1959-1961 Graduates

Published on June 14, 2017

"I think that at Howard, not only did you get a good education, but I think that this, the five of us together after all those years, is an indication of what was our greatest gift from Howard and Samford. It was the friendships that we made."

Chapters

Transcript

RENNY JOHNSON: ‘57 was the last class on the old campus?

JOE MCDADE: Yeah.

DON MASON: Right.

JOE MCDADE: This is a group of Samford alumnus. Actually, Howard College alumnus
that each of us started at various times on the old East Lake campus, and moved,
and were part of the transition to the Lakeshore Drive campus in 1957. We range
anywhere from the class of ‘59 to the class of ‘61, so it is a pretty good
wide range there. Some had two years on the old campus, some had one, and I had
one semester there. My name is Joe McDade, I am from Montgomery, Alabama. When I
was at Samford, I am retired now and back in Montgomery. I was class of 1961.

BOB MONEY: I am Bob Money, and I am from Abbeville, Alabama, I went in the fall
of ‘55, two years on the old campus, and graduated in ‘59, two years on the
new campus. So, my class had two years on the old, two years on the new, and I
would call our class the class of transition.

GERALD LORD: And I am Gerald Lord, and I grew up in Florala, Alabama, right on
the Florida-Alabama line. Like Bob, I came in ‘55, two years on the old
campus, two years on the mud bowl, the new campus. (Laughs) And I am retired now
in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

RENNY JOHNSON: Renny Johnson from Lineville, Alabama. One year on the old
campus, three years on the new. Retired now in Darlington, South Carolina.

DON MASON: Don Mason. I came to Howard from Hueytown, Alabama. 1955, graduated
in 1959. Being the class that was two years on each campus, we knew how to
appreciate the new one after living on the old one. Now retired in Marietta, Georgia.

JOE MCDADE: Since we, each were on the old campus at various lengths of time,
and then moved to the new campus, what do you remember about that transition?
What was memorable about it? Feelings and emotions. Just anybody who wants,
anybody can start.

BOB MONEY: One of the things about the old campus was the limited (number of)
housing for students. So my first year I lived in a boarding house within two
blocks of the campus. And I recall that it took me longer to get active in
programs and organizations because of living off campus.

GERALD LORD: I lived off campus, too. Kind of surprised when I got to campus,
did not have a place to live. They said, “Well, two blocks up you can find a
room.” And T.A. Pricket and I roomed together. But as I told y’all this
morning, they did not, the people that owned the house had not bought the beds
yet, so I spent my first night at Samford, or Howard, in a bath tub, sleeping on
pillows. And that was a kind of a shock.

BOB MONEY: That is why we call you clean. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: Clean.

DON MASON: Well, I did have housing, but it was old army barracks, and it was
nothing to brag about. The army barracks that had been built for the Navy during
WWII was where the men lived. And they left a lot to be desired.

GERALD LORD: Weren’t they built to burn in five minutes?

DON MASON: They had been condemned by the fire department. If they caught on
fire, they said, they would be completely down within ten minutes.

GERALD LORD: We still had a lot of fun in them.

DON MASON: Oh yeah. That’s why, we used to have so many water fights.

JOE MCDADE: But the water did not stay on the floor for long. It just seeped
right on through.

GERALD LORD: Well, there were a few times when we got caught doing that.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah, I remember. (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: The best thing about the barracks was that the administration did not
care about the shape of them. So if we did not like living with our roommate in
a room, we just knocked out the wall and made it a suite.

JOE MCDADE: Suite!

DON MASON: After a big water fight that last week on the old campus, Dr. Fencher
said, "Now, you guys have a good time over here, because you are not going to be
able to do this on the new campus.” (Laughs)

GERALD LORD: That’s right.

RENNY JOHNSON: Mother and Daddy brought me up on a Saturday afternoon and I
entered the barracks. Did not unpack my suitcases, watched their car drive out
of the parking lot. And to be perfectly honest, part of me wanted to get back in
that car and go back to Lineville, Alabama and still be Mother and Daddy's
little boy. However, Monday two seniors, so I have to salute the class of 1957,
came to the room and one of them was named Jerry Smith, from Dothan. Jerry
somehow looked at me and said, " Renny, I just want you to know that I am
upstairs. I remember what it was like to be a freshmen, so I want you to know
that what happens to you here at Howard College this year makes a difference to
me." So when Jerry left, the bags were unpacked, and I stayed for four years.
DON MASON: Somebody told me you cried the rest of that first year. (Laughs)

RENNY JOHNSON: When we moved to that new campus and tried to walk on those
pieces of timber on that red clay, I was still crying.

