Oracle The
MONDAY, SEPTERMBER 24
HENDERSON STATE UNIVERSITY
VOLUME 105, ISSUE 06
Cafeteria construction reaches home stretch Progress ‘on target’ for May, with only minor delays
Kaitlyn Tolleson Staff Writer Loud construction crews can be heard early in the morning as a 20,000 square foot building is being constructed in front of East and West Hall near the ravine. This building, which cost 4.69 million, is the new Henderson dining hall. Since 1949, the old Caddo Cafeteria has been the place to eat for Henderson students with a meal plan. With more and more students attending Henderson every year, the cafeteria has become a cramped space for all who choose to dine there. It currently seats around 350 diners. The uncomfortable space and deteriorating conditions of the old cafeteria made it apparent that a new cafeteria would need to be constructed. “I have felt cramped in the old Caddo,” Lynsey Tannahill, sophomore psychology major, said. “It is hard to find somewhere to sit when a lot of people are in there. I am so excited for the new Caddo because it will have more seating areas and we won’t have to search for a seat. It’s also closer to East Hall.” The parking lots located in front of East and West halls have been designated a no parking zone, and the con-
struction crews and their building materials inhabit the area roped off. The large structure is being rapidly built right outside of these building’s doors. With a convenient location set, a bidding process was done to decide who would be the contractor of the new building. Seale Construction Company of Sparkman was the business selected to complete this project. Irwin Seale, general contractor at Seale Construction, said that his construction crew has not run across any issues with the building process other than the small problems that come with the construction business. Seale also shared that the construction is still right on target for the estimated completion date of May 15, 2013. The building will then be open for students to enjoy and dine in. Over the past few weeks, a lot of progress has been made on the new cafeteria. The foundation has been laid and beams are being inserted where needed. Delivery trucks are bringing more beams for the building’s structure. The ground is now level and the front entrance beams are up. The new cafeteria will be modern in design, with aesthetic pleasures such as overhead light fixtures, modern tables, chairs and new appliances.
Photo by Kaitlyn Tolleson
APPETITE FOR CONSTRUCTION The new dining hall is shown with
newly erected girders outlining the future structure that will replace the Caddo Cafeteria in May of 2013. With seating for over 600, the massive building will make room for more students planning to attend Henderson. The cafeteria staff will have more room for food preparation. “I think it is very small and it was in need of an upgrade,” Brooke Charrier, freshman studio art major, said. “I am looking forward to it being a lot bigger. I am sick of tripping over people’s chairs. It is pretty
embarrassing to do that every day.” There will be several stations in the new building. The salad and soup bar station will house two Panini sandwich grills. “I am excited about the construction of the new cafeteria,” Shaciesha Wilson, office manager of Caddo Cafeteria, said. “It is something that the staff and students have both wanted
for a while. It is great to see it finally happening. It was a desire for all of us. It will also be a laid back establishment for the students to enjoy.” The Caddo Cafeteria will remain open until the new dining hall is completed in May. It is unknown at this time what the Caddo building will be used for once the staff moves to the new center.
Author details grandmother’s rugged past in common book Kenneth Ibarra Staff Writer
Index
Last Wednesday, Jeannette Walls, author of “Half Broke Horses,” came to Henderson to deliver a memorable speech to the new freshman class. Jeannette Walls has won multiple awards and appeared on “Prime Time Live,” “Oprah” and “Larry King Live.” Her memoir, “The Glass Castle.” was named one of the Top 10 Books of the Decade by Amazon and has been translated into 22 different languages. Walls started her speech with a question that had been asked during dinner that day: What compels her to write? “I was deeply ashamed of my past,” Walls said. “I used to write about celebrities until one day I was driving to a celebrity party. The taxi I was driving in got stuck in a corner during traffic. I looked out the window at a homeless woman going through the dumpster, and it surprised me when that homeless woman was my mother. I had fear that my mother would recognize me, so I slid down and asked the taxi to go home.” “I went to a mirror and looked at myself. I was ashamed,” Walls said. Later, Walls asked her mother what she should do in regards to her writing. Her mother told her to “tell the truth.” It surprised her how her little
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Photo by Ryan Klare/Oracle
BREAKING BOOKS Jeannette Walls explains the creative process involved with wrting her book, ‘Half-broke Horses.’
truthful story would become a best seller. “I learned a lot growing up. We grew up ‘poo’,’ we couldn’t afford the ‘r,’” Walls said, laughing along with the crowd. “We were sleeping in cars when I was little, but my parents taught me to ‘skedaddle,’ which is to run when times got tough. I used to think the way to feel good about ourselves is to be superior to others.” She recalled a time she went to a fancy restaurant. The waitress came over and Walls noticed there was a special on the
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fish. When the waitress asked if she could help her, Walls replied in an elegant voice, “What is the fish?” The waitress replied in an inelegant accent, “The fish is an animal that swims in the water.” Walls said she felt like a jerk trying to feel superior. “It would’ve been better just to have talked to her about something else we could’ve communed in,” Walls said, reflecting on that fish memory. She also spoke of being on “The View” with Rosie O’Donnell. Walls kept getting questions about her mother, and how she made the decision of living a life of chaos on the ranch when she could have gone somewhere else with her college degree. Walls believes that her mother probably did that in order to recreate the freedom of her childhood. “While on ‘The View,’ they would say write about your mother. O’Donnell didn’t let it go, so I decided to write about my mother, but it wasn’t what I expected,” Walls told the audience. “She sees the world more differently than I do and has a great gift for optimism.” “My favorite type of writing is nonfiction,” Walls continued. “The whole point of a nonfiction story is to tell the emotional truth, and if you start making stuff up you lose all credibility and trust between you and the
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readers. The reason I called ‘Half Broke Horses’ fiction is because I don’t know how much is true” “I didn’t think I could trust what she’d tell me,” Walls said, referring to her mother. “But sure enough, I found out it was all true after I Googled it.” “I found it difficult to write in my mother’s voice since she is a right brained and, like my grandmother, I’m more left brained. My grandmother was more of an active person. My mother was more passive, she would just let things happen to her,” she said. Walls told everybody how her mother kept insisting her daughter write about her own mother, Lily Casey Smith, instead of her because Walls’ grandmother’s life was much more interesting. “I decided to write about Lily Casey because many people in this world can relate,” Walls said. “The great thing about having a tough childhood is that you know how tough you are.” “Everything in life is a blessing and a curse. But blessings have its downside. Sometimes you forget how tough you really are, and most people back then, life was really tough,” Walls told the audience. “Most people in this country came over here to get away, and most of our ancestors did the backbreaking work for us.”
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“You had to be tough to survive. We all have incredibly strong blood running through our veins. I wrote ‘Half Broke Horses’ to remind people of their inner toughness. Those of us who had ‘cushy’ lives think we can’t survive without stuff,” she said. “I made the book so that it would remind people of their heritage. We undervalue the beauty of our toughness.” When she was a little girl, Walls recalled thinking there was a demon monster under her bed, so she went to her dad. After her dad went looking for the demon monster with her and couldn’t find it, he told her to free her fears. “It took all this time to realize that my demon was my past,” Walls said to the audience. “Confront your past and the demon can’t hurt you, or better yet, you can put a harness on it and take control.” “I believe in optimism and in combining pushing with praying, and when you do combine both there is nothing you can’t do,” she said. “When the times are getting hard, it’s when we fall that shows what we’re really made of,” Walls said, finishing up her speech. “Don’t ignore your scars. Some of us are lucky enough to have them. Don’t think that they make you less beautiful. They are your stories, and they are what you make them.”