Doug Rummel

Donning his classic dress shirt and jeans, Founders Master Teaching Chair Doug Rummel stands outside the Winn Science Center underneath the Ginkgo tree, whose leaves all fall during an annual 48hour period (above). Rummel has been a long-time lover of the outdoors: “Between the ages of 12 and 17, I spent a total of a year underneath the stars.”

After finding a human femur buried in the sand at an eighth grade campout, Founders Master Teaching Chair Doug Rummel sprung into action, contacting authorities and helping a family along the way.

Doug Rummel had just arrived at 10600 Preston Rd.

His first year was full of new: new campus, new classrooms, new students — and a new responsibility: group leader on the eighth grade campout.

No big deal. Rummel had spent vast amounts of time in the outdoors and he loved nature.

But when the bus dropped him off at Lake Texoma, the last thing he expected to find on his journey was the remains of a dead person.

Here’s the story in Rummel’s own words.

“Fall of 1998, my first year teaching here. It was the eighth grade campout — three days, two nights.

It’s the second and last hike to the second and last campsite — Juniper point. We were going to leave at noon the next day. 1998 had been a record drought year. The lake level hadn’t been that low in at least a decade, and the beaches were wide — they haven’t been that wide since. Normally, you can’t hike the beaches because they’re all mud and you get slogged into the muck, but we found that we could hit the sand and bypass some of the route.

I grew up most of my life outdoors when I was in high school. As a kid, I was looking for animals, hunting, geology — just finding stuff. And as a result, on campouts, I like to go to the back, take it slow and look for things.

We’re maybe 100 yards from camp. Everything was tossed up on the shore — tires, a car body, dead fish, cows — all the hidden things that get dumped into a lake were exposed, and the kids were having a great time finding all of them. You don’t need to mess with that, right?

Well, I’m walking down the beach. And I notice a bone sticking up, two and a half inches out of the sand at a 45 degree angle. I did premed in college, so I’ve been in an anatomy lab before.

At first, I thought it was a cow femur. For whatever reason there’s so many cows in Lake Texoma, God knows why. But this femur was too thin to be a cow’s, and it was too big to be a coyote’s or a mountain lion’s. So I didn’t touch it.

I was pretty sure I was looking at a human bone.

I went back to the campsite and directed my group as if everything was fine and normal. I didn’t want anyone else to go down there investigating. We set up shelter, gathered our food for dinner, got everybody squared away and let them loose to go their merry way, which to eighth-graders means going to the lake and throwing rocks.

Grabbing a black trash bag, I went back to the beach. I figured if I used the plastic, I could probably do away the sand and wrap it up. I carefully dug around and pulled it out.

It was a little more than half a human femur, about two-thirds the length from the kneecap up. One can tell a lot of features about an individual based on the thickness and shape of their bones. This was a male, probably in his 30s or 40s and in good shape with strong muscular attachments — it was obvious where the quadriceps were attached to the bone.

I wrapped this thing up and took it secretly back to the campsite. If this was a human bone, this thing had been here for a while, so an extra 12 hours wasn’t going to make a difference in any sort of case.

I kept the bone hidden and wrapped up while we hiked to where the busses were going to get us. The base camp guys were there — they had been in charge of running the whole campout — and I showed them the bone. Ultimately, we ended up deciding that we needed to contact the Grayson County Sheriff.

When the sheriff got there, he explained to us that Lake Texoma had become a dumping ground for bodies from Dallas — they were finding seven to eight per summer — and apparently there were a lot of drug deals gone bad.

Safe to say, the county police were experienced with these kinds of things. In fact, it had become such a problem that they had received some federal money to deal with the problem and had invested in a really nice boat for hunting the bodies.

After looking at the bone, the sheriff made some calls, and a whole team showed up — a medical examiner, a diver and, of course, the really nice boat. They went to the lake, sectioned off the entire inlet and swept every inch of the floor looking for more bones — they even swept a large portion of the coastline. But they never found any other bones.

Later that year at the beginning of December, somebody called the switchboard at school asking for my name. The sheriff had an update: They had found a DNA sample, at the time a rare occurrence, and they had found a match.

