guy knew me and he saidwhy aren't you applying for the
library job?
I said well, the jobdescription says it needs an
MLIS and I don't have one.
He said we'll see what we cando about that.
So we talked to the librarianand I didn't even like refill
(19:17):
out another application, I justtalked to the head librarian and
started working here a coupleof days later and I went the
next semester.
I started school at Universityof Southern Mississippi to get
that MLIS.
So I was qualified for my job.
But I really I belong here andthat makes me so happy because a
long time I had been saying ifI had it to do all over again,
(19:38):
I'd be a librarian.
And I did have it to do allover again and I got the
opportunity.
And now, instead of just thestudents in my classes, I really
do get to help all the students.
You know, I helped them learnhow to do research and I help
them learn how to writeparagraphs and I learn how I
teach them how to do all ofthese things that I was teaching
in the classroom to 22 students.
(19:59):
Now I have the entire studentbody of the college that I'm
helping and I like that verymuch.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How'd you end up in Texas?
That's probably a story initself also, so we're actually
kind of from here.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
My dad graduated from Ranger High School and he was
born in Ranger.
But my grandfather was military.
My father was military.
I became military, so Rangerbecame a place we come back to
when we retire from the Army,and so I didn't grow up here and
I only spent a few summervacations here.
I don't really know people, butI'm from here, so my last name
(20:32):
is Cozart.
People say, are you related to?
And I'm like, yes, may havenever met him, but I related to
him.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Like our names.
If you chose to be a price,we're related to you Somehow,
some way, we're related to you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, exactly, I don't know how, but it's there.
So I'm from here, but I'm notfrom here.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I wanted to ask you a question about Ranger and you
were talking about tourism.
It's right on I-20, or at leastpart of the county is on I-20.
Because I pass by it wheneverI'm going out to West Texas from
time to time or going to Dallasfrom West Texas, not far from
(21:12):
Abilene.
So One thing that I always findamazing, that I think is often
overlooked when we're talkingabout Texas history.
We talk about agriculture inTexas history and everybody
thinks Texas longhorn cows,Texas everybody has a horse and
Texas, you know, oil, maybe windfarms.
(21:33):
Nobody talks about Texaspeanuts yes, Gorman, peanuts
farms.
Nobody talks about texaspeanuts yes.
So I'm always amazed.
I remember the first time Ithink I was around coming up
through cherokee and whatnot,and there's these peanut mills.
Tell us about how in the worlddid peanuts get started in?
I guess that's rolling plains,right, or is it um?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
we're at the very edge of the hill country and
we're in Fort's Trail region ofthe Heritage Trails.
So we're we're at that crosstimbers line, where we're on the
desert side and Breckenridge ison the forest side of it.
You know so the earliestfarmers we had settlements here
in the 1860s and those farmersare the ones that brought in the
peanuts had settlements here inthe 1860s and those farmers are
(22:16):
the ones that brought in thepeanuts.
And by 1917, there had been areally severe drought and people
were abandoning their property.
When the oil came in you sawpeople flocking back here
because they owned property.
They'd been abandoned becausethe drought had been so bad, but
the peanuts came back prettygood.
After that.
There was a processing planthere in Ranger for a long time.
(22:36):
My grandfather worked in itafter he retired from the Army.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I had no idea that peanut culture had been in that
region since the 1860s, that'sreally One of the first crops.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
That and cotton.
There's cotton everywhere,though, right.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah but I mean that's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You know, gene, they started growing a lot of.
You know this challenge.
Exactly right.
They started growing peanutsearly there in that across
trimbers region as it moved inbut you know one of the big
centers of peanuts.
Now, as long as we're talkingabout, let's talk about way out
in west texas by seminoles ingaines county.
A lot of peanuts up now uhstrawberries you know ropesville
(23:17):
, ropesville right by lava.
A lot of peanuts on there and Ithink our last cross.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I think our last processing center is in gorman,
which is lower, is in thesouthern part of the county so
let me ask you a question, sinceyou, since you brought in
ropesville also, there's a lotof vineyards that are now being
put in out in that region, upand down that road, brown Hill
Highway.
So has wine culture made it outto Ranger yet?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
No, not really.
We have a vineyard in RisingStar, which is also in the
southern part of the county, andI believe there's a newer
vineyard in Cisco, which is alsothat's the west side of the
county.
We don't do a whole lot of ithere in Ranger.
I don't know why, really.
I know we have some grapes inour house.
We imported a little strandfrom Kentucky many years ago and
just kind of put it out thereand it sort of took its own
(24:10):
initiative and became the wholeback wall of the house.
But yeah, I don't know of awhole lot of people here yet in
Ranger, on the west side of thecounty, that are doing much with
wine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So, if people want to come to Ranger, what can they
expect to see?
What kind of you know we'retalking about tourism again what
kind of things besides themuseum, besides the Ranger
College, what things might theylook for?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
the ranger college.
