C. Robert Jones interviews former First Lady Doris Bentley.
Preserving the Mars Hill Story The Memories Collection by C. Robert Jones Professor Emeritus of Theatre
Frances Snelson used to tell wonderful stories about “the good old days” at Mars Hill College. Whenever I visited her after she retired in the 1990s, I knew I’d get an afternoon of delightful memories told with zest. She was a “walking encyclopedia” of MHU’s history, having worked 49 years as assistant to Presidents Robert Lee Moore, Hoyt Blackwell, and Fred Bentley. I often wished I’d brought a video camera with me to record those visits. And indeed, that was borne out when the university celebrated its Sesquicentennial in 2006-2007. Shortly after all the Sesquicentennial celebrations were over, then-President Dan Lunsford, called a meeting of those who had been a part of the planning, to make recommendations for those who would plan the next major MHU celebration in 2056, the 200th anniversary. A high priority in those discussions was deciding the best ways to be preserving the university’s history. Remembering Frances, I suggested an ongoing series of video-taped interviews, thus chronicling history by seeing and hearing it from 12 Mars Hill, the Magazine | Spring 2021
those who had lived it. As often happens in such cases when no one volunteers, I realized I’d talked myself into a new project. Kristie Hollifield, who is now manager of media and print services, has acted as videographer, editor, and preparer of the finished interviews in DVD format. In the 13 years Kristie and I have been working on this endeavor, we’ve completed 100 interviews—involving 119 interviewees and 20 different interviewers. If the DVDs were played end to end, it would take the better part of a week to see them all. Kristie and I have worked in many different locations. I particularly remember the poignancy of the interview Director of Publications Teresa Buckner did with MHU’s first black student, Oralene Graves Simmons. They were seated on a bench at the lovely hillside location of the memorial to her great grandfather, Joe Anderson, the slave who had been taken as collateral when the university could not pay its bills in its early history. Another memorable interview was the one done by alumnus Wayne King ’79 of his mentor Betty Hughes, the much-admired English professor. It
