Wofford College - From The Archives

Larry McGehee and Wofford

Larry McGehee wasn't born at Wofford College, but he got here as soon as he could. 

Much has been said about Larry around campus, in telephone conversations, on various blogs, and in print since word came of his death last Saturday evening.  His students over the past ten years in the Religion 340 - Religion in American Life seminar have shared all kind of memories and anecdotes with each other.  They remember Larry as the consummate professor, mentor, and teacher.  Larry was always reading, always thinking, and always engaging with ideas.  When I would see him at lunch in the faculty dining room, he always had a package fresh from the post office with a new book.  He was probably going to review it for his column. 

Others around the South knew him as a newspaper columnist, the author of the weekly "Southern Seen."  Every few months, Larry would send me a batch of those columns for the collection.  Much later, he sent me the original manuscripts.  Those 25 years of manuscripts make up much of the Larry T. McGehee Papers in the Wofford College Archives. 

It's certainly appropriate to remember Dr. McGehee as a teacher and mentor, and others who had him as their teacher can do a better job than I at writing about that.  However, as we celebrate those aspects of his time at Wofford, we should not forget his other achievements at the college.  And those are substantial.  When he came to Wofford in 1982, it was as vice president for development.  While he carried the title of Professor of Religion, he was almost entirely an administrator.  Wofford's endowment and budget were still small, programs were under-funded, and the college needed to dream bigger dreams.  No one would ever accuse Larry McGehee of dreaming small.  After the Olin Foundation rejected Wofford's first application for a grant in 1985, Larry was tapped to head a year-long planning process that resulted in the college's first masterplan, entitled "To Improve Quality."  Most of the people who are fairly new to the college have probably never heard of the 1987 Masterplan and its various updates throughout the 1990s.  In the late 1980s, the college sent copies of those to everyone.  I think I even got one as a prospective student.  I even served on one of those task forces in 1993 that revised and updated it.  Larry was one of those people who could think about how the college should be in 20 years, and we've made remarkable strides since those days in every measurable characteristic. 

Larry kept in touch with the Olin Foundation after that 1985 rejection.  He kept pressing the college, refining our vision, pushing us to articulate what it was that we wanted to be and to do.  In 1988, we applied again for an Olin grant, and were again rejected, but with encouragement to try again, which we did.  In 1989, the college received a $5.5 million grant from the Olin Foundation.  Without Larry McGehee's persistence, we never would have gotten that grant or that building. 

About the same time, Larry attended a meeting with other colleges to talk about service-learning scholarships.  Out of that meeting came Wofford's participation in the Bonner Scholars Program.  Larry was always an advocate of that program, and his papers are full of Bonner correspondence. When he learned about the Bonner Foundation and what it could do for our student body, he knew we wanted to be a part of that program.  The Bonner Scholarships both supported an ethos of public service on the campus and helped attract a group of students for whom Wofford's tuition could have been an obstacle. 

Larry had a lot of title changes over his years.  He eventually moved out of development and into enrollment, marketing, planning, institutional research, and evaluation.  Quite a portfolio - one could even call it an empire.  From his perch, he could generate ideas.  Some of our best-remembered ceremonies and events on campus - the Olin Building dedication, festivities honoring Joe Lesesne's presidency, and even the annual winter lighting - bear his fingerprints.  I wish I could share some of the planning notes for these events - he was thinking about the Olin Building dedication a year before it happened.  There's plenty more that I wish that I could say about the ways he affected this campus.

I'm grateful for Larry McGehee and for what he did for the college.  He had the good fortune to see his career at Wofford evolve from administrator to mentor.  He wasn't really a presence in the student body when I was a student, and I barely knew who he was in those days.  It's really unfortunate that my generation of students never saw him in the way the classes of 1999 through 2008 saw him, though he was working hard for us to make the college a better place.  I suspect, though I have no way of knowing, that he always wanted to have more contact with students.  I'm glad he got to have that contact in his last ten years here.  Wofford College is a better place because Larry McGehee devoted the last 26 years of his life to it. 

