Cross & Crescent

Retired and living in Texas, R. Richard Rubottom (Southern Methodist 1929) served as the Fraternity’s seventh full-time traveling secretary (educational leadership consultant) from 1933 to 1935.

Hired by Clair L. Pepperd (Oregon State 1927) in 1933, Rubottom succeeded Reuben C. Youngquist (Washington State 1928) who had decided to leave the Fraternity staff to pursue his law degree.

Rubottom says that the job as traveling secretary meant a great deal to him. He loved to travel, loved Lambda Chi, and could not believe he was able to put the two together.

“I’ve always thought it was probably the best job I ever had,” Rubottom says. “And I’ve been kicking myself now for about 75 years for retiring too soon. It was a wonderful, wonderful job.”

As a traveling secretary, Rubottom says he enjoyed his relationship with Bruce McIntosh (DePauw 1916), the Fraternity’s first full-time, salaried administrative secretary and chief executive.

“Bruce was definitely one of a kind,” Rubottom says. “He was always serious, hard working. He had a sense of humor but he didn’t wear it right out in front all of the time. He was a man whom I respected a great deal and looked up to.”

Rubottom began as a traveling secretary prior to the Theta Kappa Nu merger in 1939, so there were fewer chapters to visit but the job still required a great deal of travel.

“Mostly by train, bus if necessary,” Rubottom says. “I never minded to travel. I liked to travel. I enjoyed meeting new people and dealing with new problems.”

Scholarship and Lambda Chi

In 1928, when Rubottom graduated from high school in Brownwood, Texas, he didn’t have a father and his mother ran a boarding house. Even though they were poor, Rubottom excelled as a student.

“I can remember being called into the office of the principal with three other fellas,” he says. “They gave us a piece of chalk, they gave us our grades, and we had to figure out our averages. I was the honor graduate by two tenths of a point. That’s the way I got to SMU — it was a wonderful place for me to go.”

While at SMU, a few brothers invited Rubottom to go to the Lambda Chi house, where he met several more brothers, including All-American football player Logan Ford (Southern Methodist 1924) and Jack Hogan (Southern Methodist 1931). Not surprisingly, the brothers liked Rubottom and asked him to join the Fraternity.

“With only the $50 that my mother had given me and my job, I wasn’t about to take on the obligation of a fraternity,” Rubottom says of how he felt at the time. But after further consideration, he decided that if he was going to stay at SMU, he wanted to join a fraternity.

Once he joined Lambda Chi, he quickly became a leader and eventually held many offices, including pledge captain, treasurer, vice president, and president.

Rubottom also was sophomore class president, sports editor, associate editor, and eventually editor of the SMU newspaper.

Serving His Country

After working as a traveling secretary, a businessman, and spending four years as assistant dean of student life at the University of Texas, Rubottom worried about the possibility of World War II.

“I was concerned about World War II long before we got into the war,” he says. “So I began a correspondence with the Navy department about a commission. I eventually got a reserve commission, as lieutenant junior grade, in the fall of 1941. And I was called to active duty immediately.”

Rubottom was put in charge of recruiting and training in New Orleans, Louisiana. He believes his SMU master’s degree in government helped him receive the rank of lieutenant junior grade instead of ensign. After additional assignments in Mexico and Paraguay, he left the U.S. Navy in 1946, at the rank of commander.

“And that’s when I applied for the foreign service at the end of World War II,” Rubottom says. “And having that rank, and having had two jobs, one in Mexico and one in South America in the Navy, I was one of the first 10 foreign service officers recruited at the end of World War II.”

For the next 17 years, from 1947 to 1964, Rubottom worked for the U.S. Department of State.

After assignments in Colombia, Mexico, and Spain, Rubottom was named deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs in 1956, and assistant secretary the following year.

After stints as U.S. ambassador in Argentina for a year and two years at the Naval War College, Rubottom returned to SMU in 1964.

“I had a good career,” he says of his foreign service. “Little bit like resigning from a fraternity. I think I resigned from the foreign service a little bit too early, too.”

Rubottom served as SMU’s vice president of life (1964-1967), administration (1967-1970), and planning (1970-1971) before leaving to become president of the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, from 1971 to 1973.

Gratification from Giving

Rubottom served on the Fraternity’s Grand High Zeta from 1968 to 1976, and was a member of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation from 1977 to 1996, serving as president, vice president, and secretary.

Of his service to Lambda Chi, he said in 2000: “My interest and willingness to serve is repayment to the Fraternity for the major influence that Lambda Chi Alpha had on my life. The older one gets, the more you realize, that you become a better person, the more you give.

“The real gratification in life is from what you give — not what you receive. The only way to keep the Fraternity alive is to continue giving. If you keep the relationship with Lambda Chi Alpha warm, the asset will continue to increase in value.”

For his outstanding career in government service and higher education, Rubottom received the Fraternity’s Order of Achievement at the 1998 General Assembly.

Rubottom also served the Boy Scouts of America as an international adviser and delegate to four World Scout Conferences. He is a recipient of numerous scouting honors, including the Silver Buffalo, Silver Beaver, Order of the Condor, and Youth of Americas Award.

“It is obvious that I have sought out as much constructive influence on my life as I could have, thereby avoiding negative influences,” he says.

Past Predicts the Future

In 1933, the Cross & Crescent printed an article about Rubottom’s hiring as the traveling secretary and the article poignantly foreshadowed his future career and his giving nature.

“In Rubottom, the Fraternity has a man who is well-qualified from experience, character, and personality to fill his place in the administrative set-up,” the article states. “Coming highly recommended from his own school and chapter, this six-foot, blond, affable Texan has the qualities of character and ability that will win him a place in the hearts of the thousands of brothers he will meet in his travels for the Fraternity.”