Georgia Southwestern State University - Gale Yearbook (Americus, GA)

Page 16 text:

led lake and slips on its polished floors. lt is dungarees and Carson suits. lt is short weekend library hours and 24 hours a day postal service. lt is three-story buildings and an unused chapel. lt is red- necks and freaks and beer and dope and independents and Greeks and men and women and shoes and barefeet. lt is a seiso- mograph and a greenhouse. lt is a fenced-in maintenance department and hardly used barbeque grills. lt is for faculty only restrooms and parking lot with yellow curbs and a ticket book. lt is a snack bar and isolated soft drink and snack food machines. lt is an indoor swimming pool and uncovered walks be- tween class buildings. It is an in- firmary and the Dean's office. It is deserted weekends and crowded street between Comlex ll and Ill. Not so visable is the GSC that off the record agrees and on the record doesn't remember. lt is at- tendance mandatory for learning and change takes time attitudes. It is computerized registration and no wait counseling. It is dated speeches with thanks for choosing GSC endings. lt is liberal minds and the Peter Principal. lt is help if we can give it and it is Southern hospitality. It is popularity elections with enviable purposed charters. lt is we've come a long way and we've the history to prove it. The following historical account is given mainly, by use of liberal extractions, from Through E Years - A -gg Informal Record of Georgia Southwestern Colley 1908-1957 by Macy Bishop Gray. The Third District Agricultural and Mechanical School fcalled af- fectionately in its early years Ag- gie j which was the forerunner of Georgia Southwestern College came into being by a bill intro- duced by H. H. Perry of Hall County, passed by the General Assembly of Georgia and signed by Governor Joseph M. Terrell on August 18, 1906. This act provided for the founding of a school of agriculture and mechanical arts in each of the eleven congressional districts of Georgia, the school to be located in the community of each district offering to give the most land and the most money for 12 its equipment. Two hundred and seventy acres of land lying along the Seaboard Airline Railroad ISCL todayj and 830,000 in cash offered by Sumter County was the in- ducement for the State to locate our school just outside the city limits of Americus. A distinctive purpose was to offer general and technical training to boys and girls wishing to improve their efficiency and usefulness in the agriculture and industrial pursuits common to the various sections of the state. The act provided that money from the sale of fertilizer tags and fees from the inspection of oil be used for the maintenance of the school. Georgia Southwestern College has come a long way, to use a trite expression. On campus today can be seen a sharp contrast between the old foundations and the modern day structures - a contrast that shows the progress of many years. ln 1907, buildings which in- cluded an academic building, a dining hall, a dormitory for boys named in honor of Governor Jo- seph M. Terrell and a machine shop were constructed. Girls were housed in a rented building on Felder Street near the campus. A committee of leading educa- tors outlined a course of study and classes began at Third District Agricultural and Mechanical School - the first of district schools in the state - on January 4, 1908. The catalog of the year stated that girls must be thirteen years old and boys fourteen years old in order to enter school and all enter upon probation for a reason- able length of time. ln September 1908 military training was instituted and the de- partment was made responsible for the discipline of the school. A band was organized and basketball, baseball, and football teams played excellent games. Later in 1911- 1912, Wheatley Hall was built at the cost of 517,500 and was named for Crawford Wheatley, a member of the Board of Trustees and the treasurer of the institution, who gave unsparingly of his time and money for the progress of the school. On April 6, 1915, 'A disastrous fire swept away the beautiful ivy-

Page 15 text:

ly, accused of stabbing his wife with an ice pick was placed under a bond of S500 and later fined 350. The 1970 census shows the population of the Americus division at 16,133 fa 17.5'k increase over the 1960 figures! and sets the medium age at 24.6 years. Americus, county seat of Sumter County, has its own modern day home-boy-makes-good story, and in late 1970 honored that person by blocking Jackson Street and at- tending a welcome address by the hundreds. Jimmy Carter, a Sumter County resident and alum- nus of GSC in her junior college days, was elected Governor of the State of Georgia in November of 1970 and presently serves in that capacity. Visibly, GSC is a college of patched and repatched asphalt streets. It is progress rebuilding an antiquated sewer system. It is one way streets and circle around two way streets. It is a concrete and block sign on Glessner which introduces and reminds. It is ca- mellias in winter and azaleas in spring with evergreen shrubbery and pecan trees. lt is worn paths and cigarette butts. GSC is a Stu- dent Center with distinct segments and clashing radios with juke box. Building names of Sanford and Wheatley preserve GSC history and Academic Building denies a past. Also, GSC sparkles in its modern buildings and continues in its crumbling ones. lt bogs in its unfil- 11

Page 17 text:

4,1 13