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His A&M Corps of Cadets senior boots - custom-made by the original Mr. Joseph Holick - rest under a coat rack. Framed original movie placards from the Aggie-inspired film "We've Never Been Licked" line the walls beside pictures of Netterville and his youngest son, both former Corps members. There is one framed black and white photograph, however, that Netterville will always smile on fondly; it is a photo of Netterville and a purebred Shetland shepherd, a dog that symbolizes the rebirth of an A&M tradition that he says almost floundered away.
Netterville, 74, is recognized as being the first mascot corporal in University history, as he unofficially took on the duty of caring for Reveille II in 1954.
Reveille II was donated to the A&M College of Texas in 1952, more than eight years after Reveille I walked the campus. The student body tried to earn money to purchase a German shepherd, but came up short on funds; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Weinert, Class of 1900, donated the new dog and the student body formally accepted the gift.
"From 1952 to 1954, the band was taking care of her," Netterville said. "When Larry (Hill, Class of 1956) found her, we just assumed that no one looked after her during the summer and she just roamed around the campus."
Larry Hill, a fellow Corps member, found Reveille on the drill field outside of the Memorial Student Center one summer day in 1954, Netterville said. He and Netterville fed her, bathed her and snuck her over to the vet school for additional care.
The two cadets took care of Reveille II over the summer, taking her on trips to their home in Beaumont. When the fall semester started, Netterville, a junior in A Company Quartermaster division - which later became Company E-2 when the Corps units were reassigned in 1959 - kept the dog in his dorm room.
Lisa Kalmus, curator of the Corps of Cadets Center, did admit the band was supposed to keep the mascot when it was first donated, but she cannot verify Netterville's tale of finding the dog by the MSC.
"The band was the original caretaker," Kalmus said. "How the transition for caring for her was made to a different outfit isn't very clear."
With Reveille II now under his unit's care, Netterville found he could not afford the cost of her upkeep. He went to the dean of students to seek help.
"I said I need money to buy dog food for Reveille," Netterville said. "He (the dean) said she doesn't belong to this college or to the state of Texas. I said okay, then she belongs to A Company Quartermaster."
Netterville then proceeded to approach the student senate and had a resolution passed stating that the care for Reveille would always be provided by A Company Quartermaster.
To help come up with money to feed the mascot - aside from the generous donations from his stepfather and former Aggie, C. N. Magee, Class of 1934 - Netterville placed empty trashcans in Sbisa Dining Hall. As the cadets came and ate during the day, they would throw their spare change into the cans. Netterville's unit would collect the coins and purchase dog food for Reveille II.
Today, however, the University caters to Reveille's every need, Kalmus said.
"She has her own credit card, cell phone, scheduling person," Kalmus said. "There's a specific fund for travel and care for Reveille. It's very different now."
Netterville's caring for Reveille II went beyond just feeding her. The dog slept at the foot of his bunk in his dorm room, and eventually worked her way into becoming a fixture in his every day life.
Reveille II always escorted Netterville to class, and she was always well-behaved. Netterville said the current belief that if Reveille barks in class, the class is dismissed, was not true in his day. One particular accounting professor would call Reveille's name and wait for her answering bark before actually beginning the lecture.
Netterville also took Reveille II to church, on dates, to his home in Beaumont and to the movies, where she loved to eat the gum that was stuck under the seats. No matter where they went, she always rode shotgun.
"She always attracted a lot of young ladies, and need I say, I enjoyed the company of the young ladies," Netterville laughed.
Netterville was also in charge of handling Reveille II at football games, where she would march with the Aggie Band. However, when Netterville turned "Miss Rev" loose, she had a bad habit of relieving herself on the field as the band played; as a result, the crowd would place bets on which yard line she would choose each week.
When A&M played Rice in Houston in 1954, Netterville was under instructions to not release Reveille II from her harness.
"There were 72,000 fans in Rice stadium, and Reveille was in her harness," Netterville said. "I could pull her leash three times, and she'd turn around and get out of the leash. I looked around and there were 70,000 Aggies there, and I thought, 'what the hell?' And I let her loose."
Netterville knew he had made the right decision when the crowd went wild - and sure enough, Reveille II took care of business on the field. Yet, when Monday morning rolled around, he was able to talk his way out of any punishment.
