Paving the Path to Success
WILD at Heart-STC’s Longest Running Student Club Continues to Strive
STC English instructor and advisor, Thomas Fuschetto for Writers in Literary Discussion (WILD), shares history of the longest running-student club on campus. The organization began in October 1995 hosting public poetry readings throughout the community to support individuals' creativity in writing, performance and media.
At the start, South Texas College English instructor Thomas Fuschetto never considered his passion project, a student literary group, would be the go-to place for Winter Texans on a Saturday night, but there it was.
The year was 1995 and Fuschetto said he would stare in disbelief as crowds of residents from a nearby trailer park would line up for blocks on the grounds of the former South Texas Community College every time the group he founded with students, Writers in Literary Discussion (WILD), held its events.
From public poetry readings to movie screenings and the club’s popular haunted house attraction, their neighbors gained notice pulling up lawn chairs to enjoy these productions.
“We had a trailer park next door, and it was older than this college, and every time we had an event there was a non-stop line from the trailer park to Building D’s auditorium because for those Winter Texans and retirees, this was their next-door entertainment and that fueled us!” said Fuschetto. “We never doubted what if no one comes.”
Now 26 years later WILD is the longest running-student club at STC.
The group is well known to the public, attracting repeated invites to participate in the city of McAllen’s annual 4th of July Parade. The group regularly performs as a comedy marching band using washboards and buckets that they transform to play “crazy old songs,” according to Fuschetto.
But the group’s collective fun carries a serious undertone as Fuschetto emphasizes that nothing has been more important to him than seeing his students strive. From their initial start that fall in 1995, the club has emerged as a creative outlet for countless alumni of the program.
Recruited by the vice president at the time to replicate what he was doing at Our Lady of the Lake University and Palo Alto College at South Texas Community College, Fuschetto started WILD by posting a flyer in the liberal arts building of STCC which led four students into his office that August.
“WILD’s purpose is to serve all creative arts and we quickly realized all creativity involves writing,” said Fuschetto. “Before there was a film you had to write the script. Before you could sing a song, you had to write the lyrics. The application of writing makes a difference than just reading it and you would see this in the events we hosted.”
The lines for productions reaching downtown’s Bonham Elementary school proved that students were taking the word “community” of the college to heart.
“The board of trustees back then saw what we were doing and said, ‘OK we want this to be community-based. We are going to back them up in whatever they need,” Fuschetto said. “So, in order to abide with the bylaws of STCC we made it hybrid by involving the community while having students run this organization.”
Students’ passion from the early WILD years later carried into their professions as many became program chairs, professors, interim presidents or novelists at universities.
“I’m a teacher, and like all teachers, we would like what we teach to be applied,” said Fuschetto. “Part of the fun of teaching is to enjoy what students can do and go further in what they were originally taught – to provide the means and pathway for others.”
Today WILD has 20 student members and hosts Zoom poetry readings to limit the gathering of large crowds.
The club publishes semester zines entitled “The Writer’s Block” available to students, faculty and staff at the Pecan Campus.
To read more about Thomas Fuschetto and his involvement with WILD visit https://academicaffairs.southtexascollege.edu/community-service-award/ .