Poetry at Texas Technological College in the early 1960s

2. Harbinger
Harbinger was the literary magazine produced by the Texas Tech English department every year. It
featured short stodies, non-fiction and poetry written by students and, occasionally by faculty as well.
Harbinger
The overall quality of writing in Harbinger was quite good; but in 1961, a poem appeared by one stiudent, Ronald Horn,
that many of us realized was the best poem by far that we had ever seen in the magazine.
Hunter Heath and I — long-time friends and fellow asspiring poets, went looking for Ronald Horn to find out what kind
of guy would write “Scooter.” While attending Texas Tech, he was living in a trailer park some distance from campus.
We knocked on the door. No answer. “We’ll try again later,” we told each other. But we never did.

3. Scooter

7. Many decades later I ran across the issue of Harbinger with Horn’s poem. I copied it out and
put in on my web site (http://) and went seaching for more information about him.
Here’s what I found:

8. The Loneliest Road
In the year follong the publication of “Scooter,” the English Department at Texas Tech chose Hunter and
myself to the the editors of next years issue. We assembled the magazine, and submitted it to the faculty, who
insistaed that what they saw as pornographic writing be removed from Harbinger. The most offensive
passage, as Irecall, was the sentence “She had a nice-looking ass.” We refused to delete the sentence; and
after some controversial exchanges with the faculty, we resigned.
Late in 1962 and early 1963, we decided to publish our own magazine, consusting of works from Texas Tech
poets and one talented outsider from New Mexico. Cliff Carter, a talented artist and musician, agree to
provideline drwing illustration for the magazine, called The Loneliest Road. Here is a same of some of the
poems and artwork:

9. Three poems and their illustrations from The Loneliest Road

10. Epilogues
Hunter Heath later earned his M.D. degree at George Washington University, and went on to work for the Mayo Clinic, Eli Lily, and others.
Arthur Chandler earned advanced degrees in English literature, and taught in the English and Humanities departments at San Francisco State College (now University).
Dan Sessions: unknown
Cliff Carter studied art at at Texas Tech and the University of Cincinnati. He passed away at age 54 in Lubbock, Texas.