Is Homewrecking a New Aggie Tradition?
Jeffrey Puryear, B.S. ’78, will earn slightly more than twenty thousand dollars this year as a part-time laboratory associate for the University’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management. That’s approximately half of what he made several years ago, when the need to care for an ailing mother caused him to resign his $40,248 position. Three months later, after she passed away, Texas A&M rehired Puryear–but at only half of his original salary, as the other funds had been allocated elsewhere. Despite this financial hardship, Puryear recently scraped together a one thousand dollar donation to Yes on 8, a political action committee opposed to gay marriage in California. Clair Nixon, M.S. ’77, Ph.D. ’80, a professor of accounting in the Mays Business School, stands on the other side of Texas A&M’s salary structure. However, he also faces his share of financial challenges. As a temple recommend-holding member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nixon tithes ten percent o
