Honoring the Immortal Ten

City of Round Rock commemorates lives of Baylor students

On January 22, a crowd dressed in green and gold gathered in the City of Round Rock for a special ceremony. The day marked the 90th anniversary of the bus-train collision in the city that took the lives of 10 Baylor students — a group remembered as the Immortal Ten.

Following a dedication ceremony in the City Hall Council Chambers, hosted by the mayor and city council members, the local citizens and Baylor-connected individuals attending the event made the short walk over to the newly named “Immortal Ten Bridge,” located on Mays Street in downtown Round Rock over the railroad tracks where the accident occurred. Baylor students and staff members, yell leaders and even the Baylor mascot Bruiser were there to commemorate the occasion.

Utilizing a $100,000 donation by Union Pacific, the city updated the bridge, which was constructed in 1935, with green and gold striping, green light poles and bronze plaques to honor the students who were killed in the collision.

“The lives of the young men who died were short but not meaningless,” Round Rock Mayor Alan McGraw said at the event. “They’re still having an impact on our lives today.”

The Mays Street bridge was built as a direct result of the crash, becoming the first railroad overpass constructed in Texas in a statewide initiative to eliminate all railroad grade crossings on highways by requiring the construction of overpasses or underpasses.

McGraw described the Immortal Ten Bridge as a way of connecting the lives of those who died in the wreck — as well as the 12 men who survived it — to today’s communities in Waco and Round Rock. “These are not just names on a plaque,” he said. “They were family members, they were friends and they were members of the community.”

Attending the dedication were a wide variety of relatives of the Immortal Ten, including more than 25 belonging to team scorekeeper Jack Castellaw’s family, as well as descendants of the 12 survivors. “As the son of a survivor of the accident, I know every day I am alive because of God’s will,” said Jim Gooch, a 1962 Baylor graduate whose father, Ed Gooch, was the only survivor among the young men sitting at the back of the bus. “The permanence of the memorial demonstrates Round Rock’s wishes to always be associated with the memory of the Immortal Ten.”

The bridge stands as a complement to the Immortal Ten memorial located on Baylor’s campus in Traditions Plaza, between Pat Neff Hall and the Bill Daniel Student Center. The memorial consists of four life-sized bronze statues, along with a bas-relief  panel of the remaining six students.

At the balloon release on the bridge, which concluded the dedication ceremony, relatives shared memories of their loved ones  with others as they examined the plaques commemorating the Immortal Ten, each bearing a likeness of the student. These attendees included several family members of Merle Dudley, a law student and yell leader who died in the accident. “I’m his niece, and his great-niece and great-great-niece are here,” Sue Dudley Holloway, of Round Rock, told one of the local television stations covering the event. “We were just remarking that the picture really shows a family resemblance.”