JOE MCDADE: In the mud and the rain.

JOE MCDADE: I was just on the old campus one semester, the very last semester.
And I came there with full intensions of next fall transferring to Baylor. But
another class of ‘57, Bill Baggett, kind of mentored me, and kind of
encouraged me to get more involved in campus life, and run for student
government. And so I ran against Renny Johnson over here for vice-president, but
I think Renny had already lined up every girls’ vote on campus, and so I got
soundly beat by that. But we became good friends from that, and I got involved
on the campus newspaper, the Crimson, and I never regret staying at Howard
College now.

DON MASON: Well, there was upper classman, Jim Marsh, that encouraged me, and
that is why I came to Howard. And he said, just come one semester. If you do not
like it, you can always transfer. And I think that is an advantage of a smaller
school, that you do have that interaction between classes that will encourage
the new younger students.

GERALD LORD: I think one of the things that did not change when we moved was the
spirit of the campus. That was certainly transferable, transportable, and I do
not think there was a thing lost in the spirit of campus. And when I ran
headlong into that, just getting to know people, I thought, this was the place I
need to be. And I really still feel that Samford has one of the best student
campuses and spirits of any campus that I have ever been on.

DON MASON: It sure was nice that when we went to that new campus and had
air-conditioned rooms and air-conditioned classrooms. (Laughs)

GERALD LORD: Oh yeah.

BOB MONEY: Talking about the new campus, I remember how disappointed I was when
I had moved into those brand new dorms out of the barracks. They were just so
beautiful and clean and so well put together. I remember getting a phone call
and going down and answering the phone. I noticed that students had already
begun to write telephone numbers on the wall. And I thought, you cannot do this
to a new campus, we have got to keep it pristine and beautiful. And I was really
upset that the students did not treat the campus like they should by writing
telephone numbers on the wall.

JOE MCDADE: Guys did not want to forget those girls’ numbers I guess.

GERALD LORD: One of the things I miss on the new campus was all that falling
debris that came off the ceiling in the annex. When you were in class, it would
just rain down like snow. And anybody walking upstairs would shock that stuff
free and it would come falling down on you.

BOB MONEY: I think one of the sad things of leaving the old campus was leaving
Sherman Oak.

GERALD. LORD. Yeah.

DON MASON: Pretty. Yeah. I was about to say that the beautiful trees and grass,
and all we had was mud that first semester anyway, that first year. But the
trees. There were just no trees and Sherman Oak was such a big one.

GERALD LORD: Kind of got upset when somebody tried burning it down.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah. I did not have a long time on the old campus, but it had a
special charm to it. It was old, but it was charming in a lot of ways. I do not
have a lot of memories of it because I was not there that long, but do y’all
have any special memories of that old campus?

DON MASON: The fact that everything was really so close together. You could
throw a rock from most anywhere to any building on the campus, of the class room
buildings. It was so self-contained. So whereas on the new campus, you have your
different departments. If you were not in a certain department, many people you
would see very seldom. But on the old campus you ran into everybody all the time
because it was so, so close together.

BOB MONEY: Well, the other thing on the old campus was that we were integrated
in to the community. You did not have to get in your car, walk to a cafeteria,
or walk to a store.

GERALD LORD: You could walk to church.

BOB MONEY: And you could walk to church. Ruhama Baptist was right up the street.
On the old campus you felt like you were much more integrated into the East Lake
community. And when you moved over to the new campus, you were isolated. It was
nice, but you had to get in the car if you wanted to go anywhere.

