One of the more interesting and unconventional student organizations of the early history of SFA was the Royal Order of Potential Debunkers. The Stone Fort Yearbook of 1929 described the eclectic group as a “pen and pep” organization. Their difficulties stemmed from their unconventionality, and the fact that they were “not trite,” to use their words. The main officer of the club was the “Chief-Shoveler.” Their “show” for the 1929 season was a huge production, what we would call today a multi-media event, with “talking, singing, dancing, Technicolor spectacle.” It was a clever production, according to The Pine Log, one of the most novel of the school year. The Pine Log continued:

“The supreme climax to the array of talent combine in this show is the superb direction of Gillette Tilford, former student. Gillette has collected the material for this program with strokes of a genius. He has combined it into a two hours period of entertainment that excels any thing heretofore presented in Aikman. Moments of dramatic intensity happen in wholesale murder of spouses, dramatic art in a scene from Shakespeare, and invigorating comedy in a college scene. A Debunker Production.” (The Pine Log, Oct. 19, 1929.)

This unique group only lasted through the 1930 academic year. The last report on the Debunkers in the Stone Fort yearbook read as follows:

“This club has straggled along on crutches all the year, and we admit taking the cup for glorious flops. In the winter Joe Melton resigned and his cabinet, consisting of one, automatically ceased to function. During the year nothing was done on a large scale, but we were very successful at doing nothing.” (Stone Fort Yearbook, 1930, p. 156.)

The Stone Fort of 1930 offered a poem which serves as a fitting epitaph for the Debunkers.

We are the Debunkers

Whose aim is to debunk,

All things which are unconventional

And which we think are punk.

We are prepared to show you

Our school’s most glaring flaws,

And send some bricks with which we’ll mix

Some kindly apple sauce.