A Few Words, by Larry McGehee

Many people may be interested in the text of Dr. Larry McGehee's 1972 Commencement address that he gave at the University of Alabama.  The address won him recognition in Time Magazine for its brevity.  There's a DVD copy in the Wofford archives and in tribute to Larry, I transcribed it this morning.  It's vintage Larry.

A Few Words
Larry T. McGehee
May 14, 1972
University of Alabama Commencement Address

Mr. President, friends, venerable graduates, vulnerable administrators
I can’t thank you adequately for asking me to say a few words here today
(holds up 1 finger)

Rage:  Age and education give you authority, citizenship the responsibility to rage against mediocrity and injustice in your society, more especially in yourselves, lest you lose your life on an altar of ethical neutrality or find your soul eroded by gentle raindrops of moral detachment.  Heed Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night/ Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
(holds up 2 fingers)

Reason:  More things are wrought by reason than this world dreams of.  Wherefore make reason the nuclear weapon in your arsenal of rage, and by its use convince others of your integrity, if not of your rightness.  The hand that cradles the rock, the heart that heeds not the hand, the head, must not rule this world.  
(holds up 3 fingers)

Read.  Bury yourself in good books, and read them often.  Too soon the minister will bury you and read for you.  Develop a thirst for printer’s ink, and quench it by reading.  For from books flows the fountain of youth found by few.
(holds up 4 fingers)

Laugh.  He who cannot laugh at himself always appears ridiculous.  
(holds up 5 fingers)

Linger.  Everything has its season, time will wait for what’s worthwhile.  Heed the south Alabama philosopher.  Pause to pick some flowers along the way.
(holds up 6 fingers)

Love.  Love is the most un-natural human emotion.  Although we have learned to transplant the human heart, we have not learned to transform it.  Commit an unnatural act.  Love one another.  

Snyder Hall memories

For much of the 20th century, Wofford students lived in one of three dormitories: Carlisle Hall, Hugh S. Black Hall, and Snyder Hall.  While Black Hall was the oldest, and Carlisle was the first one built specifically as a college dormitory, Snyder played a special role in the lives of college and fitting school students. 

After a fire damaged the upper floors of alumni hall (as the Hugh S. Black Building was initially known) the college decided to build a second building for the Fitting School.  This building contained both classrooms and dormitory rooms and was simply known as the fitting school dormitory.  (The Fitting School was the college's preparatory school, designed to prepare students for admission to Wofford's freshman class.)  From 1901 to 1905, the building housed sleeping rooms for students and instructors as well as classrooms.  A large dining room on the first floor served its residents, and an assembly hall on the second floor, just above the dining hall, served as the meeting place for the campus YMCA.  In 1905, another classroom building opened, and the dormitory became simply a dormitory.  The assembly hall was converted into sleeping space as were the classrooms. 

When the Fitting School closed in 1924, the building's name was changed to Snyder Hall, in honor of the college's president.  It was used as a college dormitory until 1943, when the Army took over the campus for use as a college training detachment center.  With the return of the student body after the war, the dining hall was converted to another use and students took their meals in Carlisle Hall.  About 80 students lived in Snyder Hall. 

Even in the late 1940s, Snyder Hall had become inadequate.  A capital campaign to replace several outdated facilities fizzled, and Snyder Hall remained in use until the 1960s.  Renovations in 1957 added a few more years to Snyder's life. 

One student in the late 1960s published "A Snyder Hall Resident's Prayer" in the OG&B.  It read as follows:

Dear God, it scares me to see how this College can ignore a place as filthy as this, but yet feel it is doing well to preserve its unique atmosphere.  Help the maintenance department to realize that soap and water goes further than plywood and tacks.  Oh God, grant me tolerance and forgive my futile complaints.  Amen. 

Snyder had reached the end of its usefulness as a dorm, and without any other purpose, the college decided to demolish the building in 1969. 

