By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

Don’t expect photographer O. Rufus Lovett to dismiss the Kilgore Rangerettes as a silly, lightweight drill team. He’s got the photos to prove they’re not.

“They are a very well-coordinated, disciplined drill team. They rehearse, rehearse, rehearse,” he explained in a recent interview. “There’s a discipline, almost a Marine-like discipline to what they do.”

Lovett knows firsthand, having photographed the world-famous Texas drill team in performance and on the practice field from 1989 to 2007.

Multimedia

• Slide show: "O. Rufus Lovett: Kilgore Rangerettes"
• Slide show: "Warren Taylor: "Dreams and Drifting"

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"O. Rufus Lovett: Rangerettes" and "Warren Taylor: Dreams and Drifting"

When, where: Lovett's exhibition will run Tuesday through Feb. 24, while Taylor's show will run Tuesday through Feb. 26, both at Martin Museum of Art in Baylor University's Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Free.

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O. Rufus Lovett brings his photographs of the Kilgore Rangerettes to Baylor's Martin Museum of Art, starting next week. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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His square, black-and-white images of drill team members make up one of the exhibits opening Tuesday at Baylor University’s Martin Museum of Art.

Lovett’s Rangerette photographs show the team’s legendary precision, bent arms and legs repeating geometic patterns, their trademark white cowboy hats and long hair framing faces that are different, yet similar.

The photographs capture the iconic look of the Rangerettes, one reason why Texas Monthly tapped Lovett in 1990 for a close-up of a Rangerette nearly touching her hat’s brim with her boot in a high-kick, then called on him for more Rangerette photos, including a color cover, for a 2004 article on the drill team and its history.

“I was really interested in the contrast of small-town glamour seen against . . . a bleak urban environment,” he said, explaining that his use of black-and-white images emphasizes that contrast without the distraction of color.

He traveled with the team during its 50th anniversary season in 1989 and says his frequent presence at team practices and performances made him, at times, nearly invisible to members. “Most of these images aren’t contrived,” he said. “I was there so much they stopped paying attention to me.”

The images in the Martin Museum exhibit capture Rangerettes practicing, performing, using props or relaxing away from drill instructors’ demanding gazes.

His favorites? “Three Chairs,” in which none of the Rangerettes seated in an auditorium awaiting a meeting is looking at the camera, he says, although he also likes “King and Queen,” a shot of a Rangerette Homecoming Queen and her King that looks like a 1950s photo.

“Some things never change, and the Rangerettes are the top of the list,” Lovett said with a smile.

The Kilgore College photography instructor shoots more than Rangerettes. There’s his “WMD” project, of how weapons are displayed prominently in small towns; “Southern Claus,” a look at Santa Claus displays across the state; and Hurricane Ike’s destruction of Bolivar Island near Galveston. He’ll talk about his work in a gallery lecture on Feb. 11.

choover@wacotrib.com

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