Burroughs Waltrip:
CLASS OF 1945
Stephen F. Austin High SchoolClass of 1945
Austin, TX
Luling High SchoolClass of 1946
Luling, TX
Southwestern High SchoolClass of 1945
Waxahachie, TX
Allan Junior High SchoolClass of 1942
Austin, TX
Palm Elementary SchoolClass of 1940
Austin, TX
Burroughs's Story
I don't really expect anyone from AHS to remember me, but just in case....
I came up through Palm elementary and Allan Junier High. During the war all the Austin schools were so crowded we were kept in grade school through 7-A and in junior high through 10-A. (And don't forget, all of us in my 5-B grade level skipped the entire sixth grade when AISD added the sixth grade back onto the Austin syustem.)
I went to AHS from Allan at mid-term and was in the second semester of the tenth grade at AHS. During the summer of 1943 I applied for admission to the High School of Southwestern Bible Institute (SBI) at Waxahachie and entered the first semester of eleventh grade there that Fall. In January of 1945 I returned to Austin and completed the second semester of twelfth grade.
A wonderful lady in the registrar's office noticed I hadn't sufficient credits to graduate from Austin High. The church school in Waxahachie met minimam state requirements for graduation but AHS required more than the minimum. She contacted the registrar at SBI and made arreangements for me to graduate from SBI High School with my former classmates there. Sooo...... I graduated SBI High School of Friday night, 25 May 1945, had my 17th birthday Sunday, 27 May and was in the Navy Recruiting Office (in what was then "The Old Post Office Building" on West Sixth at Brazos) the next day, Monday; however I wasn't sworn-in until 13 June 1945. Following a six-month tour of duty at the Fleet Print Shop, Navy Shipyard, Pearl Harbor, TH, I was sent to Camp Wallace, Galveston, to be discharged "on points."
Wanting to study Marine Biology on my GI Bill at the University, I planned to take some post grad classes at AHS to be better prepared for UT. Dear old Weldon Covington had gotten me started playing tumpet in Palm School, endured my "playing" briefly in Allan Jr.High, and my younger brother, Bill, had played saxophone under his direction from way back there, as well. Hoping to get into the Maroon Band while in post-grad status, I attended early morning pre-school band wet grass marching practices with Bill. Then the axe fell. The morning I reported to the registrar's office to enroll as a post-grad student, she was forced to tell me AHS was overloaded with regular students; there would be no post-grad students admitted that semester.
Making a quick dash to Waxahachie I was able to enroll in SBI's Junior College, and also managed to earn a Private Pilot License on Piper Cubs, thanks to my GI Bill benefits. (That license paid-off handsome ly some 31 years later!)After one semester I returned to Austin to work - first as Office Boy, then as Senate Reporter - for the Texas Legislative Service in the Texas Legislature's 1947 session. A nice side benefit to that job: Retired Army General "Skinny" Wainright, of WWII Corregidor fame visited his friend, the senior Senator (who's desk was ten or twelve feet from mine), so I got to see him up close a good number of times. Oh, this reminds me - I got to see Admiral of the Navy Chester Nimitz and hear him speak at Gregory Gym shortly after I enlisted in the Navy.
I began playing night gigs on trumpet in a dance band during my time with TLS in the Texas Senate. I'd seen several official Navy Unit Bands durng my 13-month's active duty and learned of the United States School of Music at Washington, DC. Having advanced my playing ability by practicing a lot and performing with the band in that semester of junior college, I decided I'd try to get into the Navy School o...Expand for more
f Music, and went to the Recruiting Office to apply for an audition. Much paperwork and a couple fo Letters of Recommendation were required and taken care of. Not much later, when I phoned the Navy Recuiter to ask how my School of Music audition application was coming alonng, he told me my papers had been lost but he promised to let me know if and when they were found.
A musician buddy from SBI, whose brother was in charge of the Youth For Christ programs in Indiana, had gone to Elkhart, too, and had been after me to join him there. with my Navy papers lost, I told him I had bought a ticket would soon take a bus to Elkhart. The day before I was due to board the bus for Indiana I had a call from the Recruiter; my papers had been found and I would be sent to Washington to audition for admission to the Navy School of Music. I had to tell him I had made another committment and was unable to go to Washington.
Soon after arriving In Elkhart, my buddy and I formed a brass quartet and began perfoming in Youth for Christ rallies in Elkhart and other cities. I found a job with C. G. Conn, Ltd., the famous old musical instrument maker. After a while, building Pan American (Conn's student line) trumpets, a new man came in. As we became acquainted I learned he was an ex-Navy Muscian who had been a member of the Unit Band aboard the battleship USS TENNESSEE in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on 7 December 1945. His stories of his adventures as a Navy Musician re-aroused my interest and enthusiasm for attending the Navy School of Music and qualifying as a rated Navy Musician.
In a letter to the Chief Petty Officer at the Navy Recruiting Office at Austin, whom I'd gotten to know, I asked if the papers authorizing my audition for the School of Music remained valid. His respnse was in the affirmative, but only if I returned to Austin to reactivate them. My buddy (who had left Armstrong Flute Co. and was now with Buescher Instruments) and I each gave two-weeks notice to our respective employers (and worked them) before departing Elkhart for Austin in the 1928 Willys "Whippet" we had pooled our slim resources to purchase together. Upon our arrival at Austin he bought my half of the Whippet and drove it to Waxahachie to visit his mother.
A day or two in Austin saw my papers updated, orders to the Navy School of Music printed and a train ticket to Washington, DC, issued to me. Miraculousy - it seemed a miracle to me, anyway! - I passed the audition and was accepted into the School of Music. (Many, many years later while looking through an article in a book about WWII, I came upon a photograph in which could be seen a Navy Unit Band aboard USS MISSOURI during the signing of the Japanese surrender document. The Chief Musician in charge if rhe band was the very Chief who had conducted my entrance audition at the School of Music in March 1948!
Upon graduating from the School of Music I was sent to the band aboard a cruiser headed for the Mediterranean Sea. Eventually, Iserved in three cruisers and made a second extended Med cruise before transferringto the band at Corpus Christi. Korea popped while I was on leave, en route to Corpus,so I missed out on that war just as I did with WWII.. Was discharged in March 1953, had various jobsm including as Yard Clerk at the Railroad's switchyard in Austin, Went back on active duty, had refresher training at the School of Music, did a tour at Kodiak, Alaska, backto the School as a student bandmaster, thento Philadelphia Navy Yard.
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