Kansas State University - Royal Purple Yearbook (Manhattan, KS)

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Campus kneels to slow face lift By Jeff Funk Detour signs flashed, jackhammers rattled, bun saws whined, and three new buildings grew on campus. A three-story limestone addition to the KSU Auditorium was finished in February. It was built to house the music department, radio stations KSAC and KSDB-FM, and television studios — all destroyed in the Nichols Gym fire eight years earlier. Blending nicely with the hulking auditorium, the addition features modern facilities sur- rounding a courtyard with a fountain —a contribution by the architect. One of many planned stages was finished in the large veterinary medi- cine complex north of campus, allow- ing more offices and classes to move out of decaying Leasure Hall. The four-part complex will be one of the better in the nation when completed. Only days after the first spade of did was turned, the heavy machinery moved in to tear up the old football practice field north of Ahearn Field House. Durland Hall, a new chemical and industrial engineering building, was under way. As students registered for classes in August, only a big hole and a huge mound ol dirt were visible. At mid-term time, pillars arose from the ground. Santa Claus would have seen a com- pleted steel structure with concrete flooring if he had looked down on his rounds over Manhattan. And as the last snow of the season cleared. a mammoth building commanded the attention of dozens of noisy construc- tion workers. One of the bigger obstacles for stu- dents was the reworking of sidewalks for better drainage around Farrell Library. Starting in early summer, Physical Plant workers — who would lose a race with a snail, according to a Collegian editorial — struggled with the project through fall. Remolding plans for the Union park- ing lot and the perennial problem of what to do with the gutted shell of Nichols Gym also filled drawing boards. Construction — 25