School History

 

Anderson Elementary was named after Ralph "Andy" Anderson, a Houston sportswriter and humanitarian. The school opened in 1961 and was expanded in 1963.

Ralph A. Anderson: Sportswriter, Humanitarian, and Advocate for Veterans

Anderson, Ralph Alexander, Sr. (1890–1956). Ralph A. (Andy) Anderson, Sr., sportswriter and humanitarian, son of John and Anna Anderson, was born on May 14, 1890, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After two years at Carnegie Institute of Technology, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1917 at Fort Logan, Colorado, and served in the mounted engineers. After the armistice he was city editor and sports editor of the Houston Post from 1919 to 1923. In 1920 he married Ruby Rose Ellison. They had one son, Ralph A. Anderson, Jr.

While with the Post, Anderson was honored for his efforts in helping to establish sandlot baseball in Houston and the Houston Amateur Baseball Federation. In 1923 he went into the business of constructing and operating golf courses in several small towns around Houston. In 1923 he became sports editor of the Houston Press, with which he was affiliated the rest of his life. He wrote a column on hunting and fishing along the Texas Gulf Coast and conducted a radio program on outdoor sports for several years.

During World War II Anderson promoted the sale of war bonds and subsequently began rehabilitation work with returning disabled war veterans. This work included developing special social and recreational activities, with emphasis on the outdoors. He invented attachments for sports equipment to permit persons of various disabilities to participate. Under his direction annual wild-game dinners were instituted in several veterans' hospitals in South Texas; in addition to those hospitals, Anderson visited 172 other Veterans Administration hospitals over the United States as volunteer-at-large to entertain and instruct the veterans in recreational pursuits.