Photos: Snyder Hall at various stages, alumni with some faculty and President Paul Hardin standing in front of Snyder Hall as it was being demolished, 1969. 

Benjamin Wofford's Birthday

On this day in 1780, 228 years ago, in backcountry Spartanburg County, Benjamin Wofford was born.  A lot of other things might have happened on that long ago day, including Revolutionary War skirmishes, but as far as any of us know, it was simply another day for many, with people going about the business of life. 

The backcountry frontier was a rough and tumble place in those days, and Ben's militia captain father and his uncles were active in trying to settle and civilize the area.  His mother was one of those who worked to promote religion in the area, which went a long way to stabilizing the society.

The child born that night, one of three brothers and three sisters, went on to prosper and to leave a great legacy behind.  With no children of his own, he used the resources he, his first Anna Todd, who died in 1835, and his second wife, Maria Barron, who survived him, accumulated to provide for a college, related to the United Methodist Church and located in his home county of Spartanburg.  This college, which the trustees named in his honor, has continued through good times and trying times, growing and continuing to serve.  It is truly a great legacy.   

And it all got started on a country farm, on the edge of the civilized world, in the middle of a worldwide war, 228 years ago today. 

Wofford's White House

I know, it's sort of a cliche to call the college president's home the "White House."  But at Wofford, it's not an inaccurate description, though it does lack something in specificity.  Several of the houses on the campus, including the president's house, are white. 

Many people on campus are surprised when they learn that the house where Dr. Dunlap lives is not the original president's house, nor was it one of the houses built for faculty when the college opened in 1854.  Wofford's first two presidents lived in the first President's House, which was located at the east end of the row of original homes, just to the east of the present Health Center the Hugh R. Black House.  The President's House was larger than the other original homes, with three stories instead of two.  Ostensibly the home was designed for entertaining in a way that the other two homes were not.  Its dining room measured 20 by 40 feet, and ran the entire length of the southern side of the house.  Its fifteen rooms were full of distinguished guests at Commencements and other important occasions. 

The house had a series of occupants in its fifty-year history.  The first and second presidents, William Wightman and Albert Shipp, were the only presidents to occupy the home.  When James H. Carlisle became president in 1875, he chose to remain in the house he had occupied on campus since 1875,  Ever modest, Carlisle thought his house was perfectly suitable and didn't want to live in anything fancier.  Instead, the new faculty member, William Wallace Duncan, who was doubling as the college's chief fund-raiser, moved into the home.  When he was elected bishop, he built an equally nice home near campus, and his successor as financial agent, A. Coke Smith, moved into the home.  Especially under Shipp, Duncan, and Smith, the home was noted for the high-quality entertaining that took place there. 

The house's location proved to be its undoing.  Five years after the college opened, the railroad came to Spartanburg.  When additional rail lines came to the city, the tracks wound up bordering the campus, and the constant vibrations from passing trains gradually caused the foundation to settle.  Various attempts were made by President Shipp and Bishop Duncan to shore up the house.  It remained a home for faculty, and Professors Craighead, Thomas, and Easter lived there.  Its final occupant was Professor A. G. Rembert, who moved away when the CC&O railroad purchased the land for their right-of-way. 

President Henry Nelson Snyder remained in his faculty home when he was elected president, but when he retired, no house existed for incoming president Walter K. Greene.  One of the newer homes, built in 1911 by chemistry professor Coleman B. Waller, was purchased and renovated for the new president.  This home has been the President's Home for six presidents. 

Photos: The original president's home; the current president's home before its most recent renovation.

Wofford College Illustrated, 1898

And a happy post-Homecoming Monday to all of you. 

Lest you think all of us on campus are taking a day off to recover from the weekend's festivities, here's some evidence that some of us are working. 

