Interview with George Evans about Huntsville's Public Swimming Pool in the 1950s

This is an oral interview that Dr. Jeffrey L. Littlejohn conducted with George Evans by telephone on April 5, 2021. George Evans and his sister Martha lived in Huntsville during the mid-twentieth century. Their father, George Pirtle Evans, served as an English professor at Sam Houston State Teachers College, and the Evans complex on Sam Houston State University’s campus is named for him. This interview covers the childhood experiences of George and Martha Evans. They grew up around Sam Houston State Teachers College and enjoyed the recreational offerings in Huntsville. The Evans family lived on Avenue O, only blocks from the college, where George and Martha roller-skated, biked, and explored. At roughly 10 years of age, George also received a job at the swimming pool as an attendant working for Coach M. Crawford, who managed the site. George worked as the counter clerk, handing out hanging baskets in which swimmers stowed their clothes and other belongings after changing into their suits. Evans learned how to swim at the pool with his young friends, and as they grew older they all participated in the Red Cross’s safety, rescue, and lifesaver course. The pool served as “our entire social world,” Evans said

Teaching an Honors Seminar on #BlackLivesMatter in East Texas

In spring 2017, Ervin Malakaj (Assistant Professor of German) and Jeffrey L. Littlejohn (Professor of History) led a Difficult Dialogues seminar on #BlackLivesMatter for the Sam Houston State University (SHSU) Honors College. The seminar considered the complex historical, economic, and cultural forces that produced the movement along with the various responses to it. By mid-semester, however, the course had become a target for fake news blogs and websites. Critics of the #BlackLivesMatter movement attempted to portray the course as a propagandistic endeavor intended to force a left-wing ideology upon unwilling students who had reluctantly enrolled in the course in order to receive scholarship money from taxpayer funds. Media responses mischaracterized the institutional parameters governing the course as well as the course aims. Consequently, Malakaj (as the instructor of record), the SHSU Honors College, and university administrators were all contacted by various interest groups angered by the news. Donors threatened to withdraw donations to the university. Students who had been accepted for admission and had declared that they would matriculate the following fall threatened to withdraw their initial intent to attend the university. At the same time, however, the course instructors and the university received a great deal of support. We provide here an outline of the institutional parameters within which the course was offered, the pedagogical aims and content of the course, and an examination of the public and university response to the fake news story. Our goal is to offer a case study that will benefit honors colleges considering similar course programs as well as those having dealt with or anticipating negative public responses to sensitive programming

Management of Suspected Tension Pneumothorax in Tactical Combat Casualty Care: TCCC Guidelines Change 17-02.

This change to the Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) Guidelines that updates the recommendations for management of suspected tension pneumothorax for combat casualties in the prehospital setting does the following things: (1) Continues the aggressive approach to suspecting and treating tension pneumothorax based on mechanism of injury and respiratory distress that TCCC has advocated for in the past, as opposed to waiting until shock develops as a result of the tension pneumothorax before treating. The new wording does, however, emphasize that shock and cardiac arrest may ensue if the tension pneumothorax is not treated promptly. (2) Adds additional emphasis to the importance of the current TCCC recommendation to perform needle decompression (NDC) on both sides of the chest on a combat casualty with torso trauma who suffers a traumatic cardiac arrest before reaching a medical treatment facility. (3) Adds a 10-gauge, 3.25-in needle/ catheter unit as an alternative to the previously recommended 14-gauge, 3.25-in needle/catheter unit as recommended devices for needle decompression. (4) Designates the location at which NDC should be performed as either the lateral site (fifth intercostal space [ICS] at the anterior axillary line [AAL]) or the anterior site (second ICS at the midclavicular line [MCL]). For the reasons enumerated in the body of the change report, participants on the 14 December 2017 TCCC Working Group teleconference favored including both potential sites for NDC without specifying a preferred site. (5) Adds two key elements to the description of the NDC procedure: insert the needle/ catheter unit at a perpendicular angle to the chest wall all the way to the hub, then hold the needle/catheter unit in place for 5 to 10 seconds before removing the needle in order to allow for full decompression of the pleural space to occur. (6) Defines what constitutes a successful NDC, using specific metrics such as: an observed hiss of air escaping from the chest during the NDC procedure; a decrease in respiratory distress; an increase in hemoglobin oxygen saturation; and/or an improvement in signs of shock that may be present. (7) Recommends that only two needle decompressions be attempted before continuing on to the Circulation portion of the TCCC Guidelines. After two NDCs have been performed, the combat medical provider should proceed to the fourth element in the MARCH algorithm and evaluate/treat the casualty for shock as outlined in the Circulation section of the TCCC Guidelines. Eastridge\u27s landmark 2012 report documented that noncompressible hemorrhage caused many more combat fatalities than tension pneumothorax.1 Since the manifestations of hemorrhagic shock and shock from tension pneumothorax may be similar, the TCCC Guidelines now recommend proceeding to treatment for hemorrhagic shock (when present) after two NDCs have been performed. (8) Adds a paragraph to the end of the Circulation section of the TCCC Guidelines that calls for consideration of untreated tension pneumothorax as a potential cause for shock that has not responded to fluid resuscitation. This is an important aspect of treating shock in combat casualties that was not presently addressed in the TCCC Guidelines. (9) Adds finger thoracostomy (simple thoracostomy) and chest tubes as additional treatment options to treat suspected tension pneumothorax when further treatment is deemed necessary after two unsuccessful NDC attempts-if the combat medical provider has the skills, experience, and authorizations to perform these advanced interventions and the casualty is in shock. These two more invasive procedures are recommended only when the casualty is in refractory shock, not as the initial treatment