Uh, what things might they lookfor?
Uh, so we have the the oil boommuseum, which is in our old
railroad station, and therailroad station was built in
1924, I think, to accommodatethe, um the numbers of trains
that were bringing goods in.
At one point we had 10 lumberyards here in Ranger because
there was so much housingconstruction going on for that
(25:01):
100,000 people.
Now I don't really believe itwas 100,000.
I think it was probably closerto 40.
But if you read Boy's House yougot to believe him right.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Well, you don't have to believe him.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I sometimes feel bad about denigrating Boy's house,
but in the end he was afolklorist, not a real, you know
that's a.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
That's a very charitable way to put it, helen.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah so you know he liked a hundred thousand.
I think it was probably closerto 40.
The 1920 census came in at 22,000, which is still a big jump
from 800.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It was.
It's just FYI.
My maternal grandfather cameand worked on that boom.
He left Now not the boom, hewasn't the boom, he came later
but he worked in the oil fieldaround there in the late 1920s
1930s.
He was in Oklahoma before thatand did that kind of work.
(25:58):
As we're coming to the end, Iwant you to touch on something
that I really want you to talkabout, because it's something
that you can speak to, is a bigpart of what's happening to the
historical profession andparticularly the historical
education profession as a whole.
You did a lot of work as acontingent faculty and got into
this as contingent faculty andnow, while you're doing
(26:20):
something I'm sure you love it'syou know you moved to library
as no or no longer as a teaching, and doing this, tell us just.
I want to say a glimpse in thelife of someone teaching at
three different places,sometimes of a contingent
faculty member, and how tough itis and how much you have to
persevere really to make it.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So all my classes at Dallas were in person and I got
a little apartment there.
To you know, I'd go up onSunday night and stay and come
home Thursday afternoon.
My Cisco and Ranger classeswere all online.
So I would get off at Dallas,I'd go to my little apartment
and then I would sit and dograding and stuff for the
classes for the other schoolsand I mean it was, it was all
(27:03):
right.
I would so much rather beface-to-face.
I wish the online courses wouldjust go away.
Students don't learn nearly asmuch online.
Face-to-face is just.
You just know when they get it,you know when you need to
rethink it, when you need torestate it, you know which
students need more help, becauseyou can see it in their eyes
and I just, I really loveface-to-face, but it is.
(27:26):
It's really challenging.
There's a legal limit A personcan only adjunct at three
classes at a college, and so inorder to actually make enough
money to pay rent, you've got toadjunct at two or three
different schools, which ends upbeing nine, sometimes 12
classes, and a regular professorhas a four or five schedule or
(27:48):
a five four schedule Plus.
You know you've got yourwriting on top of that, but you
know that's half the course loadthat an adjunct has, but an
adjunct makes less than half themoney.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
It's an exploitive system.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
It is very much so it honestly is.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And it's just I don't kind of wish we could find some
other way to do this, but withadministrators and such I don't
know.
And I think it's going to getworse as we get into the future.
And in fact in Texasparticularly, I really think at
all schools, two years, fouryears, the tenured track
professor is going to go away.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
They're not going to.
It's also a funding issue.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
We don't tenure anyone here anymore.
We only have one person lefttenured who was grandfathered in
from like 18 years ago, whenthey changed it ago when they
changed it.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It's also a funding issue, because you know the
state.
One of the things we said youknow, a couple of years ago is
that instead of saying we're astate-sponsored institution,
we're just a state institution,because when I was going to
college this was back in the 80sand early 90s the state was
paying 60% of the bill, andtoday they've gotten away from
that.
They're paying less than 20.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
At SFA right now our budget 11%.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Wow, 11% is provided, so the state recently passed a
new funding rule for communitycolleges that takes away the FTE
component of it and makes itabout numbers of students that
graduate.
And each type of student gets acertain amount of money for
graduations and for certificatesand things like that, and I
think in the end, the schoolsare all going to end up getting
(29:28):
more money.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Actually, I'm glad you brought that up, because
when I was working in anadministration about 10 years
ago, the talk was that's how, inthe state, it was going to go.
It was going to be morecompletion-based rather than
enrollment people in the seats,and so I see that they finally
(29:50):
followed through with that,apparently.
Yeah, wow, yeah.
This semester we just finished.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I think, was the first.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Helen, as we get towards the end and these things
always happen.
Since we just started, one ofthe things if you've listened to
our podcast before what we dowith all of our people who come
on the last question they get iswhat do you know?
And it's your opportunity totell us one thing that you want
to leave us with that we have toknow.
So, helen Cozart, what do youknow?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
So I thought about this because I do listen to your
podcast and I have decided thatwhat I really do know is I know
my superpower, and mysuperpower I think of it as
standing on the shoulders ofgiants, not real creative myself
, but if you have an idea, I canmake that idea something that's
good for me and my students andmy school, and I can just take
it from from your little idea tomy full blown thing.
