Gergens poses in his Texas Tuesday attire.
Courtesy | Ally Hall

Austin Gergens ’21 does not ride a horse to work. He never played football under the Texas Friday night lights. He does not even have “Texas” on his birth certificate. But he sports boots, a jacket, and a bolo tie every Tuesday and encourages others to do the same.

Gergens, now a second-year graduate student in the Masters of Arts in Classical Education program, gained an appreciation for the culture of the Lone Star State when he taught at a charter school in Texas for a year before returning to Hillsdale. When Gergens returned to Hillsdale, he wanted to bring a bit of the Lone Star State back with him.

“The summers are pretty brutal, but the barbecue is very good, and the people are very good as well,” Gergens said. “There’s definitely a distinct ethos to Texans that was fun to be around.”

Gergens began the phenomenon that has come to be known as “Texas Tuesday” last fall.

“I really enjoyed my time in Texas and thought it would be fun to transplant that in a certain context,” Gergens said. “So, I started dressing as yee-haw as I could on Tuesdays.”

He began dressing like a cowboy, spreading the word, and passing out Texas pins.

“Pretty early on, my graduate cohort caught on and was like, yeah, it’s Texas Tuesday,” Gergens said.

Kevin Franco, a second-year master’s student in the MACE program, refers to Gergens as “the sheriff.”

“On my jacket, I don one of the multiple Texas Tuesday lapel pins, available as designated and distributed solely by the sheriff,” Franco said.

The participants who sport Texas Tuesday attire stand out on campus.

“Men usually sport a pin and a coat,” Gergens said. “Ladies sometimes wear a coat with the pin, but often wear some sort of summer dress. Boots are usually sported by all.”

Gergens also has a collection of bolo ties that he rotates through to top off his Texas Tuesday outfit.

“I have a raccoon one, a couple that have a giant ‘A’ or a giant ‘G’, a turquoise one, but the scorpion one is my favorite,” Gergens said.

The scorpion bolo tie that has been passed down through Gergens’ family is one in particular that people are not used to seeing every day. Even Gergens’ students in Texas paid special attention to his scorpion bolo tie.

“My sixth graders were kind of scared of the scorpion one, so it was kind of fun to deploy it from time to time,” Gergens said.

Texas Tuesday has also caught the attention of Josh Underwood, a junior and founder of the Lone Star Society, a student club started last year. Though the Lone Star Society and Texas Tuesday are two separate initiatives, Underwood participates in both because they share similar values.

“Texas Tuesday is about importing the culture we love up north and then immediately sharing it with others in simple things like pins, clothing, boots,” Underwood said. “It’s an easy way to show state pride. That’s why we started the Lone Star Society in the first place.”

While it appears as a dress-up day to outsiders, the Texas pride that flows on Tuesdays breeds resilience within its participants, according to Franco.

“Tuesdays are usually my busiest day, and the knowledge that every Tuesday is Texas Tuesday, however trivial it may seem to the non-adherent, instills me with a degree of delight and purpose that affords me the resilience to meet the trials of an otherwise daunting second day of the week,” Franco said.

Professors too have begun to take part in Texas Tuesday. Assistant Professor of Education Timothy Green even thinks that the college could do more to support the movement in the spirit of Texas.

“If we really want to commit, I think the college should arrange to serve Blue Bell Ice Cream from Brenham, Texas — the best ice cream in the country — in the cafeteria every Tuesday,” Green said. “Furthermore, on Tuesdays, all professors should allow students to use the word ‘y’all’ in class and in their written work as well.”

The Blue Bell, the boots, the belt buckles, Buc-ee’s, and the bolo ties all contribute to the Texas pride that Gergens said is very real.

“Especially being here, I’d never encountered state pride, but then I moved to Texas, and it was like, oh, this is a whole different volume of state pride,” Gergens said.

Texas Tuesday is something Gergens plans to take with him post-Hillsdale, and he hopes it continues at the college long after he is gone.

“And I wish you could also have a revolver, but sadly, we’re not in Texas,” Gergens said.