Elon University - Phi Psi Cli Yearbook (Elon, NC)

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DEDICATION WHEN ALAMANCE COUNTY CITIZENS NKKDED AN ORGAN- IZE R TO MARSHAL IHEIR STRENGTH TO RAISE THE MONEY FOR THE ALAMANCE HUI LDING. THEY r N A N I M f) V S L Y CHOSE MR. SHARPE. HE ISONEOFELONS TRUEST FRIENDS. THIS ANNUAL IS UNANIMOUSLY DED- ICATED TO HIM AND TO ALAMANCE COUNTY IN SINCERE APPRECIATION BY THE CLASS OF UH5. V. E. SHARPE Christian Lavin.ni and Business

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Tke Gift of a People N the city of Burlington, on the evening of January 19, 1923, the day following the burning of the original Administration building here, Mayor Horner, of Burlington, called together in the City Hall, a meeting of the citizens to consider what might be ijAj! ' ' J3 ' ' - ' ) ' ' ' ' l ' P rebuild our college. jl vvTrlj ' .; , ' • ■ ' 3 cold, bleak, stormy night, but stout hearts were there, interested in the 1 == - =J only college in Alamance County, and ready to undertake measures to help her recover from what appeared, even then, to be a staggering blow. It was during this meeting of the citizens of Burlington and of the county that the late Robert L. Holt, after several others had spoken, arose and said: I am very sorry for Eloii. I am sorry for her $5,000.00 worth, and I herewith pledge $5,000.00 to the Alamance County fund to help Elon rebuild. Following this liberal subscription from Colonel Holt, Mr. John M. Cook, a graduate of the College, and a lawyer and business man of Burlington, moved that the Alamance County citizens undertake to raise $100,000.00, and that it erect an administration building, provided friends of the College elsewhere would raise $200,000.00 for additional improvements. This motion was unanimouslv adopted, and a committee consisting of Colonel Robert L. Holt, Rev. Dr. Thomas F. Opie, Colonel F. L. Williamson, Mr. O. F. Crovvson, Mr. J. M. Fix, Mr. D. E. Sellars, and Rev. C. B. Riddle was appointed as a steering committee for this enterprise. The Board of Trustees of the College met on January 24 and accepted this proposal from the citizens of the county of Alamance. Meanwhile, the county ' s steering committee, feeling absolutely sure that the trustees would accept their offer, had held a meeting and appointed a campaign committee to raise the $100,000.00. This committee consisted of Mr. V. E. Sharpe, chairman and general executive; Mr. V. K. Holt, Mr. J. M. Fix, Mr. O. F. Crowson, Colonel Robert L. Holt, and Dr. W. A. Harper. Mr. Sharpe, as the executive for the campaign, selected Rev. C. B. Riddle as secretarv and J. M. Fix as treasurer, and the following as team captains: Mr. R. O. Browning, Mr. H. Frank Mitchell, Mr. J. G. Rogers, Mr. W. K. Holt, and Rev. C. B. Riddle. The campaign committee acted as the flying squadron to serve under the direct management of Mr. Sharpe, associating with himself Mr. R. F. Williams, Mr. J. L. Scott, and Colonel E. C. Holt. With the energy characteristic of him, Mr. Sharpe arranged for a public meeting in the municipal building on Sunday afternoon, which was presided over by Colonel F. L. Williamson. At this time Hon. E. S. Parker, Jr., delivered an inspirational address, and Mr. Sharpe himself outlined the plan of the campaign. The people were enthusiastic and the work of raising the money began immediately. As a consequence, life and enthusiasm were given the College in the crisis which faced it. Friends elsewhere were encouraged by the loyal support of the people, who knew the institution best, to make large and liberal contributions for the rebuilding program. The Alamance building has been completed at a total cost of $150,000.00. It is a modern fireproof building 200 feet long, 68 feet wide, three stories high, and is especiallv designed for administrative and recitation purposes. It is safe to say that no college, anywhere, can boast of a more commodious administration building than the citizens of Alamance County have given their college under the leadership of the late Robert L. Holt as chairman of the steering committee, and Mr. W. E. Sharpe as the guiding genius of the campaign forces that actually raised the money. This is the first instance in the history of North Carolina education when a county voluntarily arose as a single individual to lend its support to a stricken college. The same spirit which inspired the Alamance Regulators to strike the first blow for American liberty inspired the present descendants of those Regulators to lead in this splendid benefaction. The students of Elon College pledge the citizens of Alamance County their solemn intention to make proper use of the magnificent gift our College has received at their hands, and we shall always hold in deep gratitude and in sincere appreciation the splendid men and women who made the Alamance building possible for our College; and, so, the rebuilding program a reality.

