Tennessee Tech University has been around for nearly a century. We have 100 years of memories on every brick, in every classroom and connected to every building. As we prepare to celebrate our Centennial as a Tech community, here are a few of those memories.
Warf Hall
“The best memory I have is from last year, fall semester. Everyone in Warf Hall woke up one morning to the entire hall decorated for Christmas.
“That semester, everyone in the hall became friends. We have so many stories of our crazy antics that year.”
-Bryan Bowen
’16 journalism
Foster Hall
“I was visibly pregnant when I knocked on Dr. Swindell’s door, afraid to share my dream of going to medical school. I graduated from Tech with honors and became the first chief of emergency medicine at Duke. Somehow, he knew a scared, pregnant 22 year-old knocking on his door had potential.”
-Kathleen Clem
’82 nursing
Dixie Avenue
“I remember the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. A bunch of guys were playing football on Dixie, and I was listening to the radio. I ran out to tell them, and they laughed at me.
“When they realized it was true, I watched them change from boys to men.”
-Will Morrison
’45 mechanical engineering
Clement Hall
“There were no elevators, and some of the first computers weighed 3,000 pounds. When Clement Hall was finished, we got a crane to lift the computers from Henderson Hall and lower them onto a truck. Chairman Kerr said he was so afraid we would drop one, he was spittin’ cotton.”
-Charlie Hunter
Lab technician 1959-1985
Main Quad
“I was walking with my camera and a lady said, ‘I’m the editor of the school paper and annual, and I need someone to do photography.’ I worked with her. Margaret said, ‘I’ve been dating another boy, but you’re the one I want to marry.’ I almost fell over.”
-Wallace Prescott
’46 engineering, professor, faculty dean, interim president
This is a project that will continue and grow in the online version of Visions at www.tntech.edu/visions. To submit your memories, email visions@tntech.edu.
To continue reading about TTU’s campus, see our other article in this issue: Looking to the next century