Protesters delivered message to Texas A&I Alumni Association members at Saturday luncheon. Texas A&I Alumni Association board member Doug Vannoy wasted no time in confronting student protesters who showed up at a luncheon to voice their opinion about the proper name for Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

The protest occurred outside of the Kingsville Center, which was the site of Saturday’s A&I Alumni homecoming luncheon.

“What I was telling them (protesters) was that there is also a Javelina Alumni Association luncheon going on today and we did not put our energy into trying to disrupt their program,” Vannoy said.

“So it does not seem appropriate to me that they would try to do harm to our activity, which is intended to promote the cause and effort we are about, to restore the name of our alma mater.” he said.

“The idea that somebody would do a protest to an activity like this one seems like bad form to me.”

Texas A&M-Kingsville President Kenny Nelson, left, and name change supporter Doug Vannoy faced each other Saturday. (Photo by Rey Sifuentes JR.) Vannoy and Texas A&M University-Kingsville Student Government Association President Kenny

Nelson discussed the ongoing name change debate for about 10 minutes.

Vannoy and his supporters want the university to change its name back to Texas A&I. The A&I supporters were expecting State Senator Eduardo Lucio to speak at Saturday’s luncheon, but the senator has been bed-ridden since undergoing open heart surgery about three weeks ago.

Nelson, however, believes TAMUK’s current name is just fine.

“The A&I Alumni Association — the un-recognized alumni as-sociation — has no regard for what the current student body feels or thinks,” Nelson said.

“They feel wronged by what happened to them in 1993 and as such feel it is appropriate to essentially do the same thing to the current students of Texas A&M-Kingsville.”

Nelson said Vannoy brought up figures during their parking lot conversation.

“He was throwing some numbers around that I am not totally sure are accurate but he was acting as though the name change cost was insignificant and that the school has suffered because of the name change,” Nelson said. “The truth is that our school has nothing but prospered significantly ever since the name change and I feel his facts are flawed as are Senator Lucio’s which he has presented to the senate.”

Nelson offered his own statistics.

“Over the last three years research funding has gone up in the engineering department by $13 million dollars, we have actually crested $20 million dollars which is the first time it has happened at the university,” Nelson said. “President Juarez, before Tallant, actually undertook the first capital project at a cost of $10 million dollars - the first in the school’s history - and it was a total success, we have a pharmacy school and are working on getting a veterinary tech school set up at our university and all of this is possible because we have the gathered resources of the system at our disposal.”

Vannoy and Nelson concluded their conversation and the elder went back inside where he offered his perspective.

“We did not want it to happen, A&I had been the traditional name and there were a lot of people that will tell you the university has changed its name multiple times but anybody that has been around here for a period of time knows the university was called Texas A&I from 1929 until 1993,” Vannoy said. “Now you can make lawyer games as to whether it was Texas College of Arts and Industries but it was known as A&I. One of the reasons we did not like the name change was because the chancellor of the system, the president of the board of regions and the university president here at the time told us they wanted to merge into the A&M system but that our name would not be changed.”

The powers that be, however, eventually broke their word.

“There were solemn promises given to large audiences of people, faculty, staff, alumni and what have you and we made it clear that we did not mind joining the system but did not want our name changed as part of it,” Vannoy continued. “They said ‘We honor that and understand you have your own history, tradition and identity and do not want you to lose that’ so we took them at their word and two years later they changed their mind because State Senator Carlos Truan threatened to cut the budget of the system $1 million dollars a day until they called a meeting. The meeting was called very quickly - and they did not file notice with the secretary of state’s office - and everyone said they were not going to let the system get hurt just over A&I so they threw us under the bus.”

Vannoy’s side sued and acquired an injunction which made the meeting and the first name change void. Political big wigs, though, stuck to their guns and Texas A&I became TAMUK.

“At that point and time they decided they did not want to look weak, I suppose, and went ahead to change the name of the school so this all started in the nastiest way that it possibly can because people just flat out lied to you,” Vannoy said. “The fact of the matter is we would not feel the way we do now if we felt that the school is a better place right now than it was back in 1993, that the name Texas A&M-Kingsville had brought great credit to the school and made it greater than it already was. I hate to say it because if you are not getting better then you are going backwards and in my view the university is not a better place.”

The elder A&I guard is ready to fight for their cause to the very end.

“We are ready to go back to the legislature again and prepared to put the pressure on the system because they are the ones who can change the name of this school,” Vannoy said. “The system regents would never have a meeting with us and we have tried for a couple of years. We are not in this to get things back to 1950, this is 2009 and we want the university to be the best and most modern school available in south Texas.”

Vannoy reiterated that even A&M’s brass admitted TAMUK is not what it once was.

“Even the regents, whey they did the management audit, said a number of things had to happen in order to reestablish this school as the prominent institution of South Texas,” Vannoy said. “That wording tells me the regents do not think the university is the most prominent institution in South Texas anymore and if that is the case, the regents of the A&M system are responsible; if at one time we were the prominent institution of South Texas and we are not anymore, that makes my case and it is not just me making that argument but also the Texas A&M audit done last year. We are going to go to the next session of the legislature if we cannot get the board of regents to act on this matter before then.”

Nelson, however, said his side is also nowhere near backing down.

“We are ready to take this as far as it needs to go and if we need to go to Austin and talk to Lucio then that is what we are going to do,” Nelson said. “I plan on organizing the students to contact their representatives and if opinion of their constituency is taken into account when voting comes around this will not even be an issue in the senate. Senator Lucio feels as if he does not have a hog in the hunt - so to speak - in that he does not have constituency represented here but the truth of the matter is that over sixty percent of our incoming freshman class this year is a direct representation of his constituency.”