By T. Scott Boatright
The Ruston High School Alumni Association has a new president — retired United State Air Force veteran Glen Trammell — who plans to lead the organization to greater heights than ever before.
And he has already gotten off to a soaring start.
Trammell graduated from Ruston High School in 1968 and attended Louisiana Tech University for two years before joining the United States Air Force in July of 1970.
His first assignment after his technical training was at the USAF Hospital at Barksdale AFB in Bossier City.
Trammell left the Air Force in 1974 at the rank of Staff Sergeant, but a couple of years later and missing the military life, Trammell reenlisted in 1976 and finished his military career in 1972 after 22 years of service, retiring from his final post as the Squadron Superintendent of the 3545 USAF Recruiting Squadron, St. Louis.
His military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Force Achievement Medal, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Air Force Organizational Excellence Award, Air Force Good Conduct Medal with 5 Oak Leaf Clusters, National Defense Service Medal with 1 Bronze star, Air Force Overseas Ribbon – Short Tour, Air Force Longevity Service Award with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters, Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Military Education Ribbon with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster, Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, and the Air Force Training Ribbon.
After leaving the military Trammell returned to Louisiana Tech and completed his degree in Management Information Systems and then worked for 17 years for ExxonMobil in Houston before retiring as a Senior Systems Analyst in 2012.
In 2020, Trammell and his wife Kathy returned to Ruston.
“In 2018 I came back to my 50th year high school reunion and reconnected with a lot of my friends,” Trammell said. “Ruston had changed tremendously since I left in 1970. It was a completely different town.
“So, my wife and I talked about it and decided we wanted to move back to Ruston. It took us about two years to find the right house, so we moved back during the COVID outbreak. We both love it here, and my wife is from Boise, Idaho.”
He was soon approached about the possibility of taking over the RHSAA.
“When I first moved back to Ruston, Jack Thigpen, who had been my Dixie League coach way back when, and Patricia Flournoy, who I graduated with and had served on another organization with, approached me asking if I would like to be president of the alumni association.
“I am not the type of person to jump out and say yes until I do a little investigation. So, I asked them to give me the paperwork they had on the organization and after looking at it, I decided not to do it.”
But as those who know him know, Thigpen can be persistent when he feels something is right.
“I went to a Kiwanis meeting, only my second one, and Jack walked in — I did not know at that point he was a member — and I asked him if they had ever found anyone to take over the alumni association. He gave me a sad look and said no, and I felt bad.”
This time Trammell agreed to give it a try, but only doing more investigating.
“I’m the kind of person that when I move into a position, like that especially where it’s a corporation, I did a deep dive on everything,” Trammell said. “And it was not a secret that it was in pretty bad shape. It fell apart around 2016.
“There were two people — Bobby Williams, who was the president and kept submitting the paperwork that kept us a corporation, and Allen Tuten, who was head of the scholarship program, which kept the scholarship awards going. They kept our head above water, but everything else had just fallen apart.”
So last spring, Trammell began the process of what he called backing the car up out of the ditch.
Since then, he has directed an effort to upgrade the scholarship program.
“Allen had done a good job, and they were sitting on about 33 years’ worth of $1,500 scholarships,” Trammell said. “So, I proposed to the board, and they bought it, that we needed to increase the scholarship amount to $3,000 because college costs a lot more today than it used to back in 2005.
“The operations fund used to pay for everything except the scholarship was down to around a couple of thousand dollars. That was not near enough, so one of the things I proposed, and they agreed, was to take some money out of the scholarship fund and move it to the operations fund and then use some more of it to start a grants fund.”
Trammell said that new grants fund will be used by RHS teachers and student organizations in need of money.
“We set up a program where they can submit an application to receive a grant if it’s decided that should be done for whatever program it is,” Trammell said.
Trammell has also led an initiative that has turned the RHSAA’s three committees and increased that number to nine committees.
Another of the things Trammell has focused on early on in his tenure as RHSAA president is improving its website.
So, Trammell had his daughter, who he said is good at that kind of thing, start the design of a new website before he came in to finish it off.
That new website can be found at bearcatalum.org
“It cost $25 to join, and there’s all kinds of information there on the alumni association and what we’re doing, what we’re about, what kind of committees we have and all that kind of stuff,” Trammell said. “There’s a button at the right top of the page people can click on to sign up and join.
“I think it is designed perfectly for alumni of all ages because that is what we want — members of all ages. We have thought about older alumni because after analyzing the members we realized that we do not have that many older alumni. There is a lot of historical pictures on there.”
Trammell said growth in the number of members means growth of the association, all designed to make for a better Ruston High School overall.
“That’s our goal, to use our love for Ruston High School and make things better for everyone and show our support for the school,” Trammell said. “We are off to a good start. But it is only a start. We are going to keep growing and make the Ruston High School Alumni Association a great thing for all Bearcats from young to old.”
