North Texas Exes News

Greek award

Debbie Denmon (’91), with WFAA-TV, Channel 8, in Dallas-Fort Worth, was awarded the second annual Outstanding Greek Alumni Award by the Office of Greek Life and the North Texas Exes at the Greek Awards Ceremony in February.

Denmon, who was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from UNT, received the award from Amy Ayres (’00 M.Ed.), assistant dean of students for Greek life.

Award of distinction

Renowned sculptor Jesús Moroles (’78) received the Martha Turner NT Exes/Gulf Coast Award of Distinction on April 5 at the Royal Oaks Country Club in Houston.

The fourth annual scholarship gala was hosted by former UNT Regent Martha Turner (’62) and her husband, Glenn Bauguss, with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting scholarship winners from the Gulf Coast area.

Moroles’ large-scale granite works are found in museums and public and corporate collections around the country and abroad.

For information about becoming a member of the North Texas Exes, visit www.unt.edu/alumni or call (940) 565-2834.

Lasting Memory  

• Urcie Timblin, the best dorm mother any girl could hope for

• Bennie Holley, Marquis-Terrell dormitories dietitian, so great a culinary expert that the townspeople came to eat with us on Sundays after church (we all remember the hot rolls, frozen fruit cocktail salads and “skin your throat” sweet pineapple desserts, but we try to forget the daily green scrambled eggs)

• Three girls to a two-girl room until Bruce Hall was completed

• “Man on the floor!” — a cry alerting the girls that a male was about, helping a poor female moving in or out

• Panty raids (not as bad as they sound — we were probably the last “innocent” generation)

• The gigantic white mums our dates gave us to wear to football games with our suits, high-heeled shoes, purses, gloves and hats

• Saturday mornings in the laundry room with only two sinks where we would wash all our clothes by hand: wash, rinse, starch, hang on wooden racks in our rooms to dry, sprinkle, roll up, iron, iron, iron (we had a wardrobe of full-gathered cotton skirts and dresses)

• Walking over to the old Ad Building for the Saturday Night Stage Shows with ’Fessor Graham and the Aces of Collegeland, who provided a forum for North Texas talent like the Dipsy Doodlers, the Moonmaids, dancers Gene Pflug and L.D. Sparkman, and opera star Martha Pender, who ran down the Marquis third-floor stairs with an aria on her lips

• Formal dances on “The Slab” between Marquis and Terrell when the girls invited the boys and the Aces played all the favorites — we’d slow-dance to “Harlem Nocturne” and know it was time to go when we heard “Goodnight, Sweetheart”

• Curfew at 11 p.m. weeknights and midnight on Saturday — three times late and one paid a visit to the formidable dean of women, Imogene Bentley

• Roommate Mary Blake Gaston and the love of my life, Bill King (’51)

• Three years and a lifetime of great friends and great memories

At Homecoming 2001, many Marquis exes met at the dorm and had a tour led by my husband around the older part of campus that was there when we were. We ate at Bruce Hall, where the mural behind the serving line in the old Marquis Cafeteria has been moved. Several groups get together for lunch yearly, and my group of special Marquis-ites have met in Salado for the weekend several times.

—Eugenia Ruth McKinney King ('52)