Clarence Schultz Texas Humor Collection

Clarence C. Schultz was born in Temple, Texas on October 31, 1924. He graduated from Temple High School at the age of sixteen and entered a junior college, where he met his future wife, Margie. They were married October 29, 1943. In 1942, at the age of eighteen, Schultz joined the Navy and served until 1946. While in the navy, he entered an officer-training program at Southwestern University in Georgetown where he earned college credit. After leaving the navy, Schultz spent a final six months in Temple in a management-training program for McClellan stores. He was transferred to Laredo in August of 1946 where he worked for just a few months before being transferred to McClellan, Texas as an assistant-manager in December 1946. He resided in McClellan until September of 1947 when his landlady convinced him to go back to school and complete his college degree. Schultz knew that he wanted to be a teacher, and throughout a 45 year career never lost his dedication or love for teaching.

With the assistance of the GI Bill, Schultz entered what was then Southwest Texas State Teacher’s College (now Texas State University). He completed his final year of college earning a degree in history, and then completed his master’s degree in history with a minor in sociology. Upon completion of his degrees, he was immediately offered a teaching position as an instructor of History and Sociology and taught at Texas State from September 1949 until May 1952. While teaching, Schultz worked on his doctorate degree in sociology at the University of Texas. Before completing his doctorate degree he was offered a position at Lee College in Baytown, Texas. He taught at Lee College from September 1953 until September 1965 when he returned as an assistant professor to Texas State. He also returned to school and earned his PhD from the University of Texas in December 1970. Schultz became the first chair of the department of Sociology when the Economic and Sociology Department split at Texas State. He held this position from 1971 until 1976. During an interregnum from fall 1979 until spring of 1980, Schultz was the acting dean of the liberal arts department. In December of 1990 Schultz retired from full-time teaching and fully retired in December of 1994. After both Clarence and Margie retired they travelled around the country.

Schultz won numerous honors and awards, including the Piper Professor award in 1976, in 1990 Lee College, despite no longer teaching there, named Schultz outstanding teacher and awarded him an honorary associate degree, and in May of 1998 Schultz was honored Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Texas State. Over Schultz’s career he published two books Texas Probation Handbook (1976) and The Family a Reader (approximately 1980).

Early in Schultz’s career his personal library contained numerous books on humor and a few books on Texas humor. Schultz’s interest in Texas humor grew, and during the 1970s he began to exclusively collect Texas humor books. Schultz went to bookstores, visited the Austin bookseller convention, and searched other venues for books and stated, it “brought great joy” when he found books. Ever since he started collecting humor books Schultz knew that he wanted to write a book on Texas humor. Schultz officially started work on his manuscript “Texas Laughter: A Chronicle of Sixteen Humorists, 1836-2000” after he retired in 1995. This is also when he began collecting articles for his research notebooks. He completed research for the manuscript in 2000 and completed final revisions in 2003. In writing his manuscript, Schultz selectively chose humorists who he believed reflected the evolution of Texas humor. Schultz collected and donated his Texas humor collection because he believed that no institution had adequately compiled a collection of Texas humor.

Note: Information for the biographical sketch was obtained from a telephone interview conducted on September 27, 2010 with Clarence C. Schultz by Maggie DeBrecht.