Beginning the Final Week

It's my final week on the internship, and I'm getting kind of teary-eyed. I'm going to miss this job, actually....But I'll save that for my final post. I can't afford to get sad yet.

Today, I spent more time working on typing up records for the fraternities. I've made it to 1950, which is quite a feat - when I started this, I thought I might make it to 1941 (if I got there at all). But to see the long list of names - no longer forgotten, but having their efforts recognized - makes me immensely proud of what I do. Hopefully, one day, either I or someone else will get the chance to finish the lists.

My final day at this internship is Wednesday - two days from now. I'm hoping that it will be exactly the kind of denouement that this job deserves - peaceful, quiet, and respectful.

I really am going to miss this job.

Music today was provided by Panic! at the Disco's Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. It's a nice mix of upbeat sound and thought-provoking music.

Kind of like Fall Out Boy.

A Week in Review

So much has happened in the past week that I haven't been able to get to my computer and post exactly what has happened in the archives.... Here's a brief attempt at a summary.

Last Wednesday, nothing much different than usual happened: I spent all my time typing out student council members and members of Greek life up until the year 1941.

On Monday, I walked into the archives, and was confronted with the offer to go on what the Archivist termed as "an adventure:" we were going to photograph the school's old pool area, fondly called the "Pooleteria" by former students. While our current student center was being built, the school covered over the pool and used it as a cafeteria - thus the name "Pooleteria." Not only does the archives not have photographs of the pool area on file, but rumors have been swirling about changes possibly being made to the space - so we obviously needed to save it for posterity.

As soon as we got there, however, we discovered that the pool area was locked. It took us several minutes to discover that the only person on campus who had a key to unlock it was the Assistant Athletics Director, who kindly let us in. As we walked down and took photographs of the area, he talked to us about what the space might be used for in the future and asked us questions about Spring Hill's sports history. At one point, he and the Archivist disappeared into the boiler room next door (with many admonishments to me to "Keep the door open!") and returned with a 2004 Newsweek sent to a John Bender - how it arrived in the boiler room of the old pool I will never know.

As we left, the AD asked us to look into a specific person for him, a former AD named Billy Gardiner. When we returned to the archives, we immediately began searching, and found that William "Bill" Gardiner was probably the most influential basketball coach that Spring Hill ever had. His team beat not only LSU in their time, but also both Georgia and FSU to take the Gator Bowl. Needless to say, the AD was thrilled to find out more about him.

Today's activities were less exciting - I spent the day typing up records once again, but I did manage to find a third fraternity to add to my records. Sigma Alpha Kappa has now joined the ranks of Spring Hill College fraternities. I look forward to continuing with my work on Monday!

Sigma Alpha Kappa Crest

I spent my week listening to music by Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco.

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! by Panic! at the Disco

Continuing to Record

Last week was Spring Break, so I was not in for my internship (and that's why there hasn't been a post in so long!). But before break, I managed to make quite a bit of headway into the yearbooks from the 1930s. The staff of the Torch during the 1930s (unlike the staff during 1927 and 1928) have favored me with lists of the students' last names to make finding them easier. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to get into the Archives today due to a mishap with the key (neither I nor the people at the library's front desk were able to find it - until after I had left for the afternoon and had been gone for a good hour). Needless to say, I was slightly upset about that, but I will be working twice as hard once I get back in on Monday. 

Onward!

Turning Yearbooks into Lists

This past week, I finished up the list of students from Spring Hill's yearbooks up through 1928. From 1926 - 1927, this was a relatively easy task - the staff of The Corsair thoughtfully left a list of each member next to the composite pictures, and listed the officers' positions on a separate list. Beginning with the 1928 Corsair, however, things became much more difficult.

Apparently, the staff of the 1928 and 1929 Corsair did not feel the need to list members, but simply provide a composite and a history of the fraternity. While the history of the fraternity is extremely helpful (I knew absolutely nothing about Omicron Sigma's presence on campus before reading it), I'm really missing those lists - especially since I'm now finding every member of the fraternity by flipping through the yearbook and matching composite photos with yearbook photos (conveniently the same images, with the exception of the senior class).

The one nice thing is that, starting with 1929, Phi Omega has begun to make an appearance on campus! So if anyone knows anything about Phi Omega and their time on campus at Spring Hill, please feel free to let me know in the comments below!

Otherwise, I will continue to match faces and names, one face at a time.

Even More Scrapbooks: Phi Kappa Theta

Today's plan was (originally) to walk into the Archives, log into the computer, and scan the rest of the Kappa Sigma scrapbook. 

Unfortunately, that was not the case (mainly due to my not remembering what the password was for the computer). 

Instead, I turned to the box of scrapbooks that I had yet to go through, and worked my way through those.

The remaining three scrapbooks in the box were all from a social fraternity called Phi Kappa Theta. The first scrapbook, from 1957, covers their merger with another national social fraternity to form Phi Kappa Theta - until that date, the organization was known as Phi Kappa. The group was founded on Spring Hill's campus in 1955, and played a major role in the foundation of the campus's Fr. William D. O'Leary Memorial Award, which they financed and designed. 

I found Phi Kappa Theta's scrapbooks extremely interesting, in part because they covered such a wide swath of time (the first scrapbook started in 1957, and the last one ended in 1965), and also because they provided so much information about campus life and their brothers. Every single achievement of a brother received recognition in the scrapbook, and the little sisters and the sweethearts also had their major events noticed, too. Everyone's name was underlined diligently in blue ink, and their articles were carefully pasted into the scrapbook's pages. Whoever created these scrapbooks, I am extremely grateful - they are a researcher's dream. Sadly, the later scrapbooks are in somewhat bad condition,  with pages sticking together and the covers almost falling off. I'm glad that I'm scanning these into the computer, so that they'll be preserved for the future, but I hope that I can find a way to save the actual book, too.

I also discovered two other fraternities in my readings today, Phi Omega and Omicron Sigma. Hopefully, their scrapbooks or mementos are somewhere in the Archives waiting for me to find them. 

If you know anything about any of these fraternities and their time on the Hill, please feel free to comment below! I'd love to learn more.