Volume 121 / Issue 4
McKinzie Brocail wants local recyling plant to renew plastic recycling operations
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Women’s basketball team earn berth into largest, pre-season tournament, WNIT.
Tuesday, July 10 HI: LOW:
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Jessica Gomez | The Houstonian
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wreck the halls
Dormitories being demolished for student center expansion
Stephen Green | The Houstonian
Smith-Kirkley deconstruction underway
Stephen Green | The Houstonian, SHSU Archives
BRING IT DOWN (Above) Construction crews are demolishing Smith-Kirkley residence halls in sections starting on June 30. (Below) Smith and Kirkley Residence Halls were seperately built in 1951 and 1952 respectively and occupied until 2006.
Bricks, debris and remnants of dorm rooms now lay where four floors of SmithKirkley Hall once stood. The 50-year-old building, which has housed thousands of residents, will soon be history as the university took the first steps in a plan to expand student facilities. Construction crews began the demolition of the residence hall on July 3 as a part of the ongoing tear-down to make room for new additions to the Lowman Student Center, according to a university announcement released in May. “The student center fee increase will fund portions of a plan that includes demolishing Smith-Kirkley Residence Hall and expanding the Lowman Student Center,” the release stated. While the hall has not been occupied by residents for several years, the building has housed several other departments on campus in the past, including SHSU Dining Services, the Distance Education and Learning Technologies for Academics
(DELTA) Center and offices of the College over the weekend. Many of us only had of Humanities and Social Sciences. permission to travel home and we had no Construction of Smith-Kirkley Hall was vehicle to do otherwise.” completed in 1962. It was an all-women’s With the news of the demolition, both dorm that housed 266 upperclassmen along women remained positive about saying with a reception room and dining hall. The goodbye to their former home away from building is named after Harriet Francis home. Smith and Bertha Kirkley. “[Smith-Kirkley] is Smith was a geography teacher always going to have for SHSU from 1914 to 1941 It’s always going to have some sentimental value while Kirkley taught as an some sentimental value with with me,” Marion said. assistant in Latin, mathematics “But I am very proud me...but I am very proud and history from 1891 to 1941. and impressed with what For former residents of and impressed with what the the university is doing the building, the hall was not university is doing and how and how they are moving only a place to live, but also a they are moving forward... forward.” place of community, fun and Betto agreed, saying memories. she is a big supporter of the university’s “I met an amazing group of fun girls progress. [in Smith-Kirkley],” said former resident “I think SHSU has such a beautiful Cindy Marion (‘78, ‘79). “I remember campus and they’ve done a lot to keep it other girls from down the hall might use up,” Beto said. “I believe it is good for the the albums to send shaving cream under students.” the door of the rooms in Kirkley.” University officials say the demolition “Another time I remember being late to of Smith-Kirkley should be complete class because someone had tied all the door sometime in August. knobs together so everyone was stuck in their rooms!” she said. Marion said while the girls had their share of fun, there were some snags to living at Smith-Kirkley. As a resident in Room One, Marion recalled several sleepy nights being woken up by residents knocking on her window to be let into the building after curfew. Alumnus Donna Betto, who lived in Smith-Kirkley from 1967 to 1969, has memories of the hall from a time of political unrest. “I remember watching protests of the Vietnam War at Old Main from the windows at Kirkley,” Betto said. “It was very exciting to watch because the whole idea was so risqué at the time. Nothing like that really hadn’t happened before.” The students at the time also lived with even more strict rules than today, according Stephen Green | The Houstonian to Betto. DEMOLITION The deconstruction of the “The dorm mother had a box of cards on all the female residents,” she said. “The dormitories, including King Hall, is expected cards indicated instructions from our to be finished by the end of August or early parents regarding permission for travel September according to university officials.
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