Military Ball

Celebrating a history of excellence

TMI social events: A brief history

Formal dances have been a part of TMI student life since the beginning. The second issue of the student magazine Bugle Notes, November 1899, reports that the school’s Dancing Club opened the social season earlier that year “with a most enjoyable hop….Good music and a not overcrowded floor made the 18 long dances and seven extras pass all too soon for the merry throng.” Cadets in those days learned their social graces at monthly tea dances with the students of Miss Mulholland’s School (alma mater of Mamie Doud Eisenhower, wife of President Dwight Eisenhower), with the two schools taking turns hosting the parties.

Later, TMI’s Cotillion Club was in charge of planning student social occasions. The 1932 Bluebonnet yearbook outlines a busy social season, including a Freshman Hop, Football Dance, Barn Dance, Junior Prom and Senior Prom. Only the proms and later, the Military Ball were held off campus; the St. Anthony Hotel downtown was their venue for many years.

While TMI was still an all-boys’ school, company sweethearts and the Queen of the Military Ball were chosen from among the dates of cadet officers. Now that the school and the Corps of Cadets are fully coeducational, female cadets fill these roles. Whenever possible, the Queen is crowned by her predecessor. She also wears a sash embroidered with her name and year, a tradition dating back to the late 1960s.