University Library News Release
Date: November 12, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
CD of Jett WWII Correspondence for Sale
The NMSU Library's Archives and Special Collections Department is offering a CD of readings from the World War II correspondence of Dean Daniel Jett for sale. Copies can be purchased for $12 each at the NMSU Bookstore and the Caroline E. Stras Reading Room on the fourth floor of Branson Library.
Daniel B. Jett, the Dean of Engineering from 1938 to 1947 at what was known then as the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (later NMSU), carried on a personal correspondence with hundreds of his former students during World War II. Known affectionately as "Dad" Jett, Dean Jett was beloved by his students.
During the war years, Jett composed class newsletters and wrote scores of letters to each of the men and women of the School of Engineering who served overseas or stateside. His tireless energy and enthusiasm boosted morale among those serving as soldiers or nurses, as well as those at home fighting to keep the school on an even keel during hard times. Jett's students wrote to him as well. These letters provide indelible insights into the lives of young men and women involved in cataclysmic world events. The letters reveal a nostalgia for the college, infused with hope for returning to the school when the war ended.
The CD is entitled "The Whole Damned World: Aggies in the Pacific, 1941-1945." The title is based on a poem by Jim Carson published in 1944 in the college literary magazine "The Rio Grande Writer." Like many of his fellow Aggies, Carson sat on a beachhead underneath palm trees "somewhere in the Pacific" and longed for the mesas and mountains of New Mexico.
The Jett letters are preserved in the Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives of the NMSU Library. The readings on the CD are performed by Library faculty Stephen J. Hussman, Molly Molloy and Charles Stanford, as well as NMSU professors Richard Rundell and Tom Smith and NMSU students Julie Bond, Cassandra McClure and Daniel Molloy. The narration was written by archivist Martha Shipman Andrews and the music was composed and performed by Jonathan Andrews.
The CD, produced by the NMSU Library and the Creative Media Institute, is dedicated to donors Colonel and Mrs. Lawrence J. Pickett.
The CD makes a great gift. For more information, please contact Martha Andrews at (575) 646-5028 or the Archives and Special Collections Department at (575) 646-3839.
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