(30:44):
So I have my superpowers takingfrom other people standing on
the shoulders of giants.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
You know that's uh, that that sounds like a, like a
simple thing, but really, as Iget older, I think that's a very
important realization and Iknow a lot of people say that in
their dissertations, theirthesis.
But you know it is.
We all have to work together.
(31:12):
We all build and take from eachother and borrow from each
other, and it's important toknow that we're not all
ourselves right, we're not itourselves and a lot of people
that need to remember that.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Oh, I think the best story I love about this because
I still do it is that we talkedabout Don Walker and we all
steal from things.
And so when I started teachingin chemistry at SFA, don had a
genius, his little one page.
This is how you do a bookreview thing that he does.
And you know he had that nicequote at the end askew
(31:49):
obfuscation andsesquipedalianism right, which
is self-explanatory.
Well, I just basically copiedand pasted that.
That became something I handedout and I felt, well, I need to
tell don.
I did that.
So, uh, next time we talked Isaid I said, don, by the way, I
stole your book review thing, soI'll give you full credit.
He goes oh, don't do that, hell, I sold, stole it from somebody
(32:10):
at lh who I don't even rememberwho it was.
So so we all borrow everythingwe have.
Tell them this has beenfantastic.
Folks, as you're listening,remember the Ranger Oil Boom
exhibit at Ranger College.
As you're hurtling down I-20trying to get someplace God, I
hope you're not going to Abilene, but you know if you have to go
(32:30):
to Abilene.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
We always go to.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Abilene.
I have a love hate where Ishould go to Abilene.
I was born in Abilene and now Idon't ever want to go back.
But anyway, if you do that,stop in at Ranger and they think
they have good restaurants.
If you have that, stop in atRanger and see the exhibit.
Helen, thanks for coming onwith us, it's been fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Thank you.
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the past.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit, and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
(00:44):
I'm Gene.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Preuss, I'm Scott Sospe, gene.
We have another one of ourround-out guests of people here
that are making waves in Texasand places like that.
This one is Helen Cozart.
She's the assistant librarianat Ranger College.
That's correct, helen,assistant librarian at Ranger
College.
That's correct.
Also, she's a historyinstructor.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
She taught history classes.
I know you were doing classesat Cisco College at one time
when we first met, correct?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I taught at Cisco and Dallas and Ranger.
Yeah, like a lot of people inthis profession, they have to
spread themselves out quite abit just to make a living and
how that works and all.
So I want to start off withHelen why don't you tell
everybody about yourself, yourbackground, how you got into to
your current position and alsoabout an exciting we'll start
the conversation.
(01:35):
We want to talk about anexciting exhibit that the
library there at Ranger Collegeis about to open.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
All right.
So it took me a long time tobecome a librarian.
I didn't even start collegetill I was 30.
And at that time I just neededsome extra money.
So I applied for my GI bill andyou have to take college
classes to go along with it.
I decided at that point that Iwas in love with higher
education.
I felt like I was accomplishingsomething, and when I was
helping my classmates I feltlike I was doing something and I
(02:04):
could really see teaching in myfuture.
So I mean, just highereducation in general really
started to mean something to me.
But the history aspect kind ofcame together.
This is one of my favoritestories I was teaching, taking
ancient Greece and World War IIat the same time.
And in ancient Greece we weretalking about the Anabasis of
(02:25):
Xenophon.
And at one point they stop atthis location on the Black Sea
and Xenophon goes on and onabout what a great site it would
be for a colony and there'sgood defensibility, good river,
good soil, all these otherthings.
And I'm thinking, well, if thisis so great, why wasn't it
already settled?
And then in World War II, thatexact same week, we're talking
(02:46):
about the Lebensraum of AdolfHitler and how they needed this
extra living space for Germanyso that they would have access
for their resources and allthose kinds of things.
And to me that just screamedgeography matters.
Geography is one of the mostimportant parts of history and
so I kind of focused ongeographic history at that point
(03:09):
.
And then, after I finished thatbachelor's degree, my military
career needed me to get a degreein intelligence studies and I
really focused on thegeographical aspect of
collecting intelligence.
And so you know, war today isall about resources, whether
it's oil or water or somethingelse.
You know it's all about that.
(03:31):
So that really the geographicaspect of it really came
together for me in all of thoseareas of history.
So when I get to my master'sthesis, after I decide after all
that time I'm going to go aheadand become a history teacher,
first step is a master's thesis.
And when I, or a master's, whenI get to the thesis, I'm living
(03:53):
in Ranger and I have access toall of these amazing primary
sources.
And we had the.
We had an oil boom in 1917 herethat really changed all of
Texas history.
At that point Everythingchanged for Texas.