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wo ears Aft er TR Alma Mater was chartered on March ii, 18S9. Thirty-six years from that day the student hody met for the first chapel service in the fifth and final hnildinp; of the Greater Elon Program. It was a red-letter day for Elon when, on [anuarv 18, 1923, the sacred old administration building which, for a generation, had housed the general activities of the campus, went up in smoke. Those who witnessed the smouldering embers of that disastrous fire thought of it as a red-letter day that had buried the hopes of a generation of striving and sacrifice, but a kindly Providence and generous-hearted friends overruled, and that which portended to be the destruction of the finest and best in Elon ' s equipment became the beginning of a new and larger plant, not only more commodious, but like- wise more efficient. So has Elon arisen, sphinx-like, out of her ashes to what promises to be a larger and a brighter future. Between the ashes of January 18, 1923, and the finished new plant upon which our eyes look in gladness today, there is written a chapter of brilliant achievement, not only in the annals of our own institution, but of higher education in our state and nation. No college has ever arisen more triumphantly out of disaster than has our mother, Elon, thanks to the generosity of the citizens of Alamance County and of the generous friends elsewhere, who have made the Greater Elon Program not merely a dream, but a true and vital reality. In place of the hallowed old administration building with its octagonal tower, we have today, crowning the very heart of our campus, a splendid administrative group of five buildings arranged in the form of an H. The middle portion of this H, very properly, is the Alamance build- ing. The southwest corner of the H is the Whitley Auditorium, made possible by the generous kindness of J. M. Darden, of Suffolk, Va. The southeast corner of the H is the Mooney Christian Education building, the gift of Mr. M. Orban, Jr., of Whittier, Calif. The Carlton Library building, the gift of Messrs. P. J., L. E., and H. A. Carlton, and Mrs. Thomas S. Parrott, occupies the northwest corner of the H, while the northeast corner is rounded out by the Duke Science building, made possible by an initial gift of $50,000.00 for that purpose by Messrs. B. N. and J. B. Duke, who made this donation in memory of their mother, Mrs. Artelia Roney Duke, a native of Alamance County, and whose last renting place is at Haw River in a cemetery lot adjoining the grave of Mr. V. H. Trollinger, who donated the land comprising the present campus of the college. All five of these buildings are fireproof and equipped with very latest furniture. As a recent college president said upon visiting Elon: No small college in the I ' nited States has a finer plant than Elon. We students cannot forget, either, that Josephus Daniels recently wrote in the News and Ohsrrver that, after an automobile trip throughout the length and breadth of the state, he considered the development at Elon the most outstanding accomplishment of the past decade in North Carolina. In addition to these five buildings and their furnishings the campus has been graded, laid out in walks and driveways, and a beautiful brick wall has been built around it with appropriate entrances and iron gateways, both for pedestrians and vehicles. We, who issue this Annual, have seen these transformations take place, and their achieve- ments have been to us an inspiration to undertake great enterprises in the days that lie ahead and a challenge to us to prove ourselves worthy of the intellectual mother at whose rebuilding we have been privileged during these past two fateful years to be present.