Apparently, this bone sat for a month in the medical examiner’s office. The sheriff had a favor that was owed to him in Denton County, which had a relatively advanced DNA lab. Normally at the time, the cost for a DNA sample would have been in the thousands, but the sheriff was able to exchange his owed favor for a free sample. And they got a hit.

It was a man who had been lost for close to a decade.

He’d been out with his buddy fishing in the late spring or early summer. A thunderstorm came up, as they often do. They got caught out, went into a wave wrong and their boat flipped. And I don’t know if this guy had a life preserver on, but the other guy survived. He reported his friend missing, but they couldn’t find the body. They couldn’t even find any sign of him anywhere in or by the lake.

And because they didn’t have a body, the life insurance refused to cut the check.

This guy had a wife and two young kids, and they lost their house. They had to move into a trailer. They were in fairly dire financial straits, going from having a stable income to basically no income.

So the sheriff was calling me, because the insurance company had just gotten approval and had cut them a chunk of change. And apparently, that had been enough to get the family into a house, get the kids into private school and give them enough money to have a college fund. It was a big deal.

Anytime you have a loved one that’s disappeared, it’s tough not knowing what happened. You don’t have closure. Now the family had closure. The sheriff had also called me to tell me that in a week or two, they were going to have a memorial service up at the lake and that the family had invited me to come. I was floored.

I told the sheriff how absolutely wonderful it was that they had closure, but I also told him it would feel awkward to show up as “the guy that found the remains of the husband.” I just imagine people introducing me as “the guy that found the remains of the husband.”

I told the sheriff to go in my stead and that I was really, really happy for them.

I’m glad it all worked out.”

Story Cristian Pereira Photos Sal Hussain, Courtesy Doug Rummel

As a first-time business owner, Brad Wallace ‘01 was scared. His company wasn’t growing at the rate he envisioned. However, he kept working, and he’s now thriving in his role as a multi-business owner.

Day after day for the past year and a half, Brad Wallace ’01 has faced challenges.

Frustration with employees. Financial instability. Lack of experience.

Even after committing hour after hour, dollar after dollar, Wallace found his business at the brink of bankruptcy.

After leaving his nine-to-five office job to start his own commercial cleaning business, Jan-Pro of Greater New York, Wallace found himself in a spot far outside of his comfort zone.

He became unsure, beginning to doubt if his business would make it.

But he knew he had to stick with it — one step at a time.

Wallace, 28 at the time, was living in New York City and had grown unhappy working in investment banking. “I looked at all the older people around me, and they were all miserable,” Wallace said. “Nobody liked it. I didn’t have any inspiration to stick around, so I quit my job and went and travelled for about six months. I came back to New York and looked for a business to start or buy, and I just fell into it.” I was scared Wallace ultimately found a franchise that intrigued him — one he and nervous, was eager to delve into: commercial cleaning. but I just had to keep “The company happened to have my territory available, which at the time was New York City Long putting one Island,” Wallace said. “I did my homework and foot in front ended up buying the territory.” of the other. After launching his business in 2013, Wallace quickly realized he was facing an uphill battle with no prior experience hiring employees, making it exceedingly difficult to generate a profit. Above all, the business wasn’t growing. “It was a very bumpy year before we got to critical mass,” Wallace said. “In our first full year of operations, we lost ten percent of our revenue three separate times. It was very frustrating that we kept growing, and then we’d keep losing a big chunk of our customers. It wasn’t necessarily our fault or anything we could control, but it was just stuff that happens along the way when you’re growing any business.”

Wallace recognized that because he didn’t know much about the particular industry, it would be difficult to innovate if he lacked expertise.

“So I came up with some criteria and characteristics that I wanted my business to embody,” Wallace said. “I began looking into franchises because it is a good way to learn about an industry because they disclose a lot of information to you if you are investing.”

While Wallace was extremely optimistic at the start, looking back, he realizes he put lofty expectations on his business too soon.

“I expected things to start taking off as soon as I opened the doors, but what you quickly realize is that just because you start a business doesn’t mean anyone is going to necessarily care about it,” Wallace said. “You really have to figure out how to grow it and differentiate yourself from your competitors, and it’s a lot harder than you would have thought if you had not done it before.”

