Notable People
Herold F. Landrith, who was the first dean of the College of Education, was instrumental in the creation of PRTM. According to Jerome Reel’s history of Clemson University, The High Seminary Vol. 2, Landrith recruited Dr. Herbert Brantley, fresh from his PhD program in Spring of 1966 from the University of North Carolina, to become RPA’s first department head (Reel, pg. 66). However, according to the personal account of Dr. Gordon Howard, Dr. Brantley was recruited from North Carolina State University, where he was teaching as a professor, in 1964 (Howard, personal communication, October 26, 2021). Fortunately, Charlie White cleared this confusion up in his interview when he revealed that Dr. Brantley was teaching at NC State and communiting to UNC to finish his PhD at the same time, so both other accounts are correct (White, Personal Communication, October 22, 2021).
Dr. Brantley was the first head of Clemson University’s Department of Recreation and Park Administration (which became Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management) from 1966 to 1987. He was also elected as a founding fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences (Letter from Heath to Brantley). Brantley was given the freedom to build his dream team for the department and he pulled many people from other universities, as well as some who were freshly graduated from PhD programs. According to one former PRTM professor interviewed, relationships with people from Lenoir-Rhyne College (now University) and UNC-Chapel Hill played an important role in recruiting some of the early faculty members of the department (Howard, personal communication, October 26, 2021). Through connections to Dr. Edwards, Dr. Brantley was hired in 1964 at the rank of Associate Professor, giving him two years to recurit faculty and set up a curriculum. The second faculty member to be hired (hire date unknown, but possibly 1965) was Dr. Thomas Hatcher Johnson, Assistant Professor (Howard, personal communication, October 26, 2021).
The department's growth in enrollement, primarily from transfer students, opened up the need for more faculty. In January of 1967, Marvin Owen Keith was hired as an Assistant Professor. Marvin Keith had been the Assistant Director of the Parks and Recreation Department at High Point, North Carolina (Howard, Personal Communication, October 26, 2021). Dr. Thomas Hatcher Johnson ended up leaving Clemson at the end of the Spring 1967 semester, but with the rapid growth in the number of RPA majors and the support of President Edwards, Dr. Brantley was able to hire three new faculty in quick succession. Those new faculty were: Revis Miller Frye, Assistant Professor; James Ray Sellers, a former student of Dr. Brantley’s at North Carolina State University, Assistant Professor; and Dr. Gordon E. Howard, Assistant Professor. These three professors all started in the Fall of 1967. Dr. Jack Lovett Stevenson, Associate Professor; and Larry Willard Gahan, Assistant Professor, were hired in Fall, 1968 (Howard, personal communication, October 26, 2021). Charlie White, Associate Professor, would join the department in 1971 and be instrumental in the development of Clemson’s Outdoor Lab (White, personal communication, October 22, 2021).