So I focused on justinfrastructure for that master's
and that was tedious and boring.
(04:16):
Nobody wants to ever read thatpart.
But there were some veryexciting things.
You know how many miles of roaddid they put in and what did
the contracts look like, and thesewage and plumbing and all
those infrastructure details.
That are, like I said, tedious.
But there's aspects that arereally exciting, like 100,000
people at its absolute maxestimate.
(04:39):
100,000 people showed up hereover a three-month time period
when the population had been 800.
So what do you do with that?
And that was the core of thethesis, and now it's been the
core of a lot of the other workI've done since then.
All of my books andpresentation and things like
(05:00):
that are all based oninformation I learned during
that experience.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, that's really a fascinating study
because you're absolutely right,I spent time after my degree as
a landman.
That's one of my famous 27 jobsthat I've had.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I think it's more like 37, James.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I've had a lot of jobs.
The thing about being in thelandman and looking at that
aspect of the oil business, theleasing of land, uh, to do
drilling on is you're exactlyright?
Is you know in those contracts?
Uh, the landowners say you canbuild this many roads, or they
in in some more recent ones,they want a right.
(05:42):
It has to be a certain way.
And how do you deal with allthe people coming in and leaving
the facilities?
All of that is something thatprobably as historians we kind
of gloss over.
But it's really thatinfrastructure that leaves a
lasting mark on the landscapeand I think we ignore that a lot
(06:09):
in history.
So I think that's veryinteresting.
And I agree with you aboutgeography.
You know, scott and I, one ofour professors was Don Walker
for Texas History, epitech, andDon always talked about
geography, geography, I mean hedidn't emphasize a lot, but in
texas history we look atgeography.
Today, students come in andthey really don't have much
(06:33):
geography back they really don't.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I I still.
I remember because don walkertaught us is.
I still start every one of mytexas history classes.
The first week is te geographyand what it is.
You know the old how old is DWmining's book now?
But it's still.
You know, it's still aproposfor teaching that.
It's just well.
The geography is such a bigthing.
I think it's interesting.
You say that.
I mean now when you starttalking about Greece and Rome,
(06:57):
you're way out of Gina and I'sleague.
So we don't know anything aboutall that stuff.
We can't even pronounce it, soyou're way ahead of us.
But I always like to point outthe same thing.
I mean, we think about it.
You know, the Spanish came insettlements in the south and in
Texas early.
The Spanish didn't build anytowns on the Gulf Coast.
You know why?
Because hurricanes hit it andit did it.
(07:18):
It's not until the 20th centurywhen idiots decided to come in
and build houses right on thecoast.
So yeah, I can get lost in amap.
Geography is extremelyimportant.
I think that that's where didyou get?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
your degrees, helen?
Uh, so my first historybachelor's was at austin p
university in clarksville,tennessee, and then I got my
second history or myintelligence studies degree and
my master's thesis throughAmerican military university.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, my MLIS came fromuniversity of Southern
Mississippi.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh, so were you stationed?
You said you were in the, inthe military.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Were you stationed at Fort Campbell?
I am retired army.
Yeah, was you at Fort Campbell.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Was that where you were?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Right Fort Campbell.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Helen, can you tell me what the Helen Cozart
collection at the library of?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
No, Am I in there?
Oh, I've done a bunch of theVeterans History Project oral
interviews and they might beunder my name, but they
shouldn't be.
They should be under theindividual names.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
They're in the Ellen Cozart collection.
They're under your name in theLibrary of Congress, if you
haven't ever looked that up?
You should.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Oh yeah, I've never looked it up.
I've actually never gone backto follow up any of them.
I just send them off to theLibrary of Congress and be done
with them.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Well, helen, tell us about this upcoming exhibit that
you have You're talking about.
It has to do with the oil boomand ranger, the famous oil.
I mean, whoever teaches Texasdoesn't talk about ranger.
It is the epitome of a boomtown in Texas that it came on.
So tell us about the exhibit,things like you know.
I mean, when did you decide toput it up?
What's it about?
(08:53):
What did you decide to includein the exhibit, maybe?
What did you decide not toinclude in the exhibit?
All those things are relevant,so tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
We had to cut so much , oh my gosh.
So once I got hired here almostfour years ago, we started
doing a traveling exhibit in thelibrary every semester and we
get that funding for theshipping and the advertising and
stuff from humanities Texas,which is a really great
organization.
They are a part of the nationalendowment for the humanities,
(09:26):
so they get a pot of money andthen they can distribute it
around Texas.
And we've done those travelingexhibits.
I've done seven or eight nowbut we started to kind of run
out.
Humanities Texas has a handfulthey do and we've gotten them.
Like just recently we had onefrom the National Health
Libraries and it was aboutmedical experimentation.
(09:50):
So that came here, it was herefor about six weeks and then we
ship it on to the next school.
But even those are kind of thin.
There's not.
