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Founders Hall
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Mars Hill Campus Listed as Historic District
It's hard to walk through the Mars Hill College campus and not feel some sense of history with all of the old and varied buildings. But few people realize that it is collectively one of the most historic campuses in North Carolina. The Mars Hill College Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 12, 2006.
Story by Brandon Johnson - - Click for Reader Comment
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Doug Ferguson in 1981
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Ceramic Art Celebrates Local Heritage
Though often overlooked by many students and faculty, the campus of Mars Hill College is decorated with the work of an alumnus who became one of the region's style-setting ceramic artists. Douglas James Ferguson, born on a farm in a little place called Possum Trot in Yancey County, become a potter whose work, years after his death, is still sold worldwide. He created and donated several ceramic works on campus, including the big Heritage mural at the entrance to Blackwell Hall and the Appalachian quilt tiles in the lobby.
Story by Elizabeth Head
Ferguson explains the Heritage mural
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| Playwright Describes Treasure Hunt through History |
"Base-balling, or any other games, shall not be played by students...." That was the rule at Mars Hill College in 1890. Then everything changed.
Treasures tells the story of a year full of change that included the founding of the school's first baseball team.
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Writing Treasures, the musical about Mars Hill College playing now in Owen Theatre, was a personal treasure hunt for playwright C. Robert Jones. The former MHC theatre arts professor created the musical for the school's sesquicentennial celebration. It is based on the real people and events of the 1890-91 academic year.
- Story by Kate Prichard
- - Click for Reader Comment
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It's all there in pictures
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Through the Long Years Tells College History in Photos
"As a labor of love for a very special place," three alumni have created a pictorial history of Mars Hill College in their new book Through the Long Years. On the occasion of the college's 150th anniversary, Darryl Norton, Robert Chapman, and Walter Smith have put together a 206-page coffee table size book that includes 850 annotated photographs.
Story by Ingrid Hopkins
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Star-crossed romance on The Hill
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Treasures Puts College History On Stage
The original play, Treasures, written by former Mars Hill College Theatre Arts Professor C. Robert Jones, will make its world premiere on Saturday, October 7, at Owen Theatre as a part of the campus Sesquicentennial Celebration. It is a musical based on happenings at Mars Hill College during the 1890-1891 academic year - a dramatic insight into the lives of staff and students whose actions made the college what it is today.
Story by Kate Prichard
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The past is present
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Local Craftsman Builds Model Campus
In a small workshop in a renovated building in downtown Marshall, Doug McKenzie works to make Mars Hill College history come alive. Here McKenzie and his assistant Liam Andrews, a 2005 Mars Hill College graduate, are building a three-dimensional scale model of Mars Hill College during the year 1910. The model, commissioned for Mars Hill's sesquicentennial celebration, is scheduled to go on display in Blackwell in May.
Story by Nicole Robinson & Mee Vang
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Mars Hill Circa 1910
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Celebrations Soon for College Sesquicentennial
Mars Hill College will celebrate its 150th Anniversary with a year-long series of events beginning in May.
The theme for the sesquicentennial is "Preserving the Past; Assuring the Future." "We want to celebrate the past, but also use it as a spring-board for the future," said Everett "Buddy" Gill, MHC '51, chair of the Sesquicentennial Commission. Several works have been commissioned to celebrate 150 years of history.
Story by Nicole Robinson & Mee Vang
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Ophelia "Fifi