A new digital archive connected to NMSU’s Memorial Tower shares the stories of Aggie servicemen killed in war, expanding a decades-long effort to preserve their memory for future generations.

Amanda Wyatt, New Mexico State University

LAS CRUCES - At the heart of New Mexico State University’s Las Cruces campus, a tower rises above the profiles of surrounding buildings, standing sentinel and solemn as throngs of chatting students pass by each day on their way to class.

Once part of the university’s Quesenberry Field, the tower was built as a memorial to Aggies lost to the Second World War – the culmination of a remembrance effort begun by the university’s longtime registrar, Era Rentfrow, who made it her personal duty to reach out to these young men’s families and collect their portraits to memorialize their sacrifice.

Though the field’s stands are long gone and a new Aggie Memorial Stadium arose elsewhere on campus, the tower still stands as part of the university’s Health and Social Services Building, and through the research efforts of a few dedicated Aggies, many more portraits have been added to the walls of its Aggie Memorial Room, honoring servicemen lost to wars and conflicts throughout the university’s history.

Now, the results of that research – not only photos, but stories of these men, their heroism, their sacrifice, and the families and loved ones they left behind – are available online, making this ongoing act of service and remembrance available to anyone seeking to honor those fallen Aggies by learning about their lives.

The site, titled “Aggies to Recall,” provides a searchable repository for the stories and information gathered over the years by retired NMSU Vice President Ben Woods. It’s a passion project Woods has led, with help from NMSU’s Library Archives and Special Collections, Marketing and Communications Office, family members of servicemen, Aggie alumni, and others. He views it as a continuation of Rentfrow’s work, which began during World War II.

“When the Second World War began, it’s hard to understand the transformation it made to the college,” Woods said. “Most of the students by the end of the war were in uniform. Era Rentfrow, on her own, as quickly as the first week after the war began, recognized with the loss of one student – a young man who was flying for the Flying Tigers and was shot down over Rangoon, China – that there were going to be a number of Aggies that did not come home. And she began reaching out personally, not on behalf of the university, but as Miss Rentfrow, to the families. She asked if they’d be willing to share a photograph of their son, and she continued to do that throughout the remainder of the Second World War.”

Stories like this are etched in Woods’ mind. Asked about most any of well over a hundred portraits displayed inside the tower, he’s able to speak about that man’s life and family. In gathering their stories, he’s become the unofficial historian of the lives of these servicemen – a role that is deeply personal and humbling.

“It struck me that there was a debt we owed,” Woods said. “These young men earned whatever honor we give them, but the pictures we don’t show are their mothers, their fathers, their sons, their daughters, their friends, their wives, and those people that lived with their loss for years, for decades – and that the debt we owed was not just to remember these remarkable young men, but to really fulfill that responsibility we had for the benefit of those that followed and that bore that grief for the remainder of their life.

“And that’s when it became personal,” he continued. “That’s when I felt stirred to do what little I’ve done, which was simply to use the power that we have available through the internet to research and to tell their stories, to document who they were and what happened to them, in hopes that years from now, we can still recall these Aggies.”

Woods understood that to really fulfill the university’s responsibility to these men, he needed to find a way to make their stories accessible to anyone who wanted to learn more and reflect on their lives. He partnered with Melissa Chavira, NMSU’s Executive Director of Marketing, Web and Brand Management, who compiled and edited the stories and photos that Woods gathered and created the aggiesremembered.nmsu.edu site to organize and display them for anyone to access.

“Working with Ben on this project has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my 20 years working at NMSU,” Chavira said. “It has been incredibly humbling to help preserve the legacy of the students memorialized in the tower; building on the work that began with Era Rentfrow in 1922, carried forward through the tower’s rededication in 2004, and strengthened over the last decade through Ben’s dedication to researching biographies and collecting photographs of the students honored there.”

To connect the photo display in the tower’s Aggie Memorial Room to the digital story archive, Chavira and the university’s marketing team are installing QR codes with each photo, providing a direct link to the online biography of each fallen servicemember.

“My hope is that by creating a digital archive of these stories, we can ensure the magnitude of sacrifice continues to be honored and is remembered for generations to come, while also making the stories accessible to those who may never have the opportunity to visit the tower in person,” Chavira said.

Though Woods has been the heart and the driving force behind this research project for more than a decade, he’s quick to point out that resulting memorial reflects the collective work of many and will require the continued support of the university community to live on.

“Sometimes fate gives us an opportunity to become a champion for a cause,” Woods said, “but champions come and go, and for causes to endure, they need to be collective.

“If there was one hope that I would have, it’s that people would have enough time in here to agree that this is worthy of our recollection – that it’s worthy of our continuing thoughtfulness as we move forward,” he continued. “And then those of us that have been part of this up to this point will fade into the past, and those that will come in the future will pick up the baton, so to speak, and run with it and do even more and make it an even more meaningful element in the life of our university.

“I also hope that they would not leave without thinking for a moment about those who were left behind – those family members, some of which still walk among us today — and what we owe to them as a university, as a nation.”

More information about the history of Aggie Memorial Tower, as well as Era Rentfrow’s role in establishing the tradition of honoring fallen servicemembers, can be found in the Aggies to Recall digital archive at aggiesremembered.nmsu.edu. The Aggie Memorial Room in the tower is accessible weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for quiet reflection or study.

Amanda Wyatt writes for New Mexico State University Marketing and Communications and can be reached at 575-646-3223 or by email at ambradfo@nmsu.edu.