Monday's Paint a Picture...

Holly Herr. I met Holly my sophomore year at ACU. She had just transferred to ACU and had decided to pledge a social club, as was I. I remember meeting her at several of the GATA rushes. We also were both psychology majors, so we found ourselves in some of the same classes as well.

I think we really seemed to hit it off once we began the pledging process for GATA. I did not have a car during my four years at ACU, so Holly always volunteered to take me to pledging activities. We were pretty much always together during pledging. Whether it was someone to sit by in our classes so we wouldn’t be the only one sitting alone in the class wearing BRIGHT red lipstick or whether it was so we would not get lost trying to find GATA member’s houses for our visits with them.

Even after we finally got into GATA, our friendship only continued to grow. We always found ourselves hanging out together. We would eat in the school cafeteria together. We would do group projects for classes together. We would come up with great Halloween costumes together to wear to the GATA costume parties. We would play GATA intramurals together. We would ride together to GATA functions. We did just about everything together during my last 3 years at ACU!

The thing that sticks out the most to me about my times spent with Holly is our ability to come up with witty and clever ideas on just about anything. HA! It was these skills that lead to some of our most fun times! If you ask just about anyone from GATA what stands out about Holly and I it would be our pranks!

We pretty much started pranking within GATA the years we were there! We developed the GATA Pranksters, which caused quite the havoc, if I might say so myself, during our years at ACU! I think the thing that made our pranks different from most was the originality and the ability to make pranking fun, normally for all involved, rather than making people aggravated.

I can’t even begin to mention all the pranks we pulled off in this entry, but I will mention some of our best ones (that I can remember…HA! There were a LOT): The hog’s head that we purchased and brought to the GATA Superbowl Party, the “break-in” and videoing of one of our GATA officer’s house, the ebaum’s soundboard prank phone calls, the post-it noting of cars, the “GATA TV” video, the times we randomly hung out in sleeping bags in our friends front yards and videotaped it, the “break-in” in a friend’s car, and of course, the end-of-our-undergrad-career prank—the formal letters we wrote to our friends who had been skipping out on chapel and we made them think they were from ACU administrators and that they were not going to get to graduate because they were skipping chapel! Good times!

There was no doubt that Holly and I kept ourselves entertained during our undergraduate days! If it was not pranking, it was joking around! I guess it is because we spend so much time together that we know each other so well that we are able to play-off one another so well! We are gullible people’s worst enemy! HA! I love how Holly or I can start saying something (that is TOTALLY made up) and then the other of the two of us IMMEDIATELY can play along and we can fool people so easily! Whether we are convincing someone that we were NOT involved with a prank or if we are telling them a story about someone who eats breast-milk bread! We play off each other so well! And the only reasons why it works so well is because we can do it and seem so serious about what we are talking about (and not laugh) and the fact that we can totally pick up on when the other of the two of us starts to “tell a story.” It’s like we just KNOW our part! HA! No rehearsal needed…we just play it off so well! HA!

Some of my favorite times spent together was when we would go grocery shopping together in Abilene. We probably each did about 95% of our grocery shopping with one another during our 3 years at ACU together! These times were always classic! If we weren’t loading our cart with Depend diapers to push around the store so people would look at us, we were yelling to one another down the aisle, “AREN’T WE OUT OF POPPYCOCK?!?!” HA!

Then of course there was the time when we bought the hog head at the grocery store and it was the only thing we had in our cart, and low and behold, we ran into one of our professors and he was like, “What are y’all shopping for today?” and then he looked in our cart to see nothing but a hog’s head! HA! We just cracked up! HA!

But one of our FAVORITE things to do at the grocery store always came at the end of the trip. We would end our adventure at the cash register! This goes back to our being able to “tell a story” with such seriousness to see how people will react or what they will say! What we would do was we would be at the register and we would be checking out and the cashier would be ringing up our stuff and we would be standing right there and we would start talking to one another telling some TOTALLY made-up story to see how they would react. One typical one was where one of us would say to the other,
“Hey, didn’t your dad get out of prison today?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s about time. It was murder wasn’t it?”
“Well that was the charge, but he didn’t really do it. It’ll be so good to see him again!”
Blah…blah…blah…

That was one we used a lot, but it doesn’t even compare to my FAVORITE one! This one truly takes pros to be able to be pulled off in total seriousness,
“Man, I can’t believe your roommate had diarrhea in the bathtub again and is making YOU clean it up!”
“I know. The first time was gross enough! She’s lucky I clean it up!”
Blah…blah…blah…

HA! That one ALWAYS got looks, usually from the people in line behind us too! HA! And the best was when we would go to the store with some of our other friends and we would do this, especially the diarrhea one! The other friends normally couldn’t keep their composure and they would have to turn away because they would start laughing!

There’s no doubt that Holly is an entertaining friend, but that is not all that I enjoy from my friendship with Holly. She is a smart gal and we have had our fair share of intellectual conversations, especially about psychological topics. We can be quite the analyzers!

