Rebecca Pruitt and Dylan Pruitt, both Class of 2015, got married this summer, making them the fourth generation of Aggie couples in their family whose attendance at A&M preceded tying the knot.
The first two generations of Aggies in this lineage were Orgene Colvin, Class of 1944, and Bobby Woodward, Class of 1957. Their wives did not get the chance to attend because women were not allowed to attend the college at the time. These relationships, as well as the third and fourth generation Aggie relationships, reveal the history of our school and how it has developed.
“Orgene went on to be a B-24 pilot during World War II and was flying missions out of North Africa and was shot down over northern Italy and taken in as a prisoner-of-war in a German prison camp for the last 12 or 18 months of the war,” Woodward said of the late Orgene Colvin.
Many of the students at Texas A&M at the time left school to take part in the war efforts, said Woodward. Colvin was no exception and left at the end of his sophomore year to become a military pilot.
“They got married on the 24-hour pass,” Woodward said. “This is World War II, so it was one of those typical things that went on during that time.”
Getting married on the “24-hour pass” meant Colvin and his wife, Zelda, got married on one of the short periods that he had away from duty during the years of 1942 and 1943.
“He had married before he went overseas [again], and he came back and graduated with electrical engineering in 1950 on the G.I. Bill, then returned to the U.S. Air Force and made a career out of the air force,” Woodward said.
Colvin is the uncle of Peggy Woodward, Bobby Woodward’s wife. Peggy attended Sam Houston State University during college.
“My grandma was one of those girls that rode the train from Sam Houston on the weekends to go to the Aggie games with the Corps boys,” Rebecca Pruitt said.
Bobby and Peggy met on Oct. 20, 1956 during the A&M vs. TCU football game on a blind date set up by Bobby’s roommate, who was dating a student from Sam Houston at the time.
“That was the tornado game that they talk about. The tornado touched down at Easterwood airport during the ball game and some 100-plus airplanes were damaged and what have you,” Woodward said. “The wind blew hard enough that the flags on top of the stands, the poles, were bent almost to a 45 degree angle. Of course, they didn’t have any lightening. The game was not delayed. They just kept playing on.”
The Woodwards married on Jan. 25, 1959 after he proposed to her at a family gathering in honor of his grandmother.
“I was a senior at A&M whenever we met, and she was a freshman at Sam [Houston State],” Woodward said. “So, we were trying to wait until she graduated, but after I had gone into service and came back, we just decided to go ahead and get married in January of ’59.”
The Woodward’s had two children who later went to Texas A&M University — Sheryl Hollabaugh, Class of 1983, and the late Scott Woodward, Class of 1986. The two would bring their children to Aggie football games and other events in Aggieland as they grew up.
“I grew up going out to games — it always felt like a second home to me. I mean, I would walk around as a kid singing the Aggie War Hymn,” Sheryl Hollabaugh said. “It’s like that when you find who you want to marry. It’s just a feeling you get, and it’s indescribable. You just know it’s right. “
Sheryl Hollabaugh met her husband, Gregg Hollabaugh, Class of 1981, during her first couple of weeks as a student on campus before classes began.
“I was in Mosher dorm, and he lived in Aston. There was a friend of mine from high school that lived on his floor, so my roommate and I went up there to see our friend from high school,” Sheryl Hollabaugh said. “Our freshman year, the ratio of guys to girls was like, 5 guys to every 1 girl, so when there were girls around, guys just seemed to kind of gather around to see who the girls were because there were not a lot of us, and he was one of the ones I met.”
She accompanied him to the game against Arkansas that year for their first date. They dated through her four years of college.
“He graduated a year ahead of me, so he was already working in Corpus Christi,” Sheryl Hollabaugh said. “Once he accepted his job when he was a senior, we just decided that we were going to get married and just started planning from there.”
Gregg spent his first paycheck at his new job on an engagement ring for Sheryl. Six weeks after she graduated, they got married on June 11, 1983. They have been married since, have started a family and are the Aggie parents of Rebecca Pruitt, Class of 2015, who graduated in the spring before marrying Dylan Pruitt.
“We met freshman year during the second week of school in Evans library. He just sat down next to me and started talking to me. It was kind of weird, but I liked that about him,” Rebecca Pruitt said.
The two did not start their relationship until March of the following semester because they fell out of contact after football season.
“He was supposed to ask me to a bunch of football games, namely the Baylor game,” Rebecca Pruitt said. “He was supposed to ask me to that game, but he was too nervous I guess to ask me because he didn’t think I was going to say, ‘yes.’ So, he could’ve asked me, and we would’ve started dating a lot sooner because I was interested, but he didn’t know that.”
The two ran into each other once again after spring break in Evan’s library and made plans to go with a group of friends out to Hurricane Harry’s for a night of dancing.
“We went to Harry’s, and he actually brought a date and tried to hook me up with one of his friends, which is really strange. If you knew Dylan, it totally makes sense because he’s like, clueless,” Rebecca Pruitt said.
The two joke that on their first date, he brought his own date. They decided to go out the next evening and have been together since then.
“He proposed on Sept. 6, 2014,” Rebecca Pruitt said. “He proposed under the Century tree.”
The Pruitt’s celebrated 100 days of marriage on Tuesday. They have both just started new jobs and are looking forward to.
