Harding College - Petit Jean Yearbook (Searcy, AR)

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I im, UA-' an LQ The F!!l Gln--21 M s F13 12111 .. 31. Q 9' .1 LE' FL ' A l tl 1-gf he FL!! 5? If gf' -' ri 'Q' 'EF' in ' 4 LT! WJ rig' 4' 'W f A lf ,llftgh if-:,,,:'m.. 7 i-jg ,U 5 T lf . 5i. 1,rx , If ' I rg' .7 i . if ff' ' I I ' ..- , 4 -7.. , it -. , ,,- 'X .41 w -ci, B'- . Sr Y- Q ,- - -5. 1fa?1iL::-:-, w11sL:3e2L - --551. T'- 'B -ugh. P'-In 1 Lie' ' For a long time it looked as though no progress was being made. The workmen labored steadily in the March sun, but only seemed- to move piles of dirt from . one location to another. The old tennis courts had long since disappeared, having been replaced with the pro- tuberant hill of loosened earth. It was then that students began to refer to the construction site as Mount Benson, a pet name contrived from its future name and its im- mediate appearance. Even then, however, there were those who anticipated the eminent structure that was to result. President Clif- ton Ganus spoke with excite- ment about the plans for the 3,428-capacity auditorium. 'fA city that is set on a hill cannot be hid . . . and neither can the new auditorium, he punned in aking of 9 cunt Benson' chapel one day, and students did marvel at the prospect of all the student body and faculty having chapel together. Fifty-five feet high, the George S. Benson Auditorium is to cover an area of an approximate acreq 59,334 square feet. Composed of some 375,000 bricks, the building at its widest point is to be 90 feet. According to the plans, the large front entrance facing Center Street is to open into a capacious skylit foyer that extends 50 feet up. Passing from the foyer to the auditorium, one will pass a suite of offices and two ticket booths. The auditorium itself has three levels: a lower floor with 2,199 cushioned seats, and the first floor which consists of a 598-seat lower balcony and ,316-,seat upper balcony. The Upper balcony is equip ped with heavy curta.ns which divide the balcony into four classrooms. The stage, described by Director of Development Lott Tucker as tremendous, will be ac- companied by a large or- chestra pit. Supervising the construc- tion are members of the Harding staff, as has been the custom of the College in the erection of most of the buildings on campus. With the lighting to be done by V the engineering department, this use of College personnel will cut costs, holding the estimated cost of the fin- ished building to around S2,600,000. A Although the frequent weather inconducive to con- struction has caused some delay, Tucker still proposes the opening of the building to be the beginning of fall semester. ' Construction P 23

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1. LOOKING toward the stage area from the future lobby, scaf- folding casts pattemed shadows on the snow. 2. ESTIMATED to be composed of over 375,000 bricks, the new auditorium is to be 90 feet at its widest point. 3. NICKNAMED Mount Benson, the initial stages of construction seemed to create little more than a mound of dirt. 4. WEATHER inconduciue to con- struction, such as this seven- inch snow that came in late 14 I I fa 1 I u vi 7 I4 s 5 x --4 a P si 'MQ T lhgjw HQ-1 A i- ' ' 1 rv' 4 -. 5 0 . -, I J ,. -' I X' J.: :dbx A i . X vu- 'n s v , I r,.h I .143 . rl u ' - f A X K .,,'.1,,11 . I , . A , 4 --. Q5 a 1 s H, 4 1 .iii February, slowed the progress of the erection. ov 9 .ii , 0 W' 41, 4,.-weep? 1, I, .t ---' , vb . 2 ,, ' E if H-1 y 7 V - h5'lg:E-?ifl1:- Y ,Y ,, , , N yi!! MT :Y SN? file? I if Ei- , ,. f'-1-f.-' L- -25 . E- -1 ' I v ww 22 -- H. V 'Hb-f:. V4 ul I

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'fx Making a l HOME away from home 24 P Coming Home 5 fl Harding's my home, not that I don't feel close to my parents or anything. It's just that I've been living with my parents most of my life and now Harding is my home, said junior Ben Sanders. Ben is the owner of a bed ten feet tall, a life-size plaster owl, and a sign from the eighteenth cen- tury White Horse Taverng and he has put it all in his Keller 3-A dorm room. By building addi- tional features in his room and adding plants, posters and shelves, he is making a home away from home for himself. It was the kind of thing that fell together really by itself, he said. A friend of mine that had a room just like mine had had carpet made for it and he was moving. He moved to a dif- ferent kind of room and the carpet didn't fit. Well, I got in on the deal and got if from him for a really silly cost. Then l got to putting lots of things in my room. The most unusual aspect of his room is his bed, which stands ten feet in the air. I just need a lot of room and we didn't have it, he explained. Having escalated his bed, Ben then used the area underneath as a small-scale den. Adding a chair he had made, book shelves and a flourescent light, Ben enjoys privacy in the area by closing if off with curtains. Ben said that it was not homesickness that caused him to fix up his room, but that he couldn't stand to live in a boxy, sterile atmosphere. He continued, A lot of it is just that I'm a pack rat. Kevin Cave and Mark Hud- son, who are roommates in American Heritage, have also experimented in dormitory in- terior decorating. Building frames seven feet high, they put their mattresses on top and their desks underneath - kind of like a bunk bed without the bottom bunk, Kevin explained. He said that they had copied the idea from someone else and that about half of the men on their wing had done the same. The only difference is in the styles: Some of them are in an L shape and some of them are side-by-side, and the ladder goes up the middle be- tween them.