Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Talented Tuesday: TAMU RPTS Stories - The Newsletter - "Park It Here"

As an undergraduate, I attended Texas A&M University in College Station, and majored in Recreation and Parks.  Now the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences (RPTS), it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this spring.

In preparation for an upcoming banquet on April 22, the department has asked "alumni to share memories and stories of your time invested as an RPTS major and celebrate the influence that RPTS has had on your personal lives and professional career."

Given that I was extremely involved in the department, I have quite a bit to share.  As a freshman, I jumped in right away, and started a newsletter for the majors club (Recreation and Parks Society, later Recreation and Parks Club, often abbreviated to RP Club).  I used my electric typewriter to put together the master copy each week, then copies for distribution were made at the department's office.

Here are the mastheads for six of the first seven issues, stacked one on top of each other, showing the progression from "Still Nameless!" to "Newsletter Needs a Name!" to "Newsletter's Gonna Get a Name!" to "No-Name Newsletter (but not for long!)" to the winning name, "Park It Here," suggested by the RP Club secretary, Tomye Folts ('05, Master of Natural Resources Development '08).



By the beginning of the following year, 1976-77, we had a logo too:



I continued to serve as editor for this newsletter through the 1977-78 school year, my last full year in the program, as I graduated in December 1978.  The newsletter logo continued to look exactly the same as it does above (despite what the article says) during my term as editor.  By the second issue of 1976-77, however, we were reproducing the newsletter on goldenrod-colored paper.


© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

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