2 4
| S C T E CHN I CA L CO L L E G E S Y S T EM ’ S
F I R S T 5 0 Y EAR S
Pulling Barton aside Fore said, “Tom, you don’t have enough
students to fill one classroom. How are you going to show the
governor all these rooms?”
“I’ve got it all worked out, Fred.”
“Barton,” said Fore, “took Fritz into a classroom full of stu-
dents, and they knew exactly what they were there for.”
Fore again pulled Barton aside. “Well what are you going to
do now, because you haven’t got another classroom full?”
“Watch and see if I don’t.” Barton had Fore take Fritz down
the hall while he and Lex Walters moved the students into the
next classroom.
Fritz entered and looked around, “Gosh, these students look
all alike to me.”
“No sir, Governor, these are all brand-new students,” said
“Black Cat” Barton.
“We were driving back to Columbia, and Fritz said, ‘Fred, this
Barton fellow, now, I don’t quite understand. Those students all
looked just alike to me.’”
“No, sir, Governor, if Tom says they’re not all alike, they’re not
all alike.”
The ruse aside, the students were individuals to Barton, a man
who understood how important it was to give people a chance.
Football gave him a chance to succeed. He liked to use game
metaphors in his administration. “It’s the half; we’re down, but
we have to come back.”
“Football,” he once said, “made him realize that parents, the
mothers—especially the mothers—have a way to get a kid edu-
cated. Youmay not have the money, but you have a way to get any
child you bring on this earth into a college.”
Helping young people get an education mattered to him.
“When we first started I told my staff, ‘Don’t ever turn away a
person that doesn’t have the money to pay tuition. Just don’t do
Orangeburg-Calhoun TEC
Williamsburg TEC
Beaufort TEC
Denmark TEC
The 1960s
M O B I L I Z I N G A G R E A T R E S O U R C E