Although Wallace was frustrated with the early setbacks his business faced, he recognized that he didn’t have a choice but to keep going, one foot in front of the other, as he had invested money and time to his business.

“There are very few businesses that go better than expected, especially for a first-time business owner,” Wallace said. “So, I had my back up against the wall, and there was nothing I could really do but keep going and make a little bit of progress every day. It took about six, seven months before I really felt like I knew what I was doing and could confidently speak with potential customers, knowing what I was talking about.”

Once Wallace got settled into his position as a first-time business owner — previously foreign to him — his company began to take off.

“The company is part of a franchise system,” Wallace said. “We started to win internal awards as the company grew, so that felt good — validation that we were doing a good job and doing what we were supposed to do. And in 2017, we were the fastest-growing market within the franchise network.”

Wallace knew he had broken through when people started calling him asking for advice, as opposed to his relying on others for guidance.

“When you start a business, you’re a taker — you need to take information from other people,” Wallace said. “But then after you get going and figure out what you’re doing, you can be more of a giver and give advice, give help and give input to people. Whereas when you’re starting, you need a life raft. Once you’re established, you can be that resource for other people.”

After starting other businesses in addition to Jan-Pro, Wallace has learned that sometimes a business will go well and sometimes it won’t.

“You’ve got to have a little bit of perspective,” Wallace said. “As long as you are generally making progress toward your long-term goal, then you can’t let the ups and downs from each day get to you.”

Thinking back on his experience as

a first-time business owner, if Wallace could have done it again, he would have certainly taken things slower. “My biggest mistake was that I went out and hired people to do work that I as the owner should have been doing from the beginning,” Wallace said. “I did that because I thought that it would make the business grow faster, but in reality I made very bad hiring decisions, and these people didn’t do the job very well. I could have done a much better job.”

After going through the process of successfully building multiple businesses from the ground up, Wallace now would find it extremely difficult to work for somebody else.

“I can definitely see the perks of being able to go home at night and not having to think about [the business] 24 hours a day like you would as a business owner,” Wallace said. “I would certainly say it’s worth it, but it’s not for the faint of heart to start a business.”

Story William Aniol, Shreyan Daulat Photo Courtesy Brad Wallace

Brad Wallace enjoys dinner with his wife, and his two boys who are two (left) and four (right).

Stuart Nance ’78 Nov. 25, 1994 — the day after Thanksgiving. That day in Weatherford, just half an hour west of Fort Worth, Stuart Nance ’78 experienced his father’s luck firsthand in a “surreal experience” gambling on a low-chance bet at a horse race, their typical father-son bonding activity.

Vibrant Jet wins the first race at Trinity Meadows in 1994. The Trinity Meadows Race Track in Weatherford opened in May 1991.

Nance celebrate Stuart’s graduation from the University of Texas at Austin May 22, 1982 (right).

The light blue grandstand faces the 400-yard, oval-shaped Trinity Meadows Race Track, which is bordered by a white wooden fence. Decked out in blue jeans, a button-down Oxford shirt and cowboy boots, Stuart Nance ’78 and his father, Evan, walk across the light green grass surrounding the stadium to join the crowd of about 1,500 people sitting in the white chairs.

They’ve arrived shortly before noon, but Stuart’s upset they didn’t get there earlier. He likes taking his time to review the horses’ past performances, jockeys’ records, trainers’ records and tip sheets to pick his bets, so he decides not to confer with Evan before the first race starts at 1 p.m. He’s learned enough from his dad over the years. He knows what he’s doing now.

It’s a casual Class Two race — inexpensive horses. The total purse is only $2,000 each for the first two races. Evan and Stuart want to bet on the daily double, meaning they have to predict the winners of the first two races before the races start.

Stuart wagers a dollar on Miss Vibrant Jet — horse five out of nine in the first race — and a dollar on Kool Kue Baby — horse three out of ten in the second race. He doesn’t know what Evan’s bets are, but after he and his dad cash their tickets for the first race, they walk down the large flight of stairs from the betting window to their seats. They gaze intently at the track.