In the fall of 1955, Netterville became commanding officer of A Company Quartermaster. Because his extra duties and schoolwork took up a lot of time, he often delegated the everyday care of Reveille II to underclassmen; however, Reveille II still slept in his room, and always kept an eye on him.
When Netterville graduated the following spring, he left Reveille II in the care of A Company Quartermaster, where she remained until 1966, when she passed away from kidney failure and arthritis.
"People think that Reveille has been like she is today forever," Netterville said. "If it hadn't have been for me and Larry Hill, the University probably wouldn't have a mascot today. The tradition would have died if we hadn't have given it new life. At the time, we didn't realize that."
Netterville's belief that he and Larry Hill solidified the mascot as a symbol of Aggieland would not have happened if the first Reveille wasn't found years before.
Reveille I
Kalmus said over 30 people have claimed to have found the first Reveille in 1931.
"There are so many stories about how the first one got here," Kalmus said. "The 'official' version is that some cadets found her on their way back from Navasota. They either hit her, or noticed her on the road and brought her back to the dorms. It's hard to imagine how it really happened."
Netterville says he knows the true version of Reveille's first appearance on campus.
In the early 1990s, he came across a series of letters that had been sent to the University in the 1980s from George Comnas, Class of 1935. After reading Comnas' detailed accounts of finding the original Reveille in 1931, Netterville set out to find Comnas.
"He was in New York and had been there since he graduated," Netterville said. "I wrote him and eventually talked to him on the phone, and he sent me copies of all the letters he had sent to the University."
Comnas' letters, addressed to John Koldus, former vice president of Student Services, and to Jerry Cooper, the then-editor of "The Texas Aggie" magazine, go into specific details about how, when and where Reveille I was found.
According to the letters, Comnas was among a group of 25 to 30 cadets at the end of the midterm break in 1931 that found an injured Reveille I laying at "the highway gate on the south of side of the campus, across from a railroad station no longer there."
Comnas said the puppy was whimpering and lying in a ditch beside the road; he thought she may have been hit by a slow-moving train and knocked into the ditch. He does state that she was a mixed breed of fox terrier and mongrel.
After discovering the bruised puppy, Comnas himself took her and brought her to Leggett Hall. To feed her, Comnas and some friends raided Sbisa Dining Hall for meat and bread.
Since it was against school rules for Comnas to have the dog in his dorm room, he had to keep her under close watch as he nursed her back to health. Of course, she had to have a name, and Comnas gave her a fitting one: "I named the puppy Reveille since I had to put the puppy into hiding before the bugler blew Reveille and then Assembly (each morning)," he wrote.
Comnas released Reveille I from his room after she showed signs of getting better. She would run out in front of Leggett Hall as the Corps did their calisthenics in the morning, and soon came to love marching with the band. Comnas and the other cadets denied knowing where Reveille I came from, and she soon became a permanent Corps figure.
"The birth of the tradition of Reveille was not planned nor conceived," Comnas wrote. "It just grew out of a lot … such as the puppy attaching itself to the Cadets and they returned that love and adopted her, through the … evolution of events."
In yet another letter to Cooper, Comnas dissects each of the other Reveille-finding tales of his peers, and systematically picks out the faults in each of them; he said many of the stories of the others lack consistency, proper time sequencing and thorough and correct description of the pup, although some of those who claimed to have found, name and care for her were actually present when she was discovered.
Making Comnas' claim even more convincing is the fact that he writes about having three signed affidavits from B Troop Cavalry classmates that swear his story is the truth.
Comnas grew frustrated at the University, as he felt they did not take proper actions to seek out and secure the true origins of Reveille. Netterville sympathizes with him, as he feels the University has taken proper measures to "speak the truth" about the tradition of Reveille.
Netterville does not believe the dozens of others who have claimed to have found Reveille I - his faith rests in Comnas, even though Comnas did not come forward with his story for more than 10 years after his graduation. In the letters, Comnas said his fear of being expelled from the Corps as well as his immediate participation in World War II after graduation caused him not to speak up when he was at the University. Coupled with the frequent traveling his job required after the war, along with the fact that he lived in New York, caused him to not share his story until later in his life.
"I don't believe the others. I believe George Comnas, and I'll tell you why," Netterville said. "George Comnas was a very independent, very wealthy individual that traveled the world. He wasn't looking for any glory out of his Reveille story. He had all the glory he ever wanted (from his job). He just wanted to set the record straight. That's all the two of us ever wanted to do. I want the students to know why Reveille is as important today as she is."
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