This summer, my student assistants and I worked on several scanning projects.  Now that I've dug myself out from a few other projects, I've finally gotten around to posting some of the evidence of their work.  One project involved scanning a small booklet of photographs from 1898 called Wofford College Illustrated.  It's sort of like an early version of an admissions brochure and a yearbook.  I've put the images on Flickr, which some of you may be familiar with.  The booklet is 32 pages, and has pictures of what a Wofford chemistry or mineralogy lab looked like in 1898.  There are also photos of the gymnasium, the library, the faculty, the four classes as well as the fitting school class, and a few Spartanburg scenes. 

So, I invite you to check out Wofford College Illustrated at your leisure.  There's also a link to the booklet from the Archives Digital Collections page (you can also check out the Carlisle "Memories of Wofford College" and the "Memoirs of Sandor Teszler" while you're visiting Digital Collections. 

My Brother, Kenneth

Wofford has always been characterized by characters. A professor who once walked the grounds of the campus and taught English for some 41 years, Kenneth Coates was one of the legendary characters of the college.

A native of Smithfield, North Carolina, Kenneth Daniel Coates graduated from the University of North Carolina. After a few years of teaching in the Tarheel State, Coates spent a summer in law school. After deciding he didn’t much care for law, he took a position as an English instructor at Wofford. He was married three days before he started his career at Wofford. That was in 1928.

Coates had a curmudgeon-ly (if that’s a word) reputation. He acknowledged that he was the “baby” of the faculty, a position he held for years. When he came to Wofford, he wasn’t much older than his students. He took a master’s degree in English at UNC a few years later, but never completed a doctorate. Coates quickly became involved with student publications in the 1930s, helping to create an independent board of student publications that still exists today. He strongly defended student freedom of the press and resisted any efforts at censorship. On four separate occasions, in 1933, 1937, 1952, and 1969, the Bohemian Staff dedicated the yearbook to him. Coates brought journalism and creative writing to Wofford, teaching the college’s first creative writing courses in the 1930s. He inaugurated the Helmus Award for student writing in 1958.  During World War II, with most Wofford students away from campus, Coates became acting editor of the Spartanburg Journal, the daily afternoon newspaper. He also edited the college’s alumni newsletter, which helped alumni in the military, many of whom were serving far away from South Carolina, keep in touch with each other and the college. At the end of the war, he chose to return to teaching, but continued to write and be active in community affairs.

Having been the junior member of the faculty for so long, he suddenly became one of its senior members when most of the older professors retired right after World War II. He became part of the college’s institutional memory, defending traditions loudly and vociferously whenever he felt them threatened. He loved students, and although some of his former students went on to become generals and college presidents, he said he was just as proud of “those with small talents who have gone out and have not made Wofford ashamed of them.”

One of his former students, William E. Rone Jr., became the editorial page editor of the State newspaper, and on Coates’ retirement, devoted a column to his old professor. Rone called Coates “a bundle of eccentricities clothed in a rumples, tobacco-flecked suit… He loves to talk, and he’s not above listening. If there’s a subject that bores him, I don’t know what it is.”

“'‘fesser Coates,” as he was known to generations of students, was a bundle of contradictions. Though a traditionalist, he opposed mandatory chapel and refused to attend as a faculty member, but according to Professor Lewis Jones, lamented its demise when it was abolished. He would always be working on a proposal or policy for debate at faculty meetings, but got to the point where he refused to attend. He always wanted to know what was going on around campus, so he’d sit outside the room where the faculty met and listen in.

After his death, his brother, Albert Coates, compiled many of the stories about him into a book, which he entitled “My Brother, Kenneth.” (If anyone wants a copy, let me know. We have extras.)

The college collected “final lectures” during the 1960s, and in his, Coates advised his students: Take time to be curious, but about small things that have a way of giving color and perspective and excitement to life. You will find your life filled with little serendipities if you take time to be curious. Sounds like good advice.

Below: The "Eric Hoffer Hat Full of Peas" Award that Coates frequently gave.

