When 1947 civil engineering graduate Harold Meeks saw the photo of two young surveyors on page 17 of the spring/summer edition of Auburn Engineering, he felt that it was misidentified, and wanted to set the record straight. The Montgomery resident called us, explaining that the photo was taken in 1946, and that he was leaning over a plane table with fellow student Howard Losey standing behind him.
Looking back more than five decades can sometimes make identifications such as this one difficult – another alum had also thought himself to be in that photo. However, following investigative work with a number of old Glomeratas, it appears in fact that it is Harold Meeks in the photo. As he pointed out as well, the photo was “flipped” at some point, making it appear as if he is left-handed.
“I began a career with the Highway Department, as they called it back in those days, moving from junior engineer to associate engineer over a period of seven years,” Meeks recalls. “When I was transferred to a job in the Department of Materials and Testing in Birmingham, my work took me to the local office of Choctaw, Inc., a Memphis-based pipe fabricator – and I agreed to join the firm to run its Birmingham operation.”
Meeks eventually went on to become a city engineer for Gadsden and Dothan, and Montgomery county engineer, but returned to Choctaw as a sales engineer. When he looks back on his multifaceted career in civil engineering, he points with pride to his accomplishments, noting that “I enjoyed every minute of it . . . particularly when I was involved in bridge engineering and precast work.”
He says he did not know he was being photographed at the time, and was surprised to see his photo in the junior class section of the ’46 Glomerata, then again later in Auburn Engineering – but he says he knows that he was probably running a highway end curve exercise at the time, in an area bounded by Samford, Ross Hall and the old Alumni Gym. It was, he says, a normal civil engineering project repeated many times before and since.
Following his career in civil engineering, and raising three children, Meeks retired in 1995. He now lives in Montgomery.