DON MASON: And the thing, and of course for the men, the housing there was no
food facilities at all. You had to eat at one of the local restaurants or
somewhere. Because the only place for men to eat on campus was the snack bar,
where you could get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Laughs)

RENNY JOHNSON: I think we probably would want to say thank you to both the old
campus and the new campus for their contributions that they made to us. I would
like to say thank you to those that are sitting around this table for the
contributions that they have made to my life. I appreciate Mr. Money’s
invitation fifty-three years later to come together and share at this time and
this place.

GERALD LORD: I second that motion.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah.

DON MASON: Yeah.

BOB MONEY: What about your teachers on the old campus? I do not remember one of
my, I am not so sure.

JOE MCDADE: I cannot remember too many classes, I just really cannot.

BOB MONEY: Well, I had history under Dr. Sarkis. And Dr. Sarkis came to class
straight from the barnyard.

JOE MCDADE: Smells and all? (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: A lot of times he never wiped his feet. (Laughs) And he taught
history. And when we would take his test, the rumor out handed down by upper
classmen was that he graded by the pound. So students would write baseball games
in the middles of the test papers to give it more weight and then get A's.

GERALD LORD: And you have got to teach that class.

BOB MONEY: I do not know why, but he said he was going to be gone for a week,
would I teach his class.

RENNY JOHNSON: Carry history over to the new campus, Dr. Iron's class was an
excellent example, he was an excellent teacher, but we always loved those
unassembled classes that we had under Dr. Irons.

BOB MONEY: What was an unassembled class?

RENNY JOHNSON: Well. Go ahead.

JOE MCDADE: Ok, he would come in some days and say, “Class, I have got some
administrated matters I’ve got to take care of today. Now, this is not a cut,
this is not a cut. This is just an unassembled class. I want you to go to the
library and read chapter such and such, I think. But this is not a cut, this is
an unassembled class.”

GERALD LORD: You guys did not tell me that. I would have taken his class. (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: Did you go to the library, McDade?

JOE MCDADE: I went by there.

DON MASON: You know, we had some of the people who had been there a good while
like Dr. Irons and Dr. Chapman, who was chairman of the religion department,
some of them. But we experienced the start of the beginning of the new era when
they brought in Dr. Bryan, Dr. Lunsford. These younger, younger men. David Vess
and these fellows who now are retired, but that was the beginning, really, of
the new faculty that they were going to build on through the years, and we got
to experience them as they were, many of them were just beginning.

RENNY JOHNSON: I would like to say thank you to Dr. Arthur Walker. One of the
ones that Don was just talking about. He was always there for us during class
after class, walking on campus. In snack shop. Wherever you were, Dr. Walker was.

JOE MCDADE: Don mentioned something about the, on the old campus, the community.
Feeling closeness of the community. The thing that in the transition to the new
campus, to me, still kind of being new, I did not feel a sense of class
distinction. I felt that everybody was the same there. We were just family, the
Howard College family. And seniors and freshmen were just as close to each other
as anybody. And that is the thing, one of the things that impressed me was the,
everybody was in the same boat. It was fresh and brand new to everybody, we were
all starting out with the same footing.

BOB MONEY: Well, it would make sense. When you are in a new place, everybody is lost.

JOE MCDADE: I know, that is what I meant. So, that made everybody, it gave us a
common bonding. Yeah that is what I meant.

GERALD LORD: One of the things that I thought when we got to the new campus was,
“Hey with all this, we are just going to explode, and they are going to bring
in thousands of new students and it is going to be kind of impersonal.” But
they did not do that. That was, I think it maintained a spirit because they did
not go after the numbers. They kept the quality.

DON MASON: I think that part of the transition too was the transition from Dr.
Harwell Davis as president to Dr. Wright as president, because Dr. Wright, he
was being tuned to be the president the last year or so on the old campus, then
he became the new. And he and Mrs. Wright gave, and I am sure a lot of us
because of age and this sort of thing, but they gave, they were there. They
attended all the ballgames. They came to all the activities and seemed to really
get in touch with the students more than had been before.

GERALD LORD: They even invited some of us to come up and swim in his pool.

DON MASON: That is right. Even, I mean, Dr. Davis did a magnificent job bringing
the school through the Depression and war years.

JOE MCDADE: Well, he had a vision to make that transition. He had the vision to
make the move, and Dr. Wright and then Dr. Corts later, and now Dr. Westmorland
are the builders upon that vision.