I don't think I could sustainthat level one every semester
for the next 15 years.
There's just not that many outthere.
And so when I was talking tothe director of library services
(10:10):
about it he says well, whydon't we just make our own?
I jumped all over that.
We figured out what we wanted totalk about and we applied for a
grant from Humanities Texas.
They funded the entire thing.
And it starts out because Ifeel very strongly about Ranger
being an important part of Texashistory.
We don't do enough tourism herebut I would love to develop
(10:33):
that.
I'm on the Ranger HistoricalPreservation Society and I was
in the Historic Commission thatputs up the historical markers,
those kinds of things, and soI've done a lot of the history
around Ranger with a little coregroup of people that we work
with, about a dozen of us tryingto get that started, and Ranger
(10:54):
College is working hard to getintegrated good into the
community so that we all worktogether to develop the
community even more.
And we decided this exhibit.
It starts out focusing onRanger but it's called Black
Gold, a History of TexasBoomtowns, and so we talk about
all, not all.
There's no way you could talkabout all of the boomtowns but
(11:16):
many of the other boomtowns inTexas and how the booms
progressed across the state.
Because you know, once we gotstarted here in Ranger in 1917,
there were a lot of things wedidn't know about technology and
environmental resources andprotection.
That caused real environmentaldamage.
(11:36):
But it also used up all of ourreadily available oil and just
about that time then we have oilbooms opening up further down
the road, moving down towardsMidland and Odessa and then up
into the panhandle and stuff.
So those booms walked acrossthe state.
As each one got used up and aswe progressed across the state
(11:57):
we also became better atmanaging them and better at
getting in the infrastructure.
In Ranger we had places wherethey literally would dig pits
and put the oil on the surfacebecause there were no pipelines
to move the oil out.
And that's a scary thing tolook back on 100 years later and
not know if your land was anoil pit Right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So let me ask you a question about that.
Has one?
Has there been any ecologicaldamage, as far as knows, from
that open pit wells that theyused to drill in those boom
towns like you're mentioning?
And it also just shows us howfar technology you know, and in
(12:42):
those days natural gas was seenas waste, so it was just let go
Right At that time wasn't capped.
Now you've got what's calledchristmas trees that regulate
the oils whenever it first blows, but in those days it was just,
you know it, just like shakingup a coke can and pulling the
(13:03):
tab right, uh, and that's whyyou had those open pits just to
collect the oil that was blowingout.
So much technology has changed.
I don't think most peoplerealize that.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
So the gushers are part of what we talk about and
how bad they are for theenvironment.
It took an average of 10 daysto seal a gusher and that just
meant that much oil constantlyblowing out into the air which
got into the ground.
And I don't know if there'sbeen a modern survey taken of
the environment here.
There should be, but there'slike in the Big Thicket part of
(13:38):
Texas.
There's been all sorts ofenvironmental surveys done there
and they've even turned it intoa national preserve so that
they can try to recover some ofthat land.
But it just it destroyedhabitats.
It gets on the animals.
They can no longer insulatethemselves.
Very, very bad for theenvironment to do those gushers.
(14:00):
Also, a problem at the time wasthe rule of capture and so the
rule of capture.
You and I have property nextdoor to each other.
I have oil, but we're really inthe same oil pit basically.
So if I take all the oil, youdon't get any.
So you put your own well, inthere real fast and we're both
taking oil but neither of us hasanything we can do with it
(14:22):
because there's no pipelines orany place to get it out.
Now there's proration.
You're only allowed to take acertain amount of oil out of a
hole.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Right, yeah, it was seen as like a wild animal right
and wherever it runs that'swhere, that's who owns it and
that's how early Texas famouslyit's spindle top, of course, the
big gusher that ushered inreally the modern Texas oil
industry, so you know, spewedover a hundred thousand gallons
a day for a week before theycapped that sucker.
And if you go out there now andlook around where the original
(14:52):
spindle top is, nothing growsthere.
I mean it's a big flat.
You know Permian Basin has allthose out there around Kermit,
for example, and Wink Sink holesand everything else where
basically it's devastated,mainly from the oil they let
collect, just like you said, inthe 1920s and the 1930s into the
(15:13):
1940s, before they actuallycame up with ways to stop that
collection and things like that.
So when does the exhibit open,helen, tell us that, and how
will the public get to see itand things like that?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So it is in manufacturing now.
We expect to have it back inabout 10 days and in theory I
could go ahead and put it out.
We're going to have a receptionhere at the college that we
haven't decided the date yetbecause I don't know the exact
date I'm going to receive it.
We'll have a reception here andthen its permanent home will be
in the library.
So whenever it's not outtraveling it will be viewable
(15:48):
here at the Ranger CollegeLibrary.
We already have a few thingslaid on.
The Eastland County Museum isgoing to have it through the
whole month of August.