The starting gates flap open, and the horses bolt through, their hooves clopping on and kicking up the red, sandy dirt.

Twenty-three seconds later, the race is over. Miss Vibrant Jet crosses the finish line first.

As Stuart and Evan walk back up the stairs to cash in their tickets and place their bets for the second race, Stuart asks his father, “How’d you do? Any winners?”

“Well, I got the first half of the daily double,” Evan responds.

“No way! So did I! Who do you have for the second race?”

“Kool Kue Baby.”

“Wow, so do I!”

Stuart and Evan walk back down the stairs to their seats for the second race, holding their breaths before the second race starts. The starting gates flap open again, and 20 seconds later, Stuart and Evan cheer together for Kool Kue Baby as she crosses the finish line in first place.

For two people guessing blindly, there’s a one-in-8,100 chance they both win this daily double betting independently of each other. But Stuart and Evan’s experience pays off. They both win in an uncanny stroke of luck.

Evan’s hobby for betting on horse races stems from his time as a traveling salesman, when he would leave Dallas in his company car for two weeks at a time and drive to West Texas and New Mexico. In the trunk of his car, he always carried the wool blanket that was issued to him as a soldier in World War Two. That wool blanket kept him alive in the frigid 1944 winter in Germany while his unit huddled together in foxholes to avoid freezing to death. He kept his blanket with him as a memento and a sign of his good luck.

“If you survive the cold — if you survive the shelling, the snipers, the mortars and all that stuff –– then he figured, ‘Man, every day is a bonus, and it’s all good,’” Stuart said. “He just had that outlook. He wasn’t going to get too stressed out about stuff.”

double, the mare Kool Kue Baby wins the second race at Trinity Meadows. By the time she retired in 2000, she was the all-time leader among American Quarter Horses with 25 stakes victories.

Evan channeled his glass-half-full attitude in horse races. As he drove around selling steel to clients, he became friends with a customer who owned a few American Quarter Horses and was involved in the horse racing game. Evan started attending horse races with his friends, and soon it became a passion he shared with Stuart from a young age.

Stuart and Evan had a unique father-son connection in this aspect. Stuart learned everything — from handicapping horses, to tracing breeds and bloodlines, to grading their value — from his dad. As he quickly realized, the nuance of betting is much more complicated than it appears to the untrained eye. Betting on the most popular horse is not necessarily the best strategy because betters must take into account which horse will give them the highest payback.

“If the favorite horse is an odds-on favorite, you’re not going to get any return for the money you bet because the odds are so poor,” Stuart said. “You might be better off betting on a horse that’s not as favored, but if it does win, you’ll receive a much more handsome payout. It’s not just picking the winner. It’s looking for value on the odds. It’s a test of your experience and your abilities to handicap, and there’s a fair bit of luck involved, too.”

Eight days later...

Having spent the night before at his girlfriend’s house, Stuart returns home Saturday afternoon, only to see the number “5” flashing on the digital display of the cordless telephone lying on the table. Five missed calls.

Uh-oh.

He picks up the phone to hear the messages from his answering machine.

“Stuart, it’s your mother. I need you to call me as soon as possible. Your father’s in the hospital...”

He listens to the next message.

“Stuart, it’s your mother. I’m calling again…”

His heart sinks. He knows something’s wrong, and a devastating feeling of guilt over missing her calls washes over him.

Immediately, he rushes to Hobby Airport and negotiates his way onto a Southwest Airlines flight from Houston to Love Field. Once he lands in Dallas, Stuart notices something peculiar about the date on his way to Presbyterian Hospital — something his father would’ve found fortuitous.

Dec. 3 — 12/3. Dad was born March 12, 1924 — 3/12. He likes lucky numbers, and today’s the coincidental reverse of his birthday. He’d like that.

Stuart arrives at the hospital at 5 p.m. His mom — Janelle Nance — is already there. Evan has had a heart attack. As Evan undergoes surgery in the ER on the first floor, Stuart and his mom wait upstairs in a private room with a few chairs and a small table — enough to accommodate about four people.

