Let's Say "NOW " to the Swimming Pool Fund

MILDRED ANDERSON WILLIAMS, '28

WESTHAMPTON ALUMNAE with memories of the past and dreams for the future are saying, "Now" to the perennial swimming pool project which seemed to us to be trickling on forever.

The Three Year Swimming Pool Wing Completion Campaign begun this spring puts the final deadline as January 31, 1962. Its goal of $125,000 will provide for normal operations and activities of the Alumnae Association as well as a substantial $100,000 toward the wing to Keller Hall.

On February 24 at the Westhampton Alumnae Fund Dinner the campaign was 1ir9t aru1ounced. An overall committee with Frances Anderson Stallard, '28 (Mrs. Beecher Stallard) as chairman was established. Subconun.ittees include Fanny G. Crenshaw chairman of special gifts, Pauline Turnbull chairman of Westhampton faculty solicitation, and Non Turpin Turner, '28 (Mrs. Preston Turner) chairman of Memorial gifts. Inez deJarnette Hite, '24 (Mrs. Oscar Hite) is chairman of reoords.

On May 31 the glad news was that the total of this year's alumnae fund was $18,109.82 toward our year's goal of $30,000 . Even more encouraging was the fact that most of you had not even been heard from: this amount came from a little less than 28% of our alumnae of Wesnha, mpton ! From the students of the class of 1959 came a gift of $275 toward a diving board for the swimming pool, and from the Westhampton student government association $535. All this in a brief interval of three months. The project is meriting such enthusiasm that the fund more than equaled at this point the entire contributions for 1958.

The Swimming Pool wing is shown on the original architect's drawing of some years ago. It will have a foyer which will be a memorial to Dr. Emily Gardner, as well as a heating and filtering plant, and the pool. Every woman's college in Virginia except Westhampton has a s,wimming pool and alumnae are eager to finish the undertaking begun so many years ago.

We've Gome a long way since the days when Westhampton girls used to swim in the college lake, hardly safe these days for fish and ducks, as a result of contamination from the surrounding suburban areas.

On Alumnae Day, May 17 a clever skit with rhymes that matched told the story of "Swimming at Westhampton." We had a parade of our prettiest alumnae in bathing suits from 1915 to 1959, when suits are worn for sunning since swimming is impossible.

"THE SUBJECT, NATCH, IS SWIMMING." The hopes, despa irs, the trials and vicissitudes of Westhampton's alumnae in their undaunted efforts to make a reality of their swimming pool dream were told, in rhyme, by Mrs. Boatwright Lynch to an Alumnae Day crowd. Young alumnae garbed in the knee-length, bloomered suits of 1914 to the snapp y dressmaker style of 1959 helped tell the story. "That opaque lake (where ducks now wade and glide and waddle in the shade) was-back in 1935-an ideal place to swim and dive," but, alack and alas, as Mrs. Lynch points out, "all at once disaster struck, the water became polluted! Our swimming teams were out of luck though fashionably suited." Left to right are Carolyn Wood, '57; Mrs. Barbara Goodman Burton II, "57; Mrs. Sarah Ashburn Holder, '58; Mrs. Suzanne Stutts Hicks, Jr., '57; Mrs. Joyce Garrett Tidey, '57, and Mrs. Lynch.

WE DID IT!

As th is Bulletin goes to press, it is apparent that the $30,000.00 goal set for the Westhampton Alumnae Fund for this year has been met. It was a big undertaking-many thought it an impossible undertaking-but Westhampton Alumnae rallied nobly to the challenge and the first part of the three year campaign to complete the swimming pool wing of Keller Hall has gone over the top. Pardon us if we feel wildly triumphant and wave a flag!

One extremely large gift at the last moment, added to many, many other most generous gifts, accomplished the $30,000.00 total-an amount larger by $10,000.00 than that ever given in any previous year.

With this wonderful beg inning, we are most optimistic about the final outcome. Anybody want to join us in a swim in Keller Hall along about 1964?

To date we have in the swinu11ing pool fund approximately $62,000, invested by the University of Richmond to earn about 4% until we are ready to begin our Swimming Pool Wing. By setting our goal at $30,000 this year, $40,000 for 1960 and $55,000 for 1961 we shall see our dream realized.

How realistic are we about this three year plan? We believe we are quite practical in suggesting that each alumna give at least $25 annually to the fund, beginning with 1958. A contribution of $25, less than 50¢ per week is, in many instances, only a token gift to a college which has meant more to each of us than we shall ever be able to put into words.

Since there may be a few for whom this amount would be a hardship, those who have been more blessed with this world's goods will no doubt want to give more. We must have a large number of gifts of $100 a year and even some in the thousands if we are to succeed in our plan. $100 a year would be less than $10.00 a montha sum many of us could afford.

Westhampton College has meant a great deal to most of us. She has helped us to become the women we are. When we preside at a club meeting or at our church societies-w ihen we develop a talk, with necessary reading and research~ when we enjoy a play or a poem or even a good bookwe are benefiting from skills we learned at our college.

Many of those who taught us are gone, but the memories remain, and we ourselves are part of their -interest and their love. "Good luck to us," with our dreams of the flllture: a Swimming Pool Wing for \XI esbhampton before 1963.