The Tracy-Locke/Morris Hite Endowed Presidential Scholarship Fund for Advertising Studies was established by the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System on June 10, 1993, for the benefit of the College of Communication. Gift funds were provided by Mr. Norman W. Campbell of Dallas, Texas, a 1955 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin College of Communication, friends, and colleagues of Austin, Texas, and M/A/R/C Inc. of Irving, Texas. The endowment honors Mr. Morris Lee Hite of Dallas, Texas.

The Tracy-Locke / Morris Hite Endowed Presidential Scholarship Fund for Advertising
Studies was established in 1993 to provide support for students in the Department of Advertising.

Morris Hite was a pioneering figure in advertising in the Dallas – Fort Worth area. In 1950 he became president of the Tracy-Locke agency and under his leadership, the company grew into the premier advertising agency in Texas and the Southwest.

But Mr. Hite was committed to more than Tracy-Locke and the advertising business. In a biography of Mr. Hite called Adman, journalist and author Russ Pate wrote, “In a profession perhaps better known for its characters, Hite had character. Those who worked with him during his 45-plus years in Dallas advertising will, seemingly to the last person, tell you they are better people for the experience.”

Mr. Hite believed that business people could and should help lead the way forward to a better city and a better civic life. He was a tireless advocate for the greater Dallas area and was for many years involved in civic affairs. In 1960 Mr. Hite chaired a mayoral commission called “Goals for Dallas” and many of the projects envisaged then have come to fruition, some financed with funds from two major bond campaigns that he led several years later. The DFW regional airport and the downtown arts district in Dallas were elements of his vision for the city.

In the late 1960s, Mr. Hite served as chairman of a development board that oversaw the creation of UT Dallas. He served on the school’s board of directors and was appointed an adjunct professor of marketing. In recognition of his efforts, UT Dallas endowed and established the Morris Hite Center for Product Development and Marketing Science in 1984.

Mr. Hite received the Linz Award, the most prestigious honor for civic work in Dallas. In 1980, he received the Horatio Alger Award, given to American men and women who achieve great things despite modest beginnings. And, posthumously, Mr. Hite was inducted into both the National and the Southwestern chapters of the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Fame.

Mr. Hite was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma and went to high school in Norman, Oklahoma. He did not attend college and, though he lived nearly all his adult life in Texas and though two of his children graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, he never declared an allegiance in the Red River Rivalry. Some suspected that he always supported the Sooners. Perhaps having a scholarship fund at UT endowed in his name can be viewed as a form of vicarious secular penance to UT.