Scottish Rite Dormitory

05/31/2026

It’s SRD Saturday Story Time!
As we mentioned in the Friday Fun Fact, the Sardine was the SRD yearbook from 1922 until the late 1960s. Last year we revived it and are so excited to offer this to our residents. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to recruit some of them to write their memories for the book like this young woman did in 1935.

An Ode to Inconvenience

Have you noticed my friends of the dorm.
That on cold days the room’s never warm?

Haven’t you found it as certain as fate
If you leave for a second, you’re minus a date?

It never fails that while you’re dressing,
You suddenly find the outfit needs pressing.

And always around the close of the week—
A lack of towels, a condition of which need I speak?

The candy, carried over from last Sunday’s meal, Has melted all over my new stocking heel.

I suppose as you read this you wonder why I don’t pick up and leave SRD high and dry. The answer’s as plain as the nose on your face. I’m honestly crazy about the place.

—THE SARDINE
Volume 13, 1935

05/23/2026

It’s SRD Saturday Story Time!
If you want to be exactly factual, SRD as a place to house young woman at UT has existed for 106 years. A boarding house was used while the “Grande Dame” was constructed, finished in 1922 making it 104 years old. But there is no question that for well over 100 years SRD has been the place for making and growing lifelong friendships!

The Secret
In the spring of 1946, I was only sixteen, and ready to begin my freshman year at UT, my father’s alma mater. I had a confirmed room at SRD, but my best friend from North Dallas High School, Mary Strasburger, had been told there
were no more vacancies and she would have to be on a waiting list. I was so disappointed.

Someone kept a secret, however, and on the day my family was helping me move into the dorm I found out that Mary had not only gotten a room, but she was my roommate! What joy! We fixed up our room with rose-colored Bates bedspreads* and matching curtains and settled down to our
studies. Mary went on to get her R.N. at Galveston and later became the mother of six! Her husband, Dr. Robert Cade, invented Gatorade at the University of Florida. I went on to get my B.S. in home economics, married, and became
the mother of two. I pursued an early career in home furnishings, and a later one in nursing home therapeutic recreation. Mary and I are still best friends sixty years later!

—MARJORIE KNIGHT WATSON
1946–1947

*In 1850, the Boston Industrialist Benjamin Bates formed Bates Manufacturing Company, a textile mill in Lewiston, Maine. Bates of Maine became one of the great producers in the world of woven bedspreads. When the Bates Mill closed in 2001, a group of former employees formed Maine Heritage Weavers and continue to produce the
Bates style bedspread.

*Mary Strasburger Cade passed away in 2021
Read more about her here:
https://www.gainesville.com/obituaries/pgai0059187

05/19/2026

Continuing our look back at the year at SRD.
Then we had some first day of school fun, celebrated when Taylor got engaged, and got ready for some football! 

05/11/2026

We had a fabulous year at SRD! Join us for the next few days as we walk through all the fun. Today we start with move-in, recruitment, RA welcome activities, fun food, a campus safety training, and the first day of school.

05/05/2026

SaRDines rule! Big congratulations to Morgan, SRD RA, for being part of the “Dean’s Dozen.” We are so proud.

Congratulations to our Dean’s Dozen Award recipients! 🤘

This distinguished recognition honors students who have demonstrated exceptional service to programs and resources within the Office of the Dean of Students, while making positive contributions to our campus community 🧡

We proudly celebrate the dedication, leadership and impact of this year’s Dean’s Dozen:

- Dante Barajas
- Elizabeth Cox
- Cassidy Franzoi
- Morgan Hernandez
- Sofia Lozano
- Kaitlyn Marsh
- Ashley Mascorro
- Benet Plange Matteer
- Trenton Mosby
- Vaishnavi Penta
- Lillian Robinson
- Ivan Alejandro Rocha

05/05/2026

This morning we said farewell to our last few residents of the 2025–2026 school year. We hope everyone has a great summer and we’re especially proud of our graduates who walk the stage this weekend! 🧡🤘🏻

05/01/2026

Don’t forget to order your copy of the 25-26 Sardine yearbook! All orders ship to your home. Until May 8th you can add two pages of your own photos for free! (These appear only in your book.)

Ordee Here:
https://www.treering.com/purchase?PassCode=101737662486131

04/30/2026

We’re thinking about all of our SaRDines this week!

04/29/2026

We’re so proud of our SRD seniors and had so much fun celebrating them today at Senior Lunch!

04/25/2026

It’s SRD Saturday Story Time!
As mentioned in the Friday Fun Fact, the dorm once had a full service laundry. Read on to hear more about exactly what the girls thought then.

Me and Roommate Robin

When we filled out our applications for SRD in 1960, we were asked our nickname and when you arrived, that was the name on your door. Robin’s name is actually Alice Margaret, but when we got to the dorm, Robin was the name on her door. Everyone from high school and before calls her Alice, and to everyone from SRD and later in her life she is Robin. SRD is where she officially became Robin.

All laundry had to have tags with your name.* Whatever went to the laundry was boiled, starched, and pressed. So we would take our personal laundry and anything else we didn’t wish to be ironed on a nail and put through boiling water to a Laundromat over on Guadalupe. One day Robin and I were on our way to the Laundromat with our little laundry bags of per-
sonal laundry, and some bored Fiji’s were on their porch yelling obscenities at us. One said, “Whacha got in the bag?” and Robin yelled back, “Dead babies!” and kept walking.

One sad memory is of the day when JFK was shot. I was leaving the dorm to go pick up Robin at the art school, and we were going to the parade because he was coming through Austin. I heard about it when I went to pick her up and got her and then we came back to the dorm. The largest TV in the dorm was in the Rec Room, and it stayed on for hours that day. Linda Bird was at UT then and was a Zeta. The secret service rushed the house and got her and whisked her away. It was a sobering time especially because he had been on his way to Austin.

—SYLVIA HULSEY WEST
1960–1964

*Sylvia’s daughter Leslie, who also lived at SRD, asked, “So when you threw your panties down in a raid, your name was in them?”

*Both Sylvia’s and Robin’s daughters lived at SRD as did Robin’s granddaughter.