GERALD LORD: He must have had the contacts to make it happen, too.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah.

BOB MONEY: Well, we all played intermural sports. And when we moved to the new
campus, we had to go back over to the old campus to play basketball. Remember?

GERALD LORD: I do not remember that.

BOB MONEY: Yeah.

JOE MCDADE: Well, y'all never invite me. (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: Because you never played basketball. (Laughs). We did not have any
place to play football. So we created mud ball. Which was across Lakeshore in a
swamp. Every Saturday morning.

JOE MCDADE: Creek bed.

BOB MONEY: 8:00, you would have anywhere from twenty, to thirty to forty guys
down there playing touch football. It was so much fun that I did not want to go
on H-Day and preach. I did not want to leave campus. I wanted to stay on campus.

GERALD LORD: Did y’all ever hear the rumor that were going to duplicate the
campus across the highway?

ALL: No.

GERALD LORD: I heard that, I guess it goes back to what I was saying earlier
about expanding and bringing a lot, thousands of new students. But I heard the
rumor that they were planning to duplicate this campus across the highway.

BOB MONEY: Well, they did not own that did they?

JOE MCDADE: Yeah.

BOB MONEY: But there are a lot of restaurants and all over there.

JOE MCDADE: No, there is nothing over there.

BOB MONEY: I am talking about now.

JOE MCDADE: Oh, yeah. Well, they sold that property. And now they are buying
some of it back.

GERALD LORD: Dr. Corts, during leadership they sold it, did not they?

JOE MCDADE: I do not know when it got sold.

GERALD LORD: I do not know how many years it was.

JOE MCDADE: And now they are still looking for places to put residences for students.

DON MASON: I think one thing that is impressive about it is the fact that, being
a smaller campus, students had so much access to faculty. And I think that was
true on either campus. But the fact that it was always available if you needed
them, and I think that is the great benefit of, having a smaller school, that
that is an advantage. If you did not have those huge classes like when I taught
at a junior college in Florida that had 300 students in a freshmen history
class. The smaller classes and access to faculty, I think, was a great benefit.
But that does not have to do with the meaning, it transitioned from the old
campus to the new campus and as far as I know it is still that way today.

GERALD LORD: One thing Bob was talking about was Dr. Sarkis. I found that you
went from one class to the other you had to adjust to the different
personalities, the individual professors they had. And that was not the
challenge, especially that first year. But after I was there for a while I got
to know some of them, and of course every semester you had a different set. But
adjusting to the different personalities was quite a challenge sometimes.

BOB MONEY: I think that at Howard, not only did you get a good education, but I
think that this, the five of us together after all those years, is an indication
of what was our greatest gift from Howard and Samford. It was the friendships
that we made, and the contacts that we made and the connections that we keep.
Some people say friendships die, or they fade away. But ours has neither died or
faded away.

GERALD LORD: We have still got that bond don’t we?

DON MASON: From 1972 until you and Renny came down to the NCAA tournament, I met
y’all for lunch, that was what, twenty years? That and I still said, you know,
these are some of my very best friends. And even if Bob Money was my best man at
my wedding I still considered him a friend. (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: I am not sure about you, Don. (Laughs) After going to West Virginia -

GERALD LORD: I've had some opportunities to.

BOB MONEY: Wait, they will not know why I went to West Virginia. (Laughs)

GERALD LORD: Ok, go ahead.

JOE MCDADE: Why would anybody go to West Virginia?

BOB MONEY: I went to West Virginia to be in his and Sandra’s wedding. And when
we started back to Louisville, it was snowing and they would not let us on the
turn pike. We had to go buy chains. And then on the way back to Louisville, one
of the chains broke, and I got out of the car in a tux to see what was going on.
Then a truck came by and slushed me. And the only thing I remember was, “I am
glad I am in their tuxedo, not my suit.” (Laughs).

GERALD LORD: Did you make it to the wedding?

BOB MONEY: Oh yeah, this was after the wedding. Well, we had been in each
other’s weddings. We had rendezvoused in different places.

JOE MCDADE: Hadn’t been in my wedding.

BOB MONEY: There are two of them who are still waiting to be married. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: What’s some of your fondest memories of your college days at
Howard College? Everybody got a favorite?

