Terry Rangers Mission & Vision
Our Mission
The Mission of Terry High School is to provide a high quality and innovative academic growth experience for Each & Every student.
Our Vision
At Terry High School, we ground our work in equitable practices, academic excellence, and student agency. Therefore, Terry Rangers will engage in joyful and rigorous learning experiences in Every moment, Every class, Every day.
History of B.F. Terry High School
We were established in 1980, B.F. Terry High School was the second high school built in the growing Lamar Consolidated Independent School District. Our campus was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin Terry, leader in Fort Bend County and who would go to organize a group of Texas cavalrymen and was the leader of "The 8th Texas Cavalry" of the Texas Rangers.
Much of B.F. Terry High School's culture and traditions established in the early days were attributed to the servant leadership of Principal Harry Wright, Lamar CISD's first African-American school princpal, and the first campus leader in school history. Principal Wright would go on to lead the Rangers for eleven years until his retirement following the 1990-1991 school year.
The pride that "Terry's Texas Rangers" felt has been carried on throughout B.F. Terry High School for decades. Students and staff continue the traditions set in 1980 that Rangers Never Quit. Our Terry Ranger Pride is evident. The B. F. Terry High School Rangers continue to lead the way, as General William J. Hardee once declared, "I always feel safe when the Rangers are in front."
Biography of Benjamin Franklin Terry (1821–1861)
Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Terry, organizer and first commander of the Eighth Texas Cavalry (Terry's Texas Rangers) in the Civil War, was born on February 18, 1821, in Russellville, Kentucky, the son of Joseph R. and Sarah D. (Smith) Terry and the older brother of David Smith Terry. His grandfathers, Nathaniel Terry and David Smith, had been officers in the Revolutionary War, and the latter also served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. While Terry was still a child his parents moved to Mississippi and separated. The 1830 census of Hinds County, Mississippi, enumerated the Terry household as Sarah Terry, five male children, and eight slaves. In 1833 or early 1834 Sarah Terry moved to Texas and settled with her brother, Maj. Benjamin Fort Smith, in Brazoria County. Sarah Terry died a few years later; in 1837 her brother was appointed guardian of the children and administrator of her estate, which consisted of over 2,000 acres of land fronting the Brazos River and eighteen slaves. Ben F. Smith then died in 1841, and young Frank Terry assumed responsibility for managing the family plantation. On October 12, 1841, Terry married Mary Bingham, daughter of Francis Bingham, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists in Texas. The couple had three sons and three daughters. On March 6, 1844, the Houston Telegraph reported that two insurgent slaves attacked Terry on his plantation with knives and axes, but "with admirable courage" he defended himself and managed to disable both men. Terry formed a partnership with William J. Kyle, and in 1851 they were awarded a contract to construct the first railroad in Texas, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, from Harrisburg, a small hamlet five miles from Houston, to the Brazos River and beyond to Richmond. Terry and Kyle used slave labor in the construction, which cost $18,400 per mile, but it was not until January 1856 that the tracks reached the Brazos some thirty miles from Harrisburg. Due to the railroad, however, a brisk trade began to move to Harrisburg. Houston was not to be outdone and received authorization from the state to finance a railroad and approval from its taxpayers to build the Houston Tap, as it was called, to connect with the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway at a point eight miles from Harrisburg. Terry and Kyle were also awarded the contract to build the Houston Tap. Terry had also purchased the Oakland sugar plantation in Fort Bend County in 1852 and became a prosperous sugar planter. In 1860 he and Kyle had real and personal property worth almost $300,000.
By reason of his wealth, large physical size, and popularity, Frank Terry became a leader in Fort Bend County, and on January 9, 1861, he was elected a delegate to the Secession Convention in Austin. Terry and two fellow delegates, Thomas S. Lubbock and John A. Wharton, conceived the idea of organizing at least one company of Texas cavalrymen for the new government. In February and March of 1861 Terry was one of the senior officers aiding John Salmon Ford and Ebenezar B. Nichols in the campaign to disarm the federal troops at Brazos Santiago. In June 1861 Terry, Lubbock, Wharton, and perhaps as many as fifty other Texans sailed from Galveston to New Orleans and then caught the train to Richmond to offer their services to the Confederate Army. In Richmond Terry and Lubbock secured positions as volunteer aides to Gen. James Longstreet. Both men were appointed colonel, a term attached as a courtesy for their volunteer service, and participated with distinction in the battle of First Manassas or Bull Run. Afterward, the Confederate War Department granted the authority to organize a cavalry regiment. At Houston on August 12, 1861, Terry and Lubbock issued a call for volunteers that was answered by 1,170 men. The rangers were sworn into service in September, but Terry delayed their final organization until late November, when they were officially designated the Eighth Texas Cavalry. The regiment started immediately for Virginia but en route was diverted to Nashville and then later ordered to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Terry was killed in the first battle fought by the rangers near Woodsonville, Kentucky, on December 17, 1861. The battle, however, abruptly ended in a Confederate victory. Terry's body was sent by train to Nashville, Tennessee, where the legislature adjourned and joined in a procession escorting the remains to be held in state at the Tennessee Capitol. The body lay in state in New Orleans and then Houston, where the funeral procession was described as "the most imposing ever seen in this state." Governor Lubbock lauded Terry in the state Senate: "no braver man ever lived-no truer patriot ever died." Terry County was later named in his honor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
James Knox Polk Blackburn, Reminiscences of Terry's Texas Rangers (Austin: Littlefield Fund for Southern History, University of Texas, 1919; rpt., Austin: Ranger Press, 1979). Zachary T. Fulmore, History and Geography of Texas As Told in County Names (Austin: Steck, 1915; facsimile, 1935). Andrew Forest Muir, "Railroads Come to Houston, 1857–1861," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 64 (July 1960).
Terry's Texas Rangers Memorial at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, TX