The nurse says Stuart and his mom can see Evan for a few minutes, so they enter the ER. It’s the typical hospital scene. Evan’s slightly conscious, lying inclined on a hospital bed with IV needles in his arms and heart rate monitors all around. Stuart and Janelle hold their breaths when they see him.

“Don’t worry about your dad,” a nurse reassures Stuart. “He’s strong. He’s young. He’ll be fine.”

Stuart peers at his 70-year-old father’s jet-black hair. Evan’s always appeared younger than his age, but as Stuart takes a closer look, he notices only three, maybe even four gray hairs in the hair above his father’s temple.

The hospital staff allows them to have only a few moments with Evan, so Stuart leans in and holds his father’s frail hand.

“Dad, you’ve got to get well soon so we can go back to the horse races again.”

Evan smiles, remembering their lucky daily double win, but he doesn’t say anything. The nurses usher Stuart and his mom out of the ER, so they go back to the waiting room.

A few minutes later, alarms — some sort of signal only the hospital staff understand. The medical professionals rush into Evan’s room. Stuart and his mom know something’s wrong.

And about 15 minutes later, a nurse comes out and delivers the news.

“Your father’s gone.”

It was jarring to lose his dad so unexpectedly soon. To this day, Stuart and his family don’t know the exact cause of Evan’s death. There was no autopsy. They speculate internal bleeding or cardiac arrest, but nobody knows for sure.

“You just never know,” Stuart said. “This might be the last conversation we ever have. I remember holding his hand, and I honestly had no idea what was going on with him. What his prognosis was. I just knew it was bad and scary and shocking.”

With his mother recovering from ovarian cancer the year before, Stuart and his family were already under a great deal of stress. And only nine short years after Evan’s passing, Janelle was diagnosed once more, this time with pancreatic cancer, passing away at 73 years old. The pain of losing his parents so early weighs on Stuart to this day, but he recognizes they died almost painlessly with no long-term illnesses.

Still, Stuart has nagging unanswered questions he wishes he had asked that day at Trinity Meadows.

What really happened in Germany in November 1944?

Evan rarely spoke to his family about World War Two. Stuart only knows the details of his father’s time in Europe through his own research and from talking to other family members.

“It would’ve gone one of two ways: he would’ve either talked about it, and said, ‘Yeah, I was scared,’ or he would’ve told me he didn’t want to talk about it,” Stuart said. “A lot of his peers were so traumatized. They weren’t used to talking about their fears, or the fact that they had come to terms with the real possibility that they could die at 17 or 18 years old.”

Evan was only 20 years old when he was deployed in France. He left his two sisters and his Albanian immigrant parents in Worcester, Massachusetts. He left his officer training program and engineering education at Rutgers University. He left a normal college experience.

As a U.S. private first class foot soldier, Evan marched with the 104th Infantry Division and fought through Belgium and Germany in 1944 until he was Wounded in Action by shrapnel in his leg Nov. 17 in Eschweiler, Germany. He was discharged and brought back to the U.S. with a Purple Heart medal in early 1945, but his brother, who served in the Merchant Marines, had died in battle.

“People who knew him called him an eternal optimist, and we often thought that was because of his harrowing experiences as a young man in World War Two,” Stuart said. “My sense is that it really shaped his outlook on life. It’s like, ‘Look, if I can survive that hell, then nothing bad can happen to me. Every day is going to be a good day.’”

How did you know when it was the right time to get married?

In 1955, Evan moved to Dallas to work for Laclede Steel and started a family at the same time. Evan and Janelle got married when he was 31 and she was 25, having a 39-year marriage until Evan’s passing in 1994, before Stuart’s wedding. “It’s just not something we talked about a whole lot,” Stuart said. “It would have been interesting for me to hear his perspective on being a single man, being a father and being a husband. My dad didn’t dispense a lot of advice. He was fairly hands-off. He didn’t talk about his feelings very much. If I were back on that day — not 60-year-old Stuart, but 34-year-old Stuart — I would have asked him.”

But above what he would’ve asked his father, there’s something else he wishes he said.

I love you, Dad.

Story Sai Thirunagari, Austin Williams Photos Courtesy Stuart Nance ’78