GERALD LORD: I think I told y’all about the morning I was, the Saturday
morning I was awakened by some loud people talking in the circle down there on
the new campus. And I went to the window and looked out and here were all these
guys caring this big pole that turned out to be the flag pole from the old
campus that Birmingham Southern guys had brought on campus. So I thought that
was a pretty neat deal.

BOB MONEY: Well, we have got to tell them, now, about the bulldog spirit. We
participated in a secret that we did not know about.

JOE MCDADE: Operation. Operation D wasn’t it?

BOB MONEY: Operation D. And we carried on our shoulders a box from the old
campus to the new campus. We walked.

JOE MCDADE: Walked.

BOB MONEY: All the way. Stopped at the radio station.

JOE MCDADE: Part of the way it was in rain, too.

BOB MONEY: And carried this box. And we did not know what was in it. And when we
got to the new campus, the student body, lots of people, were out to welcome us.
It had been built up as this school spirit event. And we carried that box. And
then what happened?

JOE MCDADE: I guess it was unveiled. And then-

BOB MONEY: And they took it out of the box, and it was a bulldog.

JOE MCDADE: Bulldog.

BOB MONEY: And I hear it is still…

JOE MCDADE: It is still there, it is in the special collections.

BOB MONEY: Well, I had to carry that all the way from East Lake.

JOE MCDADE: I think all of us did then. Did you, Don?

DON MASON: No, I did not.

JOE MCDADE: You did not, ok? That was actually a project of the sophomore class
that year. Paul Garfield that was his creation. And he is the one that did it. I
did not know, we didn’t know what was in it, since we know what was in it now,
I just always assumed we did. But that was a fun thing doing that. That was kind
of the tied the old campus to the new campus at that time. And I didn’t know
about the flag pole. That was something I did not know about until just recently.

BOB MONEY: Well Renny, you said something about walking on planks.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah, that first month it rained.

RENNY JOHNSON: Well, there was not a blade of grass on the new campus when we arrived.

DON MASON: No concrete either.

RENNY JOHNSON: No concrete, no sidewalks either. Only a great deal of what? Red clay.

JOE MCDADE: And a lot of rain.

RENNY JOHNSON: And a lot of rain. It was amazing trying to balance yourself on
those, what were they, 2x12s?

BOB MONEY: They put down boards.

RENNY JOHNSON: And we had to walk across campus. Of course, one thing about
students, they will give you the shortest and the direct way from one building
to another, so we probably have some unique sidewalks on that campus today
because of the way we walked to class that first year on those planks.

JOE MCDADE: I do not think anybody was in that, on the campus that first year
that, you ask them something about what they remembered, that is one of the
first things they’d mention.

GERALD LORD: There were hardly any trees either. It is covered in trees now,
which makes it pretty.

JOE MCDADE: And now they have got some of those beautiful oak trees down there.

GERALD LORD: They did bring some seeds-

BOB MONEY: From Sherman Oak?

JOE MCDADE: Yeah. From Sherman Oak (?).

BOB MONEY: I think they sold some.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah, they sold some. Made a-

BOB MONEY: You could buy a little acorn, what do you call it? Little oak tree.

GERALD LORD: Acorn?

No, a little Sherman. They planted them and grew them to a certain size.

JOE MCDADE: Now, I have got a think, a part of a brick from old main. They did
some of those and cut them up and made some mementos and things. I bought one of
those. An incredible thing.

BOB MONEY: Well, we graduated in fifty-

DON MASON: Nine.

BOB MONEY: Nine. Joe you graduated in?

JOE MCDADE:’61.

BOB MONEY: And Renny?

RENNY JOHNSON: 1960.

BOB MONEY: Did you all graduate outside?

RENNY JOHNSON: In the Football stadium.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah, football stadium.

BOB MONEY: We graduated in the library.

BOB MONEY: We did not.

JOE MCDADE: The class of 1960 was the first one to graduate in the football stadium.

GERALD LORD: We graduated in front of the library.

BOB MONEY: Yeah.

GERALD LORD: And there was one tree out there that had a bird nest in it-

DON MASON: Only time any of them got to the library.

