The year was 1945. Nettie Ruth Brucks, age 16, left Robstown, Texas, for Southwestern University with the intention to study Christian education. Her father, The Reverend Fred J. Brucks ’24, a Methodist preacher, had steered Nettie Ruth to his alma mater, hoping she would grow from the experience as much as he had. She has, and her influence is earmarked in Southwestern’s history.

Upon her arrival to campus, Nettie Ruth noticed no African American students. Like most colleges and universities in Southern states, Southwestern had yet to open the doors of opportunity for all. This realization troubled her profoundly.

“I came to Southwestern with a real conscience about segregation and integration,” she says.

She came also with a love for music and years of classical piano training during her childhood. Swayed by her passion, she shifted her major to music and studied piano under the tutelage of Dean Henry Meyer, Iola Bowden and other well-remembered music faculty. An accomplished student, she soon was teaching piano to others.

While sitting in Professor B.F. Jackson’s Christian education class one day, something in his lecture sparked her imagination and connected her love for music with her concern for racial justice. She wondered if she and other student music teachers could provide educational opportunities on their own to local African American children. Nettie Ruth left class and took her idea to Professor Jackson. Together, they went to see Miss Bowden.

Bowden, a native Texan, had long been disturbed that Georgetown’s then-segregated schools offered no fine arts program for African American students attending Marshall-Carver School. Amidst raised eyebrows, Bowden founded the Negro Fine Arts School at First United Methodist Church to teach black children piano and music lessons. Nettie Ruth was among the student teachers that provided instruction.

“We would walk down to First Methodist two afternoons each week, and 10 to 12 black children from town would be brought over on a school bus,” she says, adding that lessons culminated in a recital for parents and friends of the students. “The children wore their finest clothes. We made it very important for them.”

She says the experience was meaningful, because she “had an opportunity to get to know some wonderful children that I had no opportunity to get to meet before.”

Nettie Ruth was involved in other areas of Southwestern student life, too: Phi Mu Sorority, Alpha Chi Honor Society, the Southwestern Christian Association and Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities. The faculty named her Miss Southwestern in 1948, an honor presented each year to a young woman who exemplified fine character and leadership.

She traveled to all corners of the state as accompanist for the Navy Chorus. The experience of singing in the a cappella choir under John Richards, professor of music, was a high point of her learning experience, and the skills she learned prepared her to direct church choirs over many years.

Says Nettie Ruth, “Besides giving me a good education, I had wonderful mentoring from professors who really cared what happened to me. And I made a lot of friends.”

It also was at Southwestern where she met young Morris Bratton '47, a chemistry major and star athlete from Cleburne, Texas, who helped Southwestern secure back-to-back Sun Bowl victories in 1944 and 1945. After graduating with a B.S. from Southwestern and a M.Div. from Yale University, he went on to become a pastor, a Peace Corps trainer and a college president.

Once Nettie Ruth and Morris were married, their first purchase was a piano. Nettie Ruth used it to teach lessons during their children’s youngest years. Then she returned to school to get her elementary school teaching certificate, which led to teaching jobs around the county.

In her first job, she taught the usual range of subjects, including art, music and physical education, in a self-contained elementary classroom in San Antonio, Texas. “It was the most rewarding and the most difficult of all my years spent teaching.” Following a teaching stint in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, she taught science for three years and, subsequently, music for 15 years at the Sheridan School in Washington, D.C.

In the late 1980s, the Brattons retired to Kingsland, Texas. A going-away gift from friends exemplified the love the couple has for Southwestern. Money was raised for minority scholarships to be awarded to Southwestern in the Brattons’ name—a reminiscence of the kind of interest Nettie Ruth, and Morris too, have in providing opportunity for others.

As president of the Alumni Association Board of Directors from 1996 to 2000, Nettie Ruth was affectionately given the nickname “the velvet hammer.” Indeed, she provided outstanding, effective leadership—but with the kind of soft touch she might have dedicated to playing her favorite sonata. As she sought to serve the needs of alumni in meaningful ways, she pushed for greater diversity—ethnic, age, gender, geographic—within the board. As a result, the Board became a reflection of Southwestern’s alumni population. Another of her greatest legacies as president was inspiring more alumni to participate in a volunteer capacity for Southwestern. Nettie Ruth also was instrumental as part of the Presidential Search Committee, which led to the appointment of Jake B. Schrum '68 as Southwestern’s 14th president. Currently, she serves on the Steering Committee responsible for implementing the Alumni Self-Study Commission’s recommendations.

While many of her peers have eased into retirement, Nettie Ruth experienced a different calling.

An interest in politics earned her active leadership roles with the Texas Democratic Women’s unit in The Highland Lakes, which eventually led to her election as state president of Texas Democratic Women. In 1996, she was encouraged to run for the Texas State Board of Education from District 5. A self-admitted novice in the political world, Nettie Ruth launched a grassroots campaign and raised $33,000 to support her candidacy. That November, she earned 42 percent of the vote in 14 counties. While the incumbent went on to win the election, Nettie Ruth was pleased that she had raised wider consciousness about her concern for the school voucher system and better public school education. These days, Nettie Ruth is active as a volunteer with the Texas Freedom Network and is a Democratic precinct chair in Burnet County.

Nettie Ruth and Morris share time in Austin where they are active in the University United Methodist Church. When they’re not spending time promoting good nutrition to their family and friends, they hit the golf course and attend the symphony. Nettie Ruth also enjoys outings to the opera. “Morris doesn’t go to those,” she quips.

The couple has seven grandchildren. Two grandchildren have attended Southwestern: Christopher Bratton ’98 and Lori Bratton ’01. Christopher broadened their family’s Southwestern connection by marrying Stephanie Smith Bratton ’99. The couple gave Nettie Ruth and Morris their first great-grandchild.

Nettie Ruth still combs the halls of Southwestern’s buildings now and then, going to music performances, plays, special events and lectures. Of course, Morris is never far behind. Together, the two have attended 13 Brown Symposia. Nettie Ruth also is pleased to report that she still gets together with her former college roommates, Martha Jane (Mud) Williams Heard ’49, Frances (BeBe) Bethea Stephenson ’49, and Frances Deckard Nelson ’50. What has kept her so close to her alma mater all these years?

“Southwestern is a place of stability; it’s a place that you can count on. It is open to new ideas while still keeping its sense of history. The people who are there are people that you can respect and love. Next to my family and church, it’s been really an important part of my life. It is an anchor.”