A farewell to Whitner Hall
By Frank Ruggiero

How does one deliver a eulogy for a building?

One can start by throwing a celebration of memories amongst its former and present occupants.

A variety of those occupants attended the going-away party for Appalachian State University’s Whitener Hall on Friday, remembering times – good and bad, fun and tedious – spent within the building’s walls.

The building is slated for demolition in early 2006 to make way for a new parking deck adjacent to the Carol Grotnes Belk Library and Information Commons. In between conversation and dining on a bounty of delectables, people bid farewell to Whitener Hall by writing on the “goodbye wall.”

Some etchings mentioned “thanks for the memories,” while another said “good riddance.” Either way, the occasion was bittersweet, as many an attendee spent years of their childhood in the building when it was Appalachian Elementary School.

Such a student was Lt. Johnny Reese of the Boone Police Department, who attended Appalachian Elementary School in its last year in that location. He recalled spending the last month of the semester moving equipment to Hardin Park Elementary School.

Reese said the students threw books from the second story windows into dump trucks, which transferred them to their new shelves at Hardin Park.

“That’s how we moved the books there were so many of them,” recalled Reese, who spent further time in Whitener Hall as a criminal justice major. “It’s a pretty special building. It’s sad to see it go because it’s a part of Boone.”

Former police administrator L.D. Hagaman also added something to the wall, having attended the elementary school as a child to later teach criminal justice in his first grade classroom. Now an instructor, Hagaman teaches in what used to be the elementary school’s old music room.

Jim Hastings, owner of the Hastings Company in Boone, which owns the Hardee’s restaurants, spent his only year teaching school in Whitener, when it was Appalachian Elementary. Hastings was a physical education instructor, who started the gymnastics program there.

“It was a good experience,” he said, before commenting on the building’s impending demise. “I’ll be sad, but progress is progress. It’s sort of sentimental because it was my first and only teaching job.”

Rennie Brantz, history professor and co-director of the Office of Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, has worked in Whitener since 1973.

“I have really good memories of this building,” he said, adding it’s the only office he’s been permanently located in for such a long time. “It’s kind of nostalgic and sad, but things change and you move on.”

Bob Snead, former executive assistant to the chancellor, recalled seeing the building first being built. He said what is now Whitener Hall has such a checkered past, due to both controversy and good times surrounding it.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the building served as “the center of cultural events,” as it housed an auditorium, Snead said, though he mentioned the building started out on the wrong foot as it was built in the middle of Howard Street.

This came to pass, Snead said, when ASU founder Dr. D.D. Dougherty essentially put his foot down on the spot and said, “This is where it’s going to be.” Dougherty received an appropriation from the state to have the building built in the early 1950s, and when Hardin Park was built in the ’70s, the school wanted payment for the building it left behind for the university, Snead recalled. The state paid again and ASU bought the building in 1972.

Brantz reflected on a bit of controversy surrounding Whitener Hall, when traffic was allowed to drive to both ends of Howard Street through the alleyway between Whitener and First Baptist Church.

Traffic became so consistent and noisy that it would disrupt lectures, Brantz said, recalling the time history professor Dr. Lowell Green stepped into the middle of the street to halt the racket.

From safety’s standpoint, the Boone Fire Department needed access between the buildings to reach the other end of Howard Street quickly.

“It’s the Rodney Dangerfield of buildings because it never got any respect,” Snead said.

Dr. Peter Petschauer, director of the Hubbard Center for Faculty and Staff Support, which is based in Whitener, told of Whitener Hall’s many departmental occupants, such as political science, criminal justice, history, freshman seminar, the Hubbard Center and the Office of Judaic Studies.

“What we really wanted to do was get some hammers and go after the walls, and then design and construction called and said, ‘You can’t do that,’” Petschauer said.

The demolition of Whitener, he continued, is the tearing down of history on the ASU campus, as buildings are now named after donors. The building’s namesake, Daniel J. Whitener, was a historian and professor, who started teaching at the university in 1932.

“Rooms and buildings are extensions of ourselves,” said Petschauer, who has worked in Whitener Hall since 1972. “And when they go, part of us goes. So, we do this in part to celebrate the building and our memories in the building.”

Dr. Bill Ward, senior associate vice chancellor of academic affairs, delivered the actual eulogy, and said, “Whitener Hall holds a lot of memories for me.” Ward said his daughter attended third grade in the building, which was the first year Ward and his family lived in Boone.

“This old, increasingly unusable building has seen all sorts of learning go on,” Ward said, telling how its studious occupants learned their ABCs, multiplication and the intricacies of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency in the very same building. “Although the walls of Whitener Hall will be gone, what Whitener Hall has stood for, literally and metaphorically, will go on.”

All those who have passed through those hallways, Ward continued, will “continue to honor Whitener Hall and everything it’s stood for.”

Faculty and staff based in Whitener Hall will carry out that legacy in the old Belk Library, which will house Whitener’s various departments, as they’re scheduled to begin the move this week.

• Frank Ruggiero may be contacted

at ruggiero@wataugademocrat.com.