Although the seats have changed, there have always been people to fill them in Hendricks Hall. Today it serves as an instructional space for UCM students, conference center for community groups and the largest theater in the county for performing artists.
HENDRICKS HALL RESTORATION The University of Central Missouri’s century-old Hendricks Hall is a visual representation of the historical foundation of UCM. Instantly recognizable, it has greeted students on their first day at convocation and celebrated their success at commencement. Opened as College Auditorium in1923, the 1,300-seat space located in the Administration Building has been the stage from which thousands of careers began and where many more have come to be inspired and transformed by the power of performance. After a century of service to our community, Hendricks Hall is in need of repair and revitalization. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of this masterfully designed theater, UCM is seeking philanthropic investments to restore the original 1920s ceiling to be architecturally and aesthetically accurate, to fully restore the original 1923 Austin pipe organ, to add sound reducing and absorbing details throughout and to install state-of-the-art audiovisual technology components.
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK What do legendary actor-comedian Bob Hope, country singer Johnny Cash, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev and the great trumpeter-composer Louis Armstrong have in common? They all appeared on a University of Central Missouri stage to inform, enlighten or entertain. To enrich the overall campus experience for students, a strong tradition of live events — from guest speakers to Broadway shows to concerts of all kinds — was born early in the history of UCM. While such activities provide an important avenue for bringing students, faculty and staff together, they also help the university build connections with alumni and the community. Over time these events have helped solidify UCM’s role as an important cultural and artistic hub for the region.
College Auditorium was dedicated in 1923 and renamed Hendricks Hall in 1933 after Eldo L. Hendricks, the university’s eighth president. The theater quickly became a mainstay for cultural and artistic opportunities. Special events throughout the 1920s and ’30s included the Russian Symphonic Choir, St. Louis Symphony, Denishawn and Blue Bird Russian ballet companies, Ukrainian National Choir, opera star Sigrid Onēgin, harpist and guitarist Alberto Salvi, renowned violinist Joseph Szigeti and Vladimir Horowitz, arguably the most famous pianist of the 20th century. Students from the university and its laboratory school — named Training, College and then University High School — used Hendricks Hall's stage for musicals, plays, concerts and assemblies.
GORBACHEV: MAN OF THE DECADE “When Mikhail Gorbachev walked into Central Missouri State University’s press room last week, vivid memories overwhelmed me. The man who first talked about glasnost and perestroika in communist Eastern Europe was standing inches away from me. And I wanted to tell him that, without him, my life would probably have been quite different. “I believe in my country’s (Bulgaria’s) resilience. … And while my parents’ generation is still struggling to make sense of memories spanning 45 years of communism, my generation has taken on the task of making sense of what’s to come. And do it right.” —Rossitsa Nicolova, Class of 1998 From the Kansas City Business Journal, March 14, 1999
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
UCM’s most famous graduate, Dale Carnegie, returned to speak at his alma mater and attend a campus picnic in 1937, a year after publishing “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” A musical composer with a special place in her heart for UCM, Emma Lou Diemer performed in Hendricks Hall in 1944. The daughter of George Diemer, the university’s ninth president, she grew up at Selmo Park and went on to have a successful career as a composer and keyboard artist performing works on piano and organ. “I have many fond memories of the university and the 19 years of living in Warrensburg, attending the College Laboratory School and College High School,“she said. “I spent many an evening practicing that organ [in Hendricks Hall] while my father worked in his office.” Continuing its prominence as a venue for education and the arts throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Hendricks Hall hosted performances and lectures that included the U.S. Marine Band, Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle, world traveler Cornelius Vanderbilt, Senator William Fulbright, the Cincinnati Symphony and the first United Nations Secretary-General Trygve Lie. Philanthropic support has been vital to the continued tradition of hosting great speakers and performers. In the early 1980s, UCM benefited from a bequest in the will of career educator Julius J. Oppenheimer, who attended
the university in 1908. He established two endowments to provide sustainable funding for events and speakers who promote and support liberal arts education. Oppenheimer funds initially brought Lord Harold Wilson, former prime minister of Great Britain, to UCM in October 1984. Since then, these funds and other generous contributions have made possible a Who’s Who list of speakers including award-winning actor John Houseman; famous news correspondents Eric Sevareid, Howard K. Smith and Hugh Downs; Nobel Peace Prize winners Betty Williams and former Polish President Lech Walesa; former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; “M*A*S*H” actor/activist Mike Farrell; former U.S. First Lady Barbara Bush; former U.S. presidential candidates Senator George McGovern, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and activist Ralph Nader; environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Nadine Strossen, the first female president of the American Civil Liberties Union; renowned poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou; and many others. If these walls could talk, they would tell stories about a campus truly enriched through the arts and those who support them. While the UCM community celebrates its past during this sesquicentennial, we also look to the future with a goal to renovate our time-honored venue, Hendricks Hall, for generations to come.
