John Anderson McCurdy
and the Texas Alumni Association
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When U.S. Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory completed his political career with the Woodrow Wilson administration and returned home to Texas in 1924, he resumed his efforts to expand the physical plant at his alma mater, The University of Texas. He had long dreamed of a gymnasium and student union on campus and began to enlist the help of students and the Ex-Students' Association (ESA) to raise money for construction. As Gregory observed, the ESA "could render no greater service to the University than to assist in placing on campus . . . buildings around which the scattered threads of student life could be gathered." By 1926, Gregory was the president of the Ex-Students' Association, but the organization needed a hands-on executive secretary (now called the executive director) who would lead the building campaign, which was called "the University Union Project." 
At that time a UT graduate named John Anderson McCurdy was living in Sweetwater, Texas, and serving as the secretary of their Board of City Development. McCurdy was experienced in the area of building and loans, had worked with the Austin Chamber of Commerce as a student, and came highly recommended to Gregory. The former UT Regent invited McCurdy to his Houston home to discuss the future of The University of Texas and how the Ex-Students' Association could become a leader in revitalizing the University. Gregory was joined by UT alumnus Will C. Hogg, an oil man, financier, and son of Governor Jim Hogg. For several days the two men poured out their ideas to McCurdy, who agreed to accept the position as executive secretary of the Ex-Students' Association. He served in that capacity for the next 29 years and spearheaded the fundraising campaign that built four of UT's landmark buildings--the Texas Union, Gregory Gym, Anna Hiss Gym, and Hogg Memorial Auditorium. John Anderson McCurdy was born February 6, 1895, in Cuero, Texas. His father was Andrew Howlett Porter McCurdy, a Presbyterian minister serving the church at Cuero. In 1905, the elder McCurdy accepted the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church in Brownwood, Texas, and later took his family to New Mexico to homestead land south of Deming. In 1914, the family moved to San Antonio. To help with family finances, John worked in construction, at a battery manufacturing plant, and in the service department of an automobile agency. 
At the beginning of World War I, John McCurdy enlisted in the Army Air Service. After basic training at The University of Texas campus, he was sent back to San Antonio to Kelly Field for flight training. He made the first night landing at Kelly and later served as chief of flying operations at Eberts Field in Arkansas. After the war, he was offered tempting opportunities to continue flying as a test pilot, but he returned to The University of Texas, where he received a B.B.A. degree in 1922. After graduation, he went to Sweetwater as secretary of the Board of City Development. He started a building and loan association, became involved in public school affairs, and when the Ku Klux Klan reared its head in Sweetwater, McCurdy took a strong stand and helped marshal community opposition. He married May Lea Guthrie, his college sweetheart, in 1924. 
Three years before Thomas Watt Gregory summoned McCurdy to Houston, oil had been discovered on University land in West Texas. Oil revenues in 1925, for example, had increased to nearly $4 million and were growing by $2,000 a day. This new windfall had encouraged Gregory and Will Hogg to pursue their ambition to replace the World War I shacks that dotted the campus with an enduring legacy in stone. But despite the enthusiasm of students, faculty, and alumni, the University administration and Board of Regents were cool to the University Union Project. The Regents felt that their first responsibility was to provide necessary classroom buildings and laboratories, and they did not give high priority to the erection of buildings that would be used for physical, social, and recreational activities. Gregory, McCurdy, and ESA persisted with their idea to fund a student union, two gyms, and an auditorium. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, an undeclared struggle took place between McCurdy's alumni association and the UT leadership. For example, William James Battle, former president of the University, classics professor, and chairman of the University's building committee, refused to allow the architects for the Union Project to have offices on campus. In retaliation, John McCurdy offered his office, which was an old five-room house on San Antonio near 23rd street. Greene, LaRoche and Dahl set up drafting tables there and McCurdy was delighted to share the work of planning. Many nights he would stay on until midnight poring over the plans. He arranged meetings between the architects and the faculty and staff who would be using the buildings. He designed fold-down arms for the chairs in Hogg Memorial Auditorium, to be used when lectures were held there. (The manufacturing company patented his design.) McCurdy also helped to design the electrical switchboard in the auditorium and carefully planned the arrangement of rooms and services. After these buildings were completed, ESA became active in an effort to amend the Texas Constitution to allow UT to issue bonds against the income from its endowment (Permanent University Fund) for building purposes. The people of Texas approved the referendum in 1931. In spite of this public endorsement, the Regents continued to oppose the measure and introduced legislation to kill the amendment. They felt that endowment funds would be spent too rapidly. This contentious debate led to three constitutional amendments over a 10-year period. In the end, McCurdy and ESA prevailed, and the University Union Project was funded in part by income from the sale of public bonds. Since the 1930s, most of UT's buildings have been financed by amortized bonds. During McCurdy's tenure, UT alumni clubs spread throughout the nation and were given strong support from the central association office in Austin. This created closer ties between alumni and their alma mater. Spring Round-Up, an event directed by ESA, united alumni and students in a series of campus activities enthusiastically supported by student organizations and university staff. McCurdy was a strong supporter of UT President Homer Rainey (1939-44), the progressive president who vigorously defended academic freedom in a struggle against the Board of Regents. Rainey was fired in spite of the support of students and faculty. Friends and associates of John McCurdy observed that the ESA executive secretary never fully recovered from the Rainey dismissal. 
In 1956, John McCurdy resigned after almost 30 years of service to The University of Texas at Austin. In his resignation letter he maintained that the Ex-Students' Association had been "the conscience of the University" and "a balance wheel, a defender of right, of justice, of academic freedom. It has approached the problems of the University in an objective, nonpolitical, constructive spirit." And he added, "Looking to the future, I can see no limit to the worthwhile things that can and should be done." The next year, his old mentor Walter Long called on him to help in his Texas Legislative Service, a private news service, where McCurdy worked for the next 12 years as a reporter in the House of Representatives. John Anderson McCurdy died on October 15, 1981. From the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s he had expanded and improved the UT alumni association (now called Texas Exes), led the campaign to build four of UT's most popular facilities, and made the organization a vibrant and driving force in the life of The University of Texas at Austin.
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