We've got arrangements with allof the schools in the county.
On a parent's day or a careerday or something, the exhibit's
going to go out there just for asingle day and that way people
can view it there.
(16:08):
We plan to take it out toevents like we have Rip Fest
celebrating Ulrip.
You know everybody knows ourfrog right, our horn toad.
So we go out to Rip Fest and weput it out with the rest of the
vendors that are out at RipFest and those are the plans.
I do have a webpage that has acalendar on it.
I'll send you guys the link sothat you can post it with show
(16:30):
notes and people can email me toschedule it Anything that's not
already scheduled.
On the dates that are scheduledI'm including the location and
the hours of the facility.
So if you want to schedule itfor yourself, go ahead and send
me all that information we canget it out with.
If it has to be shipped,because a lot of places I'll
drive to.
If you want it in Weatherford,I'll places I'll drive to.
If you want it in weatherford,I'll drive it over there.
(16:51):
If you want it in abilene I'lldrive it over to you.
But if you want it, you know,in houston or nacogdoches, then
it's got to be mailed and thereceiving museum or school will
have to pay for the shipping andany advertising of their own.
But the exhibit itself is free.
If you want to come get it, youcan do that and save shipping.
If somebody out in New York orChicago wants it, that's the
(17:13):
only cost they'll be to.
It is the shipping.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, that's great.
Have you contacted per se?
The Petroleum Museum in Midlandmight be a good place to put it
up.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
They were very helpful on approving some of the
photographs that we were ableto use on the exhibit and they
haven't scheduled anything yet,but it's entirely possible it
could end up out there.
I do know it's going to go outto the Midland Rockhounds minor
league baseball team.
It's going to go out there forat least one weekend, but we
haven't scheduled it yet.
But when I wrote him forpermission to use his icon for
(17:44):
the Rockhounds he was so excitedand I was so glad that somebody
was excited about it, you know.
So we haven't scheduled it butit's going out there.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, well, good, you know the president of Midland
College is a friend of Gina.
We went to graduate school withhim, david Kennedy.
Maybe they would want to dosomething.
We'll be glad to point in thatdirection, if that's a thing.
This is fascinating.
When you do come up with theseexhibits and this is probably a
big two for the Ranger Library,that's probably not something
that you do.
(18:13):
It's great.
So how did you come?
I know you've done lots ofthings.
How did you come to work?
You said that you took a longroad to being a librarian.
How did you come to work at theRanger College Library?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So after I got my first master's and I was
interested in teaching really,without teaching experience you
can't get a teaching job so Iadjuncted, like we talked before
.
I was at Cisco, I was at DallasCollege, I was at Ranger
College doing adjuncting and Ireally enjoyed that.
But after three or four yearsof that it kind of became more
(18:46):
about finding full time workthan it was about teaching.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Adjuncting's a young person's job, not for people
that are not just real young.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So I applied for a job at Ranger College in the
financial aid office but I hadalready been working here and
the HR guy knew me and he saidwhy aren't you applying for the
library job?
I said well, the jobdescription says it needs an
MLIS and I don't have one.
He said we'll see what we cando about that.
So we talked to the librarianand I didn't even like refill
(19:17):
out another application, I justtalked to the head librarian and
started working here a coupleof days later and I went the
next semester.
I started school at Universityof Southern Mississippi to get
that MLIS.
So I was qualified for my job.
But I really I belong here andthat makes me so happy because a
long time I had been saying ifI had it to do all over again,
(19:38):
I'd be a librarian.
And I did have it to do allover again and I got the
opportunity.
And now, instead of just thestudents in my classes, I really
do get to help all the students.
You know, I helped them learnhow to do research and I help
them learn how to writeparagraphs and I learn how I
teach them how to do all ofthese things that I was teaching
in the classroom to 22 students.
(19:59):
Now I have the entire studentbody of the college that I'm
helping and I like that verymuch.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How'd you end up in Texas?
That's probably a story initself also, so we're actually
kind of from here.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
My dad graduated from Ranger High School and he was
born in Ranger.
But my grandfather was military.
My father was military.
I became military, so Rangerbecame a place we come back to
when we retire from the Army,and so I didn't grow up here and
I only spent a few summervacations here.
I don't really know people, butI'm from here, so my last name
(20:32):
is Cozart.
People say, are you related to?
And I'm like, yes, may havenever met him, but I related to
him.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Like our names.
If you chose to be a price,we're related to you Somehow,
some way, we're related to you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, exactly, I don't know how, but it's there.
So I'm from here, but I'm notfrom here.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I wanted to ask you a question about Ranger and you
were talking about tourism.
It's right on I-20, or at leastpart of the county is on I-20.
Because I pass by it wheneverI'm going out to West Texas from
time to time or going to Dallasfrom West Texas, not far from
(21:12):
Abilene.
So One thing that I always findamazing, that I think is often
overlooked when we're talkingabout Texas history.