EMMA LOU DIEMER
DALE CARNEGIE
SERVING UCM STUDENTS Hendricks Hall has long been a popular performance space for the local community and the university. It is the venue for UCM’s most intimate and honored traditions, including convocation, the ROTC graduation ceremony and the pinning ceremony for our nursing program graduates. Today, it is also an active classroom serving hundreds of students each week. Hendricks Hall has become one of UCM’s most utilized instructional spaces during the coronavirus pandemic, as it allows for safe social distancing. With this historical theater serving as UCM’s largest classroom as well as an event space, its out-of-date technology hinders the ability to realize its full potential as an educational asset for our students. In a world where young adults are expected to have job-ready skills in order to enter and compete in the workforce, UCM is committed to ensuring all students are able to develop those necessary skills. Funding for this restoration will provide hands-on learning opportunities for a broad spectrum of career paths. Whether students are learning audiovisual technology skills on the actual equipment they will be using in their careers, developing business-ready public-speaking abilities or performing their craft in front of a live audience, our vision is that Hendricks Hall will ultimately be transformed into an engineered, state-of-the-art facility and performance space preparing students to be competitively positioned upon graduation.
PHOTO BY DWIGHT CARTER
THEATER UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN 1923
ANGELOU: POETIC GENIUS On Nov. 21, 1991, UCM’s Association of Black Collegiates and the University Program Council sponsored a lecture by renowned poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. UCM students and community members came to Hendricks Hall to hear the iconic author, who has served on two presidential committees, received more than 50 honorary degrees and will be among the first women ever depicted on the U.S. quarter-dollar in 2022.
MAYA ANGELOU
SERVING THE COMMUNITY
RESTORING THE PIPE ORGAN
The largest theater in the county, Hendricks Hall has played a pivotal community role since 1923, enhancing the Warrensburg and Johnson County area by providing a beautiful and historical space for performing artists, global thought leaders, student showcases and statewide events such as Missouri Boys State and Girls State.
Showing his appreciation for a former music teacher whose positive impact was never forgotten, alumnus Michael Quimby, owner of Warrensburg-based Quimby Pipe Organ Inc., is honoring the memory of Professor Eleanor Shockey by restoring the pipe organ she played in Hendricks Hall. The large instrument, designed with the pipes intentionally hidden from public view, was presented by the Alumni Association in 1924 as a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I.
Hendricks Hall does not sit empty. Annually, it serves approximately 10,000 UCM students from 43 states and 35 countries as a space for academic instruction and programming. In addition, approximately 160 events occur in the theater each year, with reservations booked years in advance.
IMPACT OF RENOVATION • Hendricks Hall will be an immersive, vibrant, state-of-the-art theater that will serve the university and the surrounding community for another 100 years and beyond.
Quimby said his goal is to “refurbish the organ, enlarging and changing its character so that it will be an instrument capable of doing great organ and orchestral works.” He added that his plan for restoration will actually make the organ better than it was brand new. When finished it will be an instrument with the style and signature sound that distinguishes Quimby pipe organs from those built by other companies.
• The historically accurate restoration of the original Hendricks Hall ceiling, with close attention paid to acoustical details throughout the hall, will enhance the aesthetics of the space while improving its sonic character. • Installation of new audiovisual technology components will facilitate learning by providing students and others excellent sound and a large, high-quality video screen, seen easily from any seat in the hall. Additionally, the new components will open the doors to many new avenues of artistic expression and production, blending music and other performing arts with cutting-edge media technologies. Finally, for students focused on event technology, the components will form the heart of a new, hands-on laboratory for learning their craft.
MICHAEL QUIMBY
• Restoration, enlargement and improved character of the pipe organ will create an instrument capable of great solo and orchestral works.
ELEANOR SHOCKEY
YourGenerousSupport will allow the University of Central Missouri the opportunity to restore this historical venue to its former splendor while simultaneously upgrading it to a state -of-the art theater. Although the facility was constructed as a performance space, its increasing use as a lecture hall led to the installment of a sound-absorbing ceiling and other elements that helped reduce the reverberation time to 0.85 seconds. While that is acceptable for speech and drama, it is unacceptably low for most music performances, especially vocal, for which mid-frequency reverberation time of 1.5–1.7
seconds is recommended. Restoration of the original ceiling promises to substantially improve the acoustics in the hall while at the same time adding to the aesthetics of the space. Implementing the planned acoustical improvements will enable users to tailor the acoustics of the space within a range, allowing for a wider variety of uses with beautiful sound.
Together, we will elevate the UCM educational experience, develop workforce-ready skills for our region and attract events that enrich our shared community. Partner with us in transforming the lives of UCM students and creating opportunities for them beyond what they imagined possible!
ESTIMATED PROJECT BUDGET Ceiling Restoration $800,000 Pipe Organ Restoration $675,000 Acoustics, Sound and AV Systems $2,100,000 Architecture and Engineering $290,000 Total Project Budget $3,865,000 We have already secured support to cover approximately 50% of the projected costs, with generous commitments from the state of Missouri as well as a private family foundation, Quimby Pipe Organ and numerous UCM alumni contributors. Your philanthropic investment will enable us to complete these renovations by the centennial milestone of Hendricks Hall in 2023.
HISTORICAL HENDRICKS HALL CEILING
CEILING IN NEED OF REPAIR
Smiser Alumni Center PO Box 800 Warrensburg, MO 64093 660-543-8000 giving@ucmo.edu