RENNY JOHNSON: First time they ever got to the library was when they graduated
in front of it.

BOB MONEY: It was not it the library. It was in front of the library.

GERALD LORD: In front of the library. Anyway, this mama bird was pushing these
baby birds out, teaching them to fly.

JOE MCDADE: During graduation?

GERALD LORD: Yeah. And they would come zooming down over our morter, morter
hats, and I thought, surely they are going to hit somebody because those birds
could hardly fly. It was funny. But, it was a good mix with the speech.

BOB MONEY: Another good thing about Howard to me was the religion department. We
all were going into ministry. The religion department at Howard, I found out
later, was the equivalent to classes at seminary. We learned the critical method
of study. It was very academic. Dr. Davidson was a fabulous Greek teacher.

DON MASON: Probably the best Greek teacher I have ever had.

GERALD LORD: Dr. D.

BOB MONEY: So we went to seminary. Seminary, the first year of seminary, to me,
was not as challenging, because I had majored in religion at Howard.

DON MASON: I had taken courses, but I majored in history. But I think that it
was a very intriguing thing. They were very, very good.

JOE MCDADE: Somebody said that we did not have world renowned professors, but
they were world class people.

BOB MONEY: And the other thing for ministerial students, Howard was so cheap.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah.

GERALD LORD: I would have never gotten an education.

BOB MONEY: There is no way I could have gone to Howard if it had not been for
ministerial scholarships.

GERALD LORD: I arrived with $150 in my pocket when I was a freshmen. My mother
and dad said, “We just cannot help you. We just do not have the money.” I
said, “I am going, I know where I want to go.”

BOB MONEY: Why did you come?

DON MASON: (?)

GERALD LORD: I just felt that it was where I needed to be.

BOB MONEY: Why? I am interested.

JOE MCDADE: Yeah, I thought that was an interesting question.

BOB MONEY: Renny, why did you come to Howard? Why did you come to Howard?

RENNY JOHNSON: Let me give some thought to that question.

JOE MCDADE: Couldn’t go to Auburn.

RENNY JOHNSON: Well, Dr. Davis's sister lived in Lineville. So that was one
connection. Also, students from Howard lived in Ashland, which was six miles
away. I had visited the campus and talked to Dr. Davis and some professors, and
felt like, as Gerald said, that was kind of, at that time, where I needed to
spend the next four years.

BOB MONEY: Why did you come, Don?

DON MASON: Well, I had planned to go somewhere else, and Jim Marsh said (he was
one of my brother's best friends), he said just come on, if you do not like it
you can always transfer. And so, I went there and liked it. So I stayed.

BOB MONEY: I was the first child to go to college in my family.

DON MASON: I was, I had one cousin that had gone to Georgia Tech, and he was the
only person in our family that had ever gone.

BOB MONEY: I did not know what to do. I had been called to the ministry when I
was sixteen. But I had an English teacher in high school, who one day called me
up after class and said, “I have got you a catalogue and this is where you are
going to college.”

GERALD LORD: Was it Samford, or Howard?

BOB MONEY: It was Howard. It was Howard College. She thought since I was going
to be a minister I had better go to Howard College.

DON MASON: I was not as familiar with Howard because I moved from Alabama to
Kentucky after the eighth grade. And so I was considering some other places, and
then my brother’s friend said, well why don’t you just come to Howard and
try it? So I did. And so he was very influential in pointing me in that direction.

RENNY JOHNSON: I think Jerry Smith's caring and concern kept me at Howard.

GERALD LORD: I do remember, we had a, down in Florala, Covington County, we had
a student who was coming to pastor at a small country church. I got to talking
to him through the summer. My parents did not want me to go to Birmingham. I do
not remember where they wanted me to go. But his first name was Jack, I cannot
recall his last name, but anyway, when I went, we loaded my things in his car.
And he already, he was already living in Birmingham, but driving down that far
to pastor that little church. We got to an intersection just north of Luverne
and he went to sleep. We went right through a fence over in a field. I thought,
I thought I do not know whether this is a good choice or not. But we survived
and he did not damage his car very much.

RENNY JOHNSON: Or you.

GERALD LORD: Yeah.

