Submitted by Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
For the first time in the history of the college, NTCC students, in this case, three Presidential Scholars, comprised the panel of a professional association. At the recent meeting of the 2018 East Texas Historical Association in Nacogdoches, 11-13 October, Jordan Whelchel (left), Matthew Chambers, and Karla Fuentes all presented major essays in Texas history. Dr. Andrew P. Yox, Honors Director, chaired the all-NTCC panel.
Matthew Chambers began with his prize-winning work on the Dallas elite. Using the Boston Brahmins as a point of comparison, Chambers, showed how elite groups like the Dallas “Big Rich” used fictional camouflage to disguise their influence. In this case, the mythic cover, was the mega-legend, the TV series, Dallas, of the 1980s. Jordan Whelchel located the Texas Revolution as a median case between the extreme tumult of European revolutions, and the American Revolution. Texas leaders endured a “psychological guillotine” as they experienced the backlash of their imported, immigrant-led uprising. Finally, Karla Fuentes argued that the cosmetics entrepreneur, Mary Kay, represented an authentic regional response to feminism, and the corporate culture of the late-twentieth century. Kay essentially created her own corporate subculture from the strands of traditional femininity, older legacies of entrepreneurship, and Evangelical Christianity.
Fuentes, who began her work last summer, also set a precedent as the first freshman from the college to present at a professional conference.
Questions from the audience took the session to the full 75 minutes. Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, noted that the three NTCC student presenters were “spirited, creative, and consistent enough to shine at a level that may well bring more of our student panels to the ETHA. It was amazing to hear a Mr. Ken Judkins, from Marshall, a member of the audience, say that, this was the first panel he went to, where all three presenters, ‘were good’. At a professional conference like the ETHA, with Ph.D. candidates, professors, columnists, and retired historians, this was an impressive attainment.”
