LaGrange College Memories Recorded at 2013 Homecoming

A Partnership with Archives & Special Collections and Alumni & Community Relations

This year a new activity was available to alumni at the Callaway Auditorium—a LaGrange College Alumni “Story Corps.” For the past two years at Homecoming, the Suber Archives & Special Collections has presented “Do You Know Me?” a special table where we assemble notebooks filled with old photographs of people, places, and events which need to be identified. Alumni who visit us have great fun looking through the pictures as well as assisting us in identifying some of the people in the photographs and telling us some entertaining stories.  This year Martha Pirkle, Director of Alumni and Community Relations, thought it would be a tremendous idea to have a recording booth set up where alumni could go and record their reminiscences of their time at the College and we in Archives were excited to be partnering with her department for this first ever event. We had several alumni and retired faculty who recorded their memories and these stories will be available later through the alumni office.

 This year was a great success and we had many alumni who helped us identify about 50 photographs and look through some of the thousands of wonderful photographs that are in the Archives, some dating back to the turn of the century.

These photographs are of LaGrange College’s first officially titled Homecoming in 1959 and were photographed from some old negatives we found.    It must have been a wonderful event and there was a horse-drawn carriage carrying Queen Ann Gower, as seen on the right, as well as a parade with floats winding its way through the heart of LaGrange.   King Ed Nelson and Queen Ann Gower later married.  

* This post was authored by Patricia Barrett

Casey's Excellent Adventure

Our very own Casey Dugas, faithful Graduate Assistant and LaGrange College graduate, is embarking on a new adventure. In January, Casey and her boyfriend Matt will be leaving for Lima, Peru to teach English!

Casey earned her Master's in Education from LaGrange and will be putting it to good use teaching English as a foreign language in Lima. This week is Casey's last week with us, and we will miss her and her awesome Graduate Assistant skills here at Lewis Library. We wish her the best of luck in a new place and many new adventures to come!

Buenas suerte, Casey!! Thank you for all of your hard work, and we will miss you!!

Rachel Hawkins, author of the Hex Hall trilogy, visits LaGrange College!

On November 12th, Rachel Hawkins, author of the young adult fantasy trilogy Hex Hall, visited LaGrange College and spoke to our students about her experiences as a young adult author.

We had a wonderful turnout at the Cultural Enrichment event, and Rachel even spoke to one of our education classes!

Not only did Rachel share with our students her journey from English teacher to published author, she also emphasized just how important it is to have a job that you love. In her mid-twenties, Rachel quit her job as an English teacher in the middle of the year, and shortly thereafter, she decided to follow her dream of becoming a published author. She took an idea that she had written down years before and expanded it into what would become Hex Hall, the first book in a three-part series. Within just a few short months, Hex Hall was finished and published, and her dream of becoming a writer had come true. As a result of her experiences, Rachel told our students that the best advice she could give was to never settle for a job that you don't love and to chase your dreams until they become reality.

Lewis Library carries all three books in the trilogy, Hex Hall, Spellbound, and Demonglass in our collection! If you like witches, wizards, monsters, and vampires, this series is for you!
Look for the books under the call number JUV HAWKINS in our Juvenile section on the 3rd floor of Lewis Library.

Rachel is on Tumblr and Twitter as well!

*This post was authored by Lindsey Lowry

National History Day

Last Friday the LaGrange College History Department and Lewis Library hosted 56 middle and high school homeschooled students and their parents from the Atlanta area for a History Day research workshop.   Many of them were here to narrow down their topics and use our library's resources to locate primary sources and in depth information. They were also able to take advantage of our librarians’ knowledge and our printing/scanning capabilities to help them take home research sources for their projects.   We had several remarks from the students and their parents that their time at the library was very helpful in their research. Overall, it was a very successful National History Day; we even have a second group of homeschooled students from Troup County with us today to also work on History Day research. 

Fall Reading

It's the perfect time of the Season to be READING.

As the nights get longer and the temperature begins to drop, curling up with a good book will make the heart merry and body warm.

With that said, the McNaughton Collection at Lewis Library is stocked with a variety of reading choices.   Those seeking a good mystery, new recipes, self help & motivation or a lesson in history, should visit our collection on the main level. 

Community users are welcome to checkout books from our collection.  Per a membership fee, users can checkout a limited number of items. For more information please use the “Ask a Librarian” link on the library web page or  call 706-880-8312.   

A few titles in our collection…

The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas – Blaize Clement

Driven – Donald Driver

The Jewels of Paradise – Donna Leon

Aunt Dimity & the Village Witch – Nancy Atherton

The Forgotten – David Baldacci

Days of Fire: Bush & Cheney in the White House

                        – Peter Baker

Crazy Rich:  Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the

Johnson & Johnson Dynasty – Jerry Oppenheimer

Eva’s Eye – Karin Fossum

Winners – Danielle Steel

Clean: Overcoming Addition and Ending America’s

Greatest Tragedy – David Sheff

In your reading time… don’t forget to notice the beautiful, vibrant, colors of the leaves.

**This post was authored by Lisa Farrow.