Herbert Gambrell

[3] A colleague would later remember that Gambrell, a popular and influential member of the faculty, was "the chief Wag and Wise Man of SMU for many years.

[2] In 1982, he was awarded an honorary degree by SMU for being "an indispensable leader in the institution's strivings to achieve its lofty ideals of academic excellence and scholarly accomplishment," as well as "the dean of Texas historians of his generation.

The following year he was recruited by Jay B. Hubbell to join the newly-acquired Southwest Review as the journal's first managing editor.

"[4] Some of them, including the future director of the Dallas Museum of Art Jerry Bywaters and future SMU provost Hemphill Hosford, would also form a spoof group called "Martha Sumner University"—the name given to SMU in Charles W. Ferguson's 1929 satirical novel Pigskin.

Gambrell was flooded by offers from private collectors to show their artifacts—including Santa Anna's last will and testament and documents signed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

[4] There, Gambrell, the "chancellor" of MSU, chose SMU professor Marshall Terry as his successor, gave him his mock regalia, and asked him to keep the subversive group going.

[4][6] By all accounts, the six-foot-six-inch tall historian was almost a model faculty member: a charismatic teacher, serious scholar, courageous peer, and good-humored raconteur.