We talk about agriculture inTexas history and everybody
thinks Texas longhorn cows,Texas everybody has a horse and
Texas, you know, oil, maybe windfarms.
(21:33):
Nobody talks about Texaspeanuts yes, Gorman, peanuts
farms.
Nobody talks about texaspeanuts yes.
So I'm always amazed.
I remember the first time Ithink I was around coming up
through cherokee and whatnot,and there's these peanut mills.
Tell us about how in the worlddid peanuts get started in?
I guess that's rolling plains,right, or is it um?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
we're at the very edge of the hill country and
we're in Fort's Trail region ofthe Heritage Trails.
So we're we're at that crosstimbers line, where we're on the
desert side and Breckenridge ison the forest side of it.
You know so the earliestfarmers we had settlements here
in the 1860s and those farmersare the ones that brought in the
peanuts had settlements here inthe 1860s and those farmers are
(22:16):
the ones that brought in thepeanuts.
And by 1917, there had been areally severe drought and people
were abandoning their property.
When the oil came in you sawpeople flocking back here
because they owned property.
They'd been abandoned becausethe drought had been so bad, but
the peanuts came back prettygood.
After that.
There was a processing planthere in Ranger for a long time.
(22:36):
My grandfather worked in itafter he retired from the Army.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I had no idea that peanut culture had been in that
region since the 1860s, that'sreally One of the first crops.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
That and cotton.
There's cotton everywhere,though, right.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah but I mean that's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You know, gene, they started growing a lot of.
You know this challenge.
Exactly right.
They started growing peanutsearly there in that across
trimbers region as it moved inbut you know one of the big
centers of peanuts.
Now, as long as we're talkingabout, let's talk about way out
in west texas by seminoles ingaines county.
A lot of peanuts up now uhstrawberries you know ropesville
(23:17):
, ropesville right by lava.
A lot of peanuts on there and Ithink our last cross.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I think our last processing center is in gorman,
which is lower, is in thesouthern part of the county so
let me ask you a question, sinceyou, since you brought in
ropesville also, there's a lotof vineyards that are now being
put in out in that region, upand down that road, brown Hill
Highway.
So has wine culture made it outto Ranger yet?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
No, not really.
We have a vineyard in RisingStar, which is also in the
southern part of the county, andI believe there's a newer
vineyard in Cisco, which is alsothat's the west side of the
county.
We don't do a whole lot of ithere in Ranger.
I don't know why, really.
I know we have some grapes inour house.
We imported a little strandfrom Kentucky many years ago and
just kind of put it out thereand it sort of took its own
(24:10):
initiative and became the wholeback wall of the house.
But yeah, I don't know of awhole lot of people here yet in
Ranger, on the west side of thecounty, that are doing much with
wine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So, if people want to come to Ranger, what can they
expect to see?
What kind of you know we'retalking about tourism again what
kind of things besides themuseum, besides the Ranger
College, what things might theylook for?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
the ranger college.
Uh, what things might they lookfor?
Uh, so we have the the oil boommuseum, which is in our old
railroad station, and therailroad station was built in
1924, I think, to accommodatethe, um the numbers of trains
that were bringing goods in.
At one point we had 10 lumberyards here in Ranger because
there was so much housingconstruction going on for that
(25:01):
100,000 people.
Now I don't really believe itwas 100,000.
I think it was probably closerto 40.
But if you read Boy's House yougot to believe him right.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Well, you don't have to believe him.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I sometimes feel bad about denigrating Boy's house,
but in the end he was afolklorist, not a real, you know
that's a.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
That's a very charitable way to put it, helen.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah so you know he liked a hundred thousand.
I think it was probably closerto 40.
The 1920 census came in at 22,000, which is still a big jump
from 800.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It was.
It's just FYI.
My maternal grandfather cameand worked on that boom.
He left Now not the boom, hewasn't the boom, he came later
but he worked in the oil fieldaround there in the late 1920s
1930s.
He was in Oklahoma before thatand did that kind of work.
(25:58):
As we're coming to the end, Iwant you to touch on something
that I really want you to talkabout, because it's something
that you can speak to, is a bigpart of what's happening to the
historical profession andparticularly the historical
education profession as a whole.
You did a lot of work as acontingent faculty and got into
this as contingent faculty andnow, while you're doing
(26:20):
something I'm sure you love it'syou know you moved to library
as no or no longer as a teaching, and doing this, tell us just.
I want to say a glimpse in thelife of someone teaching at
three different places,sometimes of a contingent
faculty member, and how tough itis and how much you have to
persevere really to make it.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So all my classes at Dallas were in person and I got
a little apartment there.
To you know, I'd go up onSunday night and stay and come
home Thursday afternoon.
My Cisco and Ranger classeswere all online.