DON MASON: Well, yeah my parents, they told me, when I finished high school,
they said, now we will help you all we can but you are going to work, too. So,
from the beginning I worked in the snack bar, and the book store, and then the
book store on the new campus, and then the student assistant for Dr. Vess in the
history department my senior year.

GERALD LORD: And that was always a characteristic of the campus. There were
always jobs available, either on campus or off campus, and that really helped me
a lot.

BOB MONEY: One of the things I remember at graduation was how sad I was.

GERALD LORD: That had become home, hadn’t it?

BOB MONEY: It really did.

JOE MCDADE: I did not want to leave, but I could have stayed a student all my
life. I really did not want to graduate.

BOB MONEY: Well, you haven’t. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: But you know that is an interesting thing too. Basically, after I
graduated and went on to seminary, I have been out of the state of Alabama all
my adult life, except just to visit back. I've kind been on the campus two or
three times in all those years. Then when I moved back to Montgomery in 1997,
well I started going to some homecoming games, I would come back to visit
Swelton and help her do some fall cleaning work, yard work and stuff. And then
when I decided to move back, I started just making visits up to campus and
things like that. And just one day, it just dawned on me, I said, this is still
home. It is like I never left. I have always felt. And I said to myself, this is
still my campus. I said, “We christened this campus and it is still ours, and
we are just letting the classes there use it.”

DON MASON: I agree with Bob. You know, I had a real feeling of sadness to
graduate and leave. The only thing that kind of kept up was the fact that I knew
several of us would be going to seminary together, and Gerald and I were
supposed to room together, and knew Bob was going, and I could ride to seminary
with him with some others.

BOB MONEY: We got you in but barely.

DON MASON: But it sort of alleviated the sadness to know that at least some of
us would still be together.

BOB MONEY: Another thing that is peculiar to us is that we all dated, we had
girl friends at Howard, but none of us married the girls from Howard. Well, two
of them have not found girls yet but three of us have. (Laughs)

DON MASON: Well, I didn’t date that much because I did not have any money and
did not have a car. And so.

GERALD LORD: Well, I guess teaching of rejection was part of it.

DON MASON: So, at least when I got to seminary, I had your car and Renny’s car
and other’s cars to date.

JOE MCDADE: Well.

GERALD LORD: I remember one thing that came up after I left Samford I was-

BOB MONEY: Howard.

GERALD LORD: Howard. Well, Howard, Samford slash Samford.

JOE MCDADE: It was still Howard. It is still Howard.

GERALD LORD: I had a chance to give back. I was chairman of the state Board of
Missions for a couple of years, and when I was in Florence. And Dr. Corts came
to the Board of Missions and was asking for permission to borrow thirty million
dollars for a project on campus. I had the opportunity in that position I was in
to speak for it, and to make the motion that he be allowed to borrow that thirty
million dollars. So not only have I given money, but I have also had an
opportunity to try to help things along as a concerned alumni from that campus.

JOE MCDADE: This has become a passion of mine now because I could not have gone
there without the financial help I received, and it is even more costly today,
that I just feel a need to try and help in scholarship development when I am
there. And I just, it is so important for other students to be able to
experience what we did and to have that same opportunity. And unless they have
that help, people like us would not be able to go there today.

GERALD LORD: I do not know why more alumni do not give. In our class, you know,
the number is not that big compared to the number that had graduated, so I do
not understand that. They do not have the love for it that we had I guess, but I
am not putting anybody down, I just feel like it does give you so much for the
future that we ought to be able to contribute.

BOB MONEY: I think we do have a heritage that belongs only to us.

JOE MCDADE: It is. That was a unique generation. That was a unique time, and I
do not think it can ever be recaptured.

DON MASON: Howard certainly had a tremendous impact on all of us, I think that
one of my great opportunities and at the same time great disappointments in life
was when I was offered a job to teach at Samford, from Dr. Fincher, and I had to
turn it down because I had just accepted a contract at another school and had
moved out to Liberty, Missouri to teach at William Jewell College. And I have
always thought, well, how would my life have been different if I had been able,
because I do not think I could have ever left Samford. It was, I felt thrilled
that he had thought enough about me to offer me that.

JOE MCDADE: One of my disappointments in life was the fact that I never got a
chance to work for Samford. That was always one of my desires.