Homecoming

Homecoming is one of those rituals of the fall with which we are all familiar.  Class reunions, football games, Homecoming queens, Homecoming dances, the ceremonies are similar from one college to another.  Homecoming at Wofford has evolved through the years, with different traditions being dropped or added as times change.  Before the 1960s, many class reunions actually happened at Commencement, and we've reverted to that in a small way in the past 5 years with the fifty-year class having its reunion at Commencement.  Homecoming has been re-energized at Wofford in the past six years or so, with reunions, street parties, and all manner of events on campus and around Spartanburg. 

Below are some accounts from earlier Homecomings.  In 1958, fifty years ago this fall, the Terriers played Catawba at Homecoming, and the game was at 8:00 pm on Saturday night.  The main Homecoming dance was on Friday night, in the arena of Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, and it featured Tony Torre of Columbia.  The campus abandoned the tradition of a Homecoming parade that year, instead displaying floats around the fraternity houses.  The article in the Old Gold and Black describing the change said that the students wanted the event to be more campus-centered.

The alumni council met on Saturday (as they still do) and fraternities had open house on Saturday afternoon.  Following an alumni dinner and the football game, students sponsored an informal dance in the "little gym" in Andrews Fieldhouse at 10:30 PM.  Without any women students, the homecoming queens generally came from other colleges, including Converse, Limestone, and Winthrop. 

Whether in 1958, 1968, or 2008, Homecoming remains one of the highlights of the fall at Wofford. 

Photo: Buddy Hammond '55 poses with the SAE Homecoming float in 1952, the program from Homecoming 1969

A lost tradition - Literary Societies

In the Wofford Today this fall, the From the Archives column is about the history of the college's literary societies.  The earliest society, the Calhoun, was the first student organization to be founded, getting its start on October 1, 1854, 154 years ago today.  Virtually the entire student body joined.  One supposes that they had little else to occupy their time.  The faculty gave them a room in Main Building which they furnished, and Professor James H. Carlisle suggested the society's name. 

The Calhouns were the only society for four years, but student body growth led to the creation of a second society in the fall of 1858, the Preston Literary Society.  The group was named, again on the advice of Professor Carlisle, for William C. Preston, who was the president of South Carolina College and a former United States Senator from the Palmetto State. 

The last third of the 19th century was the heyday of the societies, though even by the 1880s other distractions began to draw the attention of students away from the debates, orations, and other business of the societies.  From the 1870s to the 1930s, the faculty required that each student join one of the societies, and eventually two more societies, the Carlisle and the Snyder, joined the Calhoun and Preston.  Their weekly meetings, often on Friday night or Saturday morning, often lasted for three hours or more, and roll was called at both the beginning and the end of the meeting.  The art and practice of public speaking, or debate, and of careful attention to parliamentary rules were an important part of a student's training in this era, and students left the societies to enter public service, the ministry, and small-town leadership better prepared for their time in the societies. 

In effect, the societies did not survive World War II, though they had been in a period of slow decline for decades.  They are important for the relics they left behind.  And by relics, I don't just mean the bust of Patrick Henry in the college archives, given to the Prestons by William C. Preston himself, or their ledgers and photo albums that are also in the archives.  They left behind three student publications that continue to this day.  The societies founded The Journal in 1889, the Bohemian in 1908, and the Old Gold and Black in 1915.  They also commissioned and purchased a number of the older portraits in the college's portrait collection, including the Albert Capers Guerry portrait of John C. Calhoun. 

One final note - a correction to the published column in Wofford Today.  The portraits of the two society presidents were reversed in the article.  And, I got two Lawtons confused.  We ran a picture of Calhoun Society President Robert Oswald Lawton, class of 1905, but identified him as Thomas Oregon Lawton, class of 1904.  These two society presidents were first cousins, and their pictures were separated by one page in the photo album.  When I went back to check, I saw "T. O. Lawton" and figured I'd made an earlier mistake.  Thanks to Anne Clardy for calling me with the correction. 

E. L. Culler, Class of 1897, of the Preston Society

Robert O. Lawton, class of 1905, president of the Calhoun Society