Presented by the Humble Oil & Refining Company, this production reviews college football highlights from the Southwest Conference during the 1956 season. Narrator Kern Tips recaps regular season conference games between the Baylor University Bears, Texas Tech University Red Raiders, University of Arkansas Razorbacks, Southern Methodist University Mustangs, Rice University Owls, University of Texas at Austin Longhorns, Texas A&M University Aggies, and Texas Christian University. It also takes a break from game highlights to feature several members of the 1956 All-Southwest honor team. At the conclusion, the film follows Southwest Conference champion TCU to the Cotton Bowl Classic game against Syracuse University.
Sportscaster Kern Tips was born in Houston, Texas, on August 23, 1904. He attended Texas A&M University and Rice University (then known as Rice Institute). While studying at Rice, Tips started working at The Houston Chronicle, first as a sports reporter and later as sports editor.
Tips moved to radio in 1935, serving as the general manager of Houston radio station KPRC until 1946. In 1947, he joined the advertising agency Wilkinson-Schiwetz and Tips. When the firm merged with McCann Erickson in 1954, Tips became vice president of the new company.
During his time as a sports editor, general manager, and advertising executive, Tips also served as a sportscaster. He spent 32 years broadcasting Southwest Conference football games and narrating programs such as the Humble Oil and Refining Company’s Southwest Conference Highlights, leading to his nickname the “Voice of the Southwest Conference.”
In 1959, Tips received awards from the Association of Broadcasting Executives in Texas and the Southwest Football Officials Association for his contributions to radio and television as well as his service to the sport, respectively. He was also voted Texas Sportscaster of the Year in a national poll, an honor he received five consecutive years.
In 1966, Tips retired from advertising and took up another career as a producer and narrator of a syndicated series of sports radio shows broadcast throughout the Southwest. He died on August 3, 1967 in Houston. He was 62.
Dance drill teams originated in Texas as pep squads for high school football games that would perform much simpler routines than those often seen nowadays, focusing primarily on marching. The first pep squad was formed by Gussie Nell Davis in 1929 at Greenville High School in Greenville, Texas. In 1939, Davis was recruited by Kilgore College to form the first college drill team, the Rangerettes. The dean of Kilgore College, B. E. Masters, wanted to attract women to the predominantly male school. The Rangerettes set the standard for drill teams across the state and nation, including the signature white boots that make up part of their uniform. The Rangerettes have performed in countries such as Venezuela, Korea, Romania, France, Japan, and Singapore; in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Dublin, Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade; and in the second inaugural parade of President George W. Bush. They have performed at every Cotton Bowl Classic in Dallas since 1951.
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