GERALD LORD: Is that right?

JOE MCDADE: Yeah. And I think that is one reason I volunteer. It is so important
to me. I enjoy it so much

DON MASON: I hear they are looking for workers in the dorms to do some cleaning. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: Oh, (?). What about memorable people on campus? Classmates,
employees, any professors.

BOB MONEY: Well, we are sitting here. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: I mean that we can talk about. (Laughs)

DON MASON: I think that some the custodians in the old barracks on the old
campus, you know, they worked hard and always friendly. This one African
American lady, I do not remember, I knew what her name was, I do not remember
now, but I would say, “How are you today?” “Fine, how are you?” “It is
a beautiful day.” “Fine, how are you?” But she did a great job, I thought
about her through the years about how much she, you know, she just put up with a
lot, all that we as students did with the messiness that we were (?).

JOE MCDADE: The custodian on the new campus, and he may have been on the old
campus, I think he had been on the old campus too, was a guy named Rivers.

GERALD LORD: Rivers. He was.

JOE MCDADE. And he was just easygoing about everything and just about anything
you ask he would say "Alright." That is all he would ever say, "Alright."

GERALD LORD: Heard that many times.

JOE MCDADE: And I just thought about him many times.

DON MASON: I think one of the most memorable people, because he was of a totally
different age from us, just like the students there now are so totally different
from what we were, but was Dr. Chapman, who was chairman of the religion
department. He was of the old school. Wore a hat, always tipped his hat to
everybody. And he was just such a southern gentlemen, you know. He was a very
memorable character. A very, very committed man.

BOB MONEY: I also remember when we decided on our gift to the senior class. We
gave a trophy case to the speech department. You remember that? And at this
chapel service we were going to bring it up where we had chapel in the library?

GERALD LORD: Oh yeah. Yeah.

BOB MONEY: And they could not get it through the door. (Laughs) So we had to
present the gift without being seen. And I guess the trophy case is still in the
speech department. I do not know.

DON MASON: It is still on the porch of the library.

BOB MONEY: Or in the library.

DON MASON: Still stuck in the door. (Laughs)

JOE MCDADE: That big glass case in front of the library. (Laughs) Samford has
the motto of “For God, for learning, forever.” And think that is a great
motto. And its mantra has been the world is better for it. And I think this is
evidence that the world is better, because of you guys there. My life is better
because of y’all. And I thank y’all for your friendship.

BOB MONEY: I think it is a good way to end this is. Look at where we come from:
Hueytown, Lineville, Florala, Abbeville, Montgomery. And look where we are now.

JOE MCDADE: At the beach!

BOB MONEY: No, Atlanta, Georgia, Darlington, South Carolina Bowling Green,
Kentucky; Knoxville, Tennessee.

JOE MCDADE: Back home in Montgomery. (Laughs)

BOB MONEY: Montgomery, And five of us came from different towns in Alabama and
we live in different states and we still stay connected.

DON MASON: And where our lives have been. Independence, Missouri, Virginia,
South Carolina,

RENNY JOHNSON: Because of Howard, because of Samford

DON MASON: And you in South Carolina and Tennessee, and Gerald in Alabama and
Kentucky and Virginia.

JOE MCDADE: I cannot imagine my life, what it would have been without the Howard
College experience.

RENNY JOHNSON: Thanks be to Howard and thanks be to Samford. And thanks be to God!

GERALD LORD: Also, another dimension of that if you could think about all the
lives that we have touched and helped to change, Samford’s investment,
Howard’s investment in us has reaped that kind of long range benefits and
rewards, I think. I probably would not have been a minister if had not gone to
Samford and gotten training to be one and gone to seminary.

ALL: Thank you!

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewee	Joe McDade
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Collection	STORI Collection
Accession	SUHist/SamfordHistory/008

1959-1961 Graduates

Chapters

Introductions and Background.

Remembering the Old Campus

The New Campus

Comparing the two Campuses

Teachers

Community of the Old Campus

Intermural Sports

Students and Faculty

Friendships

Memories from Howard and Samford

Reasons for coming to Howard

Staying in touch

The Impact of Samford

Closing Remarks

Transcript

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