The Campaign to Save Ball Hall

Unfortunately, I didn’t capture it on camera, but it was quite a sight here last week when the new beds, dressers, desks and wardrobes arrived  for the student residences in Ball Hall. There were metal frames stacked by the dozens and covered in shrink-wrap resembling a virtual maze outside of the door. At Community Day on Monday, General Manager of Facilities LaMont Schiers informed the faculty and staff that more than 2,000 pieces were distributed and set up in their respective rooms. Considering there’s only one elevator in the building, that must have amounted to a lot of manpower! I’m so happy for the students living in Ball who get to enjoy brand new furniture in their refurbished rooms. How nice it must be to know that you are the first student to sleep on that mattress… now that’s peace of mind.

-Tanya

I had the pleasure of driving a golf cart during reunion weekend, picking up reunion attendees — alumni and their family members — and dropping them off at their destinations. Not only was driving the cart for the first time a hoot, but I enjoyed hearing about the Keuka College of days gone by from my passengers and fellow alumni. Stories about Ball Hall were of great interest since I work in the building. Two women, graduates from the ’70s or ’80s, I’m guessing, said they used to watch soap operas in the basement, where the communications office is now located. I believe they also mentioned something about smoking, too, but their words started to trail off…

Visiting the memory room set up on the first floor in Ball was also a delight. That’s where Inez Potwin Brumm ‘52 shared with me her photos and memories of living in Ball Hall. She resided in a second floor room with two roommates. The room had a single bed and bunk beds and the young women agreed to switch beds every 10 weeks, providing each of them some time in the single bed. How great that they were able to reach such a compromise.

Reading through the Ball Hall memories that other alumni jotted down in the memory room provided a glimpse of the building throughout the decades. Judy Hart Bode’s ‘ 62 entry recounting “sliding down the main stairway on an old mattress” made me realize that students back then could be just as inventive with their entertainment as students today. Sandy Kirkpatrick Rozek’s ‘62 furthers that notion. “Can you get in trouble for ‘borrowing’ pitchers of ice from the kitchen in the middle of the night?” she asks. “Just another of those quirky things in Ball Hall — access to anywhere, anytime — just so long as we didn’t go through the outside doors!” Jill Martin ‘77 recalls taking a sailing class from Mrs. Africa. “We had to keep a record of the wind and the waves on the Beaumont Scale and we would do it by looking out the windows at the lake,” she writes. Laura David Chaba ‘82 wonders if “George” was responsible for standing a pencil upright and “moving it across a sheet of paper” while she was visiting some friends on the third floor. Good question.

Thanks to everyone who shared her or his Keuka memories during reunion. Don’t forget you can also relate those recollections here, in the “Ball Hall Memories” section. I enjoyed meeting so many of you over the weekend.

-Tanya