Gloria Odoms Powell
Miss Odoms enrolled as a freshman; she transferred from Texas Southern University. She joined three other women in the Registrar's Office -- which was then located in the Main Building -- on February 4, 1963.
She returned to campus in 2014 to be honored as part of Texas State's 50th anniversary of integration. Powell remembers a saying her mother used: “You’re no better than anybody else, but there’s nobody any better than you.”
As part of the event, she offered the following advice to students:
When you go to class, go to learn not socialize.
– Gloria Odoms Powell, 2014
Source: From segregation to integration: The first Black students at Texas State University
