Building Fences to Build Bridges

Photo by Ryan Price ‘07

When it came time to choose a college, it was a pretty short conversation for Pam ’75 and Larry Little ’73, who both grew up in Bryan. “We didn’t have a choice!” laughed Pam.

“By the time I got to high school, it was an assumed thing,” agreed Larry, a first-generation college student. “We didn’t have much money and it didn’t cost a whole lot to go to Texas A&M, especially if you lived at home.”

Pam’s dad, Howard Mitchell ’50, was a World War II veteran who served in the Navy and attended Texas A&M on the GI Bill. “He always had a deep love of A&M and he instilled that in both of us,” she said, recalling the announcement that the university would become co-ed in 1963 and how excited he was that she would be able to attend.

“He was the motivation for us not just to graduate and leave, but impressed on us how important it was to keep involved at Texas A&M so the future of it would continue,” said Pam.

The couple have done just that, as in recent years they have provided more than $4 million in gifts to the university, much of it for scholarships. They are continuing a legacy of Aggies helping Aggies by ensuring access for future generations of students at Mays Business School and the College of Veterinary Medicine.

While attending Texas A&M was the obvious choice for the Littles, it was also a rewarding one. “It’s been a great decision, going to A&M,” said Larry. “I didn’t regret it for one minute.” After he graduated with a degree in marketing in 1973, the couple relocated to Houston where Larry worked for a textbook publishing company in sales and Pam finished her degree in history at the University of Houston. A perk of Larry’s job was the fact that he had summers off. He started working for a friend installing fences as a summer job for some extra income, but it didn’t take long before he bought out the friend and continued to grow the company that later became Ace Fence. He took advantage of a housing boom in Houston and then later in Dallas to become one of the biggest independent fencing contractors in the nation.

Meanwhile Pam also built a career with textbook publishers, working in curriculum standards evaluation and marketing roles. She became a regional vice president for Houghton Mifflin before retiring early to focus on public service. She has served on the town council in Fairview (Larry has as well), where the couple currently lives, and she has also served on the Texas State Board of Education since 2018.

Though she completed her degree elsewhere, it always bothered Pam that she left Texas A&M before finishing her final year. During the pandemic, she started taking online classes at the university, then followed it up with one semester on campus. In 2022, she walked across the stage at Reed Arena to receive her Texas A&M diploma.

Upon her graduation, Larry made a very romantic gesture: he endowed a gift for scholarships in recognition of his bride accomplishing the goal of a lifetime.

Much of their giving at Mays Business School has been to support entrepreneurship, including an endowed scholarship Pam created in Larry’s honor for his birthday. Larry’s parents owned Little’s Drive-in Groceries in Bryan, and Larry’s first job was selling Cokes at Kyle Field as a kid, so his entrepreneurial roots run deep. “Entrepreneurship is important to both of us. We started our business out of our garage and we want to lead by example,” said Pam. “We want to show students that they could do that too.”

The Littles would like to see more people launching businesses who are informed by the Aggie Core Values like excellence, integrity, and leadership. “The more people like that we have, the better our economy will be,” said Pam.

Larry is especially excited to provide scholarships to first-generation students because he knows what an impact a college degree can have. He and Pam want as many talented young people as possible to have access to a great education as well as to develop the Aggie Spirit. “Many of your first-generation students may not have the resources or the finances. We didn’t want to just help kids that were straight-A students, we wanted to help ones who really needed it, to where it’s going to make a difference in their life,” said Pam.

“We are fortunate to have the means to give back,” added Larry, noting that giving to Mays Business School just makes sense when he thinks about his life. “One of the main reasons I wanted to give to the business school is because 50 years ago, something happened to me there that got me to where I am now. I want to help some of those kids get to where they need to be in 50 years.”