Even more than that, Holly is one of those people who is always there for her friends. She makes every effort to make sure everyone is happy. I have been blessed because of my friendship with Holly. She’s a good person, but you don’t have to take my word for it…

I am very glad that Holly is my friend. She is always coming up with something random and fun. Holly enjoys life and knows how to bring a smile and a laugh to those around her. She also has a serious side too though and is a very good listener.
Whitney Jones-Briscoe

Holly has always been a great friend, and an awesome cousin. She is the reason that I am in college today; she talked me into it one afternoon during my senior year of high school. I remember that she said she had thought about it while she was in the shower that morning. As far as I'm concerned, if someone is thinking about you while they are in the shower...well that’s a real good friend right there!
Tricia Lathen

Holly always looks out for everyone else. She tries to make sure that everyone else is satisfied and happy. At times, her sense of humor can come out and everyone in the room will be laughing. Holly values her friends and the friendships she has with them.
Laura Singleton

Holly is a very close friend of mine and let me tell you why. She has a pure heart; she is the most caring person you will ever meet. She makes me laugh and talking to her for hours seems like minutes because we have so much fun together and it goes by so fast. Holly is a leader and she stands up for what she believes in. If I could sum it all up, I would say, this girl is hilarious
Shannon Matuni

I will always remember creative roommate notes from Holly. Whether it was a letter to let me know about the electric bill that just came in or just because she felt like writing something, Holly’s letters addressed to “Ms. Jones-Briscoe-Phillipousis” always cracked me up.
Whitney Jones-Briscoe

One of my favorite memories of Holly is the funniest memory I have of her. One time she put on an old prom dress and some tennis shoes. Our tennis team then all got in the car and drove around town doing silly things. For instance, we went through a Taco Bell drive through asking for a taco with no meat or vegetables. We went to the gas station right next to the college and asked them if they knew where the college was, meanwhile, holly had a WC sticker on the back of her car. Holly was/is our entertainment...she is so funny and we love her so much.
Shannon Matuni

It's hard to categorize Holly Herr, as I call her all the time by first and last name, because she is so many things to me. I have always admired Holly Herr not just cause she is so dang smart but because of spirit. I love the ball of energy she gets when she is excited and I love the conversations we have all the time. They maybe about something really dumb but we make it interesting. We always find time to talk to each other and she always makes sure that I am ok.
Donika Martinez

Holly is someone I know I can count on to cheer me up. When I’m having a bad day I know I can talk to her and she will have some funny story or something that will make me laugh and forget at least for a moment that I was having a bad day.
Becky Degge

There have been many times that Holly and I have shared some great times. I think the best and most random times are when we got together for the original GATA pranksters nights of fun. Holly always drove, and she and Kim would normally pick me up from my house so I rode in the back with whatever happened to be in the car at the time. Mainly I had to battle the many Diet DP cans for a seat in the back. Probably the most memorable of our prankster times was when Ellison was chasing us and Holly, Kim and I were riding in Slagle’s car and Slagle decided to turn into this dark "alley" that ended up being a really freaky dead end. Holly, Kim, and I hit the floor out of fear, but Slagle came through and got us out of there. Looking back, it's one of our funniest moments. But besides funny times some of my other favorite times were our balcony talks here in Dallas at her apartment.
Laura Singleton

Since I've known her my whole life I have thousands of memories...but I think the best one is when we buried the ham we were supposed to eat for lunch in our grandmother’s backyard. I was too young to remember a lot of the details, but I do remember we were served this ham at lunch, and since neither of us are major ham fans, we took matters into our own hands. (And I am pretty sure we dug the hole with a spoon, haha)
Tricia Lathen

Holly Herr has been there for me ever since our Weatherford days and is still there for me when I need her. The biggest thing that I really really really had a hard time telling her was about me being gay. I thought for sure I was going to loose her as a friend. She has been so great to me and never once told me that it was not ok with her. I have so many memories with her and hard to just boil down to one so I will just say Holly Herr, I love you and thank you for always being a great friend to me. Thank you for believing in me and helping me with life so far. I know that you will be there for me when I need you and thank you for still being there when I don't have anything to talk about. I love you so very much, thank you for your friendship and we have plenty more memories to make so be prepared for those....
Donika Martinez

Holly is a master at making prank calls with online soundboards. I will always remember the 1st prank call I got from Holly. I was horrified and went straight over to tell her what some “strange man” had just said to me on the phone. I felt sure that she would be just as shocked as I was. Boy was I wrong!
Whitney Jones-Briscoe

Holly and I pledged GATA the fall of 2001 but I really didn’t get to know Holly until that next fall. That was when she became roommates with Whitney who was my best friend, so I was at her apartment almost every day. We started having game nights and taking turns at whose apartment we had them at. When I was packing a few weeks ago I found a song that we wrote for one of those game nights to invite people to come. I know it wasn’t just Holly and me that wrote that song but I do remember her putting a lot of input into it. We then called I think everyone in the GATA phone directory and sang it to them. I miss the time that I spent at Holly and Whitney’s apartment and I miss our game nights.
Becky Degge