By Dan Broughton
For nearly a century the Milby COED Cadettes have entertained students and residents from Harrisburg and the East End, as well as across Texas and in Hawaii. Mathematics teacher Fannie Davis founded the organization in 1926 as the Milby High School Pep Squad, and since that time, alumni have credited the COED Cadettes with giving them lifelong friendships and skills that have carried them through their careers. Their motto of “Friendship, Honor, and Service” stands as a guiding principle to the thousands of students who served on the team over the past century.
Davis, one of Milby’s original teachers, founded the pep squad with thirty members. The 1938 yearbook described Davis as the “General sponsor of Milby and official pepper-upper,” and the COEDS eventually named an award for her. Yearbooks were dedicated to the beloved teacher in 1928 and 1939; and on her retirement in 1946, the yearbook dedicated a page to Davis proclaiming, “First in the heart of Mrs. Davis is Milby, and first in the heart of Milby is Mrs. Davis.”
Drill teams played an important part of school life in Texas in the 1930s, with one in six female students being members of these teams in the six HISD schools that sponsored them. The Houston Post reported in 1939 that “some… estimate more than 25 percent of the crowd that jams Buffalo stadium on high school football nights goes just to see the girls… drill.”
Although principals lauded the organizations for their discipline and benefits to school spirit, the Texas State Teachers Association recommended eliminating them in 1939, citing five criticisms: the high cost, the false perception that “the biggest show [indicates] the highest quality of education,” the excessively strenuous drilling, the unhealthiness of marching, and the inappropriate display of sexuality on the field. School officials criticized the annual $30 ($673 today) participation fee that alienated some girls, the noise and distractions created by the teams, and the long hours that detracted from studying. With the support of their principal and staff, Milby’s COEDS flourished over the following decades and drill teams continued to operate throughout HISD despite criticism.
The pep squad, which initially included girls and boys, took on the name “Milby Co-ed Cadets” in 1929 but became an all-female organization in 1932. It organized a drum and bugle corps the following year. By midcentury the COED Cadettes were regularly boasting an average of 150 to 200 members, adding a business manager in 1952. In 1977 the team added social officers to coordinate, “the vast number of public events sponsored by the Coeds.” The team was disbanded in 1997 and reorganized in 2003 as a dance team called Charlie’s Angels (a homage to the school’s mascot Charlie Buffalo, named for Charles Milby). After former COED and current Milby principal Ruth Peña joined the administration to pull Milby out of Improvement Required (IR) status, she resurrected the drill team as the Milby Cadettes in 2019, competing under University Interscholastic League (UIL) guidelines.
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