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WILSON, SAMUEL CALHOUN (1877-1939). Samuel Calhoun Wilson, agronomist, the son of James Reed and Ella Louise (Calhoun) Wilson, was born on January 5, 1877, in Walker County. He attended public schools in Huntsville and was graduated from Sam Houston Normal Institute. He also studied at the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, George Peabody College, and Cornell University. He was married in November 1905 to Sammie Logan; they had three children. Wilson became a member of the faculty of Sam Houston Normal Institute as a young man, and his career was intimately associated with the growth of that institution. For twenty-nine years he was director of the school's agriculture department, and for a number of those years Sam Houston Normal Institute was the only normal school in the United States that was authorized to give teacher training in vocational agriculture under the provisions of the Smith-Hughes Act; Wilson's department came to be recognized as one of the most outstanding in the South. Toward the close of his career he was given a life membership in the Texas Vocational Association, which honored him as "the father of vocational agriculture in Texas." Wilson belonged to a number of professional and honorary societies; he was president of the Texas Vocational Association and of the Texas State Teachers Association.^qv During World War I^qv he was employed by the Department of the Interior as supervisor of farm production in southern states. He was the author of numerous articles on educational topics, and he was responsible for several conferences on rural life and education that met in Huntsville under the sponsorship of the federal government. Wilson died on October 21, 1939, in Huntsville; he was buried in Oakwood Cemetery there.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, Herbert P. Gambrell, Mary Carter Toomey, and Alex M. Acheson, Jr., Texian Who's Who, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Texian, 1937). Faculty Biographies, 1879-1940 (MS, Sam Houston State University Library).

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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/WW/fwi58.html (accessed January 8, 2009).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

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Last Updated: January 11, 2008
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