So I would get off at Dallas,I'd go to my little apartment
and then I would sit and dograding and stuff for the
classes for the other schoolsand I mean it was, it was all
(27:03):
right.
I would so much rather beface-to-face.
I wish the online courses wouldjust go away.
Students don't learn nearly asmuch online.
Face-to-face is just.
You just know when they get it,you know when you need to
rethink it, when you need torestate it, you know which
students need more help, becauseyou can see it in their eyes
and I just, I really loveface-to-face, but it is.
(27:26):
It's really challenging.
There's a legal limit A personcan only adjunct at three
classes at a college, and so inorder to actually make enough
money to pay rent, you've got toadjunct at two or three
different schools, which ends upbeing nine, sometimes 12
classes, and a regular professorhas a four or five schedule or
(27:48):
a five four schedule Plus.
You know you've got yourwriting on top of that, but you
know that's half the course loadthat an adjunct has, but an
adjunct makes less than half themoney.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
It's an exploitive system.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
It is very much so it honestly is.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And it's just I don't kind of wish we could find some
other way to do this, but withadministrators and such I don't
know.
And I think it's going to getworse as we get into the future.
And in fact in Texasparticularly, I really think at
all schools, two years, fouryears, the tenured track
professor is going to go away.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
They're not going to.
It's also a funding issue.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
We don't tenure anyone here anymore.
We only have one person lefttenured who was grandfathered in
from like 18 years ago, whenthey changed it ago when they
changed it.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It's also a funding issue, because you know the
state.
One of the things we said youknow, a couple of years ago is
that instead of saying we're astate-sponsored institution,
we're just a state institution,because when I was going to
college this was back in the 80sand early 90s the state was
paying 60% of the bill, andtoday they've gotten away from
that.
They're paying less than 20.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
At SFA right now our budget 11%.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Wow, 11% is provided, so the state recently passed a
new funding rule for communitycolleges that takes away the FTE
component of it and makes itabout numbers of students that
graduate.
And each type of student gets acertain amount of money for
graduations and for certificatesand things like that, and I
think in the end, the schoolsare all going to end up getting
(29:28):
more money.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Actually, I'm glad you brought that up, because
when I was working in anadministration about 10 years
ago, the talk was that's how, inthe state, it was going to go.
It was going to be morecompletion-based rather than
enrollment people in the seats,and so I see that they finally
(29:50):
followed through with that,apparently.
Yeah, wow, yeah.
This semester we just finished.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I think, was the first.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Helen, as we get towards the end and these things
always happen.
Since we just started, one ofthe things if you've listened to
our podcast before what we dowith all of our people who come
on the last question they get iswhat do you know?
And it's your opportunity totell us one thing that you want
to leave us with that we have toknow.
So, helen Cozart, what do youknow?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
So I thought about this because I do listen to your
podcast and I have decided thatwhat I really do know is I know
my superpower, and mysuperpower I think of it as
standing on the shoulders ofgiants, not real creative myself
, but if you have an idea, I canmake that idea something that's
good for me and my students andmy school, and I can just take
it from from your little idea tomy full blown thing.
(30:44):
So I have my superpowers takingfrom other people standing on
the shoulders of giants.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
You know that's uh, that that sounds like a, like a
simple thing, but really, as Iget older, I think that's a very
important realization and Iknow a lot of people say that in
their dissertations, theirthesis.
But you know it is.
We all have to work together.
(31:12):
We all build and take from eachother and borrow from each
other, and it's important toknow that we're not all
ourselves right, we're not itourselves and a lot of people
that need to remember that.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Oh, I think the best story I love about this because
I still do it is that we talkedabout Don Walker and we all
steal from things.
And so when I started teachingin chemistry at SFA, don had a
genius, his little one page.
This is how you do a bookreview thing that he does.
And you know he had that nicequote at the end askew
(31:49):
obfuscation andsesquipedalianism right, which
is self-explanatory.
Well, I just basically copiedand pasted that.
That became something I handedout and I felt, well, I need to
tell don.
I did that.
So, uh, next time we talked Isaid I said, don, by the way, I
stole your book review thing, soI'll give you full credit.
He goes oh, don't do that, hell, I sold, stole it from somebody
(32:10):
at lh who I don't even rememberwho it was.
So so we all borrow everythingwe have.
Tell them this has beenfantastic.
Folks, as you're listening,remember the Ranger Oil Boom
exhibit at Ranger College.
As you're hurtling down I-20trying to get someplace God, I
hope you're not going to Abilene, but you know if you have to go
(32:30):
to Abilene.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
We always go to.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Abilene.
I have a love hate where Ishould go to Abilene.
I was born in Abilene and now Idon't ever want to go back.
But anyway, if you do that,stop in at Ranger and they think
they have good restaurants.
If you have that, stop in atRanger and see the exhibit.
Helen, thanks for coming onwith us, it's been fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Thank you.
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