KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX NewsRangerette Couple celebrates 70th anniversary

KILGORE, TX  (KLTV) - She was on the first line up of the Rangerette Dance Team at Kilgore College, over seventy years ago, and he was the first manager and prop designer on the team. Now, they are celebrating 70 years together.

"This is my wife, Eleanor, 70 years she's been my wife and it's a wonderful time," says Tommy H. Anderson Junior of Kilgore.

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KC 70th Wedding Anniversary!

It was the first year, 1940, that Kilgore College introduced a Rangerette Dance Team, and Eleanor was one of the first lucky gal's to perform.

"I had never been in anything like that, I was never in a band in high school,so it was exciting, first year of college, new world," says Eleanor Anderson of Kilgore.

On the sidelines, making the props for the team, was Tommy Anderson, and despite being just a freshman, he had his eyes on Eleanor from the start, "Well, I thought she was taken so I just kept up, and kept talking to her."

Apparently, the feeling was mutual, "It was just somebody I liked looking at, I fell in love with him the second I saw him," says Eleanor.

Eleanor and Tommy celebrated their 70th Anniversary at the Kilgore College, in the Rangerette Museum along with their family, who all hold tight to the all time Rangerette love story.

"I would come home from school and the house would be full hula hoops or horses or other things for the Rangerettes to use," says DeAnne Anderson, Eleanor and Tommy's daughter.

"I think it's cool and I'm glad she's the first Rangerette," says Eleanor and Tommy's 10 year old Granddaughter, Linley Hawes.

After all, that is where it all began.

"This is my fondest memory of the Rangerettes, right here," Eleanor says.

Eleanor and Tommy have two children. They also have Grand children, and even Great Grand children, and some of them plan to be a Rangerette themselves.

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