70 Year Anniversary of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers
On May 28, 1937, the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers was created by the 45th Legislature. This occurred in the aftermath of the tragic New London School explosion which took the lives of over 300 students and teachers at the New London School in New London, Texas.
In 1937, New London, Texas, had one of the richest rural school districts in the United States. Community residents in the East Texas oilfields were proud of the beautiful, modern, steel-framed, E-shaped school building. On March 18, at 3:05 P.M. the instructor of machine shop, flipped an electrical switch for a sander in an area which, unknown to him, was filled with a mixture of natural gas and air. The switch ignited the mixture and carried the flame into a nearly closed space beneath the building, 253 feet long and 56 feet wide. Immediately the building seemed to lift in the air and then smashed to the ground. Walls collapsed and the roof fell in and buried its victims in a mass of brick, steel, and concrete debris. The explosion was heard four miles away, and it hurled a two-ton concrete slab over 200 feet.
Community residents and roughnecks from the East Texas oilfield responded immediately with heavy-duty equipment. Within an hour Governor James Allred had sent the Texas Rangers and highway patrol to aid the victims. Doctors and medical supplies came from Baylor Hospital and Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children in Dallas and from Nacogdoches, Wichita Falls, and the United States Army Air Corps at Barksdale Field in Shreveport, Louisiana. They were assisted by deputy sheriffs from Overton, Henderson, and Kilgore, by the Boy Scouts, the American Legion, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and volunteers from the Humble Oil Company, Gulf Pipe Line, Sinclair, and the International-Great Northern Railroad. Workers began digging through the rubble looking for victims. Floodlights were set up, and the rescue operation continued through the night as rain fell.
Within seventeen hours all victims and debris had been taken from the site. Mother Francis Hospital in Tyler canceled its elaborate dedication ceremonies to take care of the injured. The Texas Funeral Directors sent twenty-five embalmers. Of the 500 students and forty teachers in the building, approximately 298 died. Some rescuers, students, and teachers needed psychiatric attention, and only about 130 students escaped serious injury. ( http://www.nlse.org/)
In response to this tragedy, the 45th Legislature created the Board to regulate engineering. The Legislative intent, as specified in Section 1.1 of the Act, states in part, “ . . . in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare, that the privilege of practicing engineering be entrusted only to those persons duly licensed and practicing under the provisions of this Act and that there be strict compliance with and enforcement of all the provisions of this Act.”
In 1997, the 75th Legislature changed the name of the agency to the Texas Board of Professional Engineers. All language pertaining to “registration” and “registered” was changed to “licensure” and “licensed.”
As the 70th anniversary of Texas Board of Professional Engineers approaches, Governor Rick Perry has proclaimed May Engineering Licensure Month. In a proclamation approved by Governor Perry on April 23rd, 2007, Perry states;
WHEREAS, on May 28, 1937, the Professional Engineering Registration Board, now known as the Texas Board of Professional Engineers, was created in response to the tragic explosion of the New London School in east Texas where over 300 students and teachers died, and
WHEREAS, the mission of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers is to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of the state of Texas by ensuring that the practice of engineering is carried out by only those persons who are proven to be qualified and by regulating the practice of professional engineering in Texas, and
WHEREAS, 2007 is the 70th Anniversary of the creation of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers, and
WHEREAS, the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying and all U.S. engineering licensure boards are celebrating 2007 as the 100th anniversary of engineering licensure in the United States, with the first engineering board being created in Wyoming in 1907;
NOW THEREFORE, I RICK PERRY, Governor of the Great State of Texas do hereby proclaim May as
ENGINEERING LICENSURE MONTH
to officially recognize 70 years of Engineering Licensure, 1937 -2007, in Texas and a century of Engineering Licensure nationally.
