He dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1935 as a junior, because of what he called 'awful grades,' to pursue a career in the news business, and what a career Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. had. But though he became a broadcasting legend, he never abandoned his Longhorn roots, as evident in his last will and testament now on file at Manhattan Surrogate's Court. The will bequeaths Cronkite's personal papers to the university, a process that started before his death on July 17 but will now end with the release of materials he had held onto at his office and homes in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard. After becoming a news anchor, Cronkite returned often to campus as a lecturer and lent his rich and trusted baritone to the university as the narrator of ads that are still used at athletic events and to promote Longhorn accomplishments. In college, Cronkite cut his journalistic teeth at The Daily Texan, the student paper, chasing interviews with the likes of Gertrude Stein while developing a fondness for pipe-smoking. With Cronkite's blessing, archivists at the university's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History had already collected nearly 300 linear feet of material consisting of papers and records that were owned by CBS, in its role as Cronkite's employer, as well as some of his personal papers that he had forwarded to them for safekeeping. Among the treasures: a reporter's notebook from his tour of Vietnam in 1968, when he soured on the war. With the 24-page will filed late this summer after Cronkite's death at age 92, the transfer of the rights to the personal papers and memorabilia became official. In May, the university hopes to an unveil an exhibit about Cronkite, according to Don Carleton, the executive director of the Briscoe Center. 'In my opinion, as an historian, there is no more important collection documenting the history of broadcast journalism in this country than the Walter Cronkite papers,' Carleton said. 'Walter was such a pioneer of television broadcast news, and the fact that he was not a news reader but the managing editor of his news program and was an acting journalist means his archive documents how he worked and the decisions he made, the influences on him and basically how whole generations of Americans got their news in the postwar television era.' Among the items that have never been on public view are a typewritten dispatch from aboard a World War II cruiser in 1942, unearthed just this week, and Cronkite's letters to his family as he pursued his education in Austin. In one 'Dear Folks' letter he wrote in March 1935, he discussed how he came to snag the interview with Stein, whom he approached at her hotel on her first trip to Texas, accompanied by her companion, Alice B. Toklas. He described Stein as 'the prince of verbal swat' in the letter, an apparent reference to her quick-witted retorts. Much of the newsman's other assets will be divided among his three children: Walter Leland III, known as Chip; Mary Kathleen, known as Kate; and Nancy Elizabeth. Chip Cronkite said the family was happy that so many of his father's papers would be kept by the university. 'He had a long, warm relationship with them,' he said. 'We love the idea of Don keeping track of all this stuff.' The will also envisions that the estate will pay for the education of Cronkite's grandchildren. As long as the value of his estate exceeds $2 million, he also authorized financial awards to two longtime staff members. The will does not mention Joanna Simon, the opera singer who was Cronkite's steady companion after the death of his wife, Betsy, in March 2005. But Simon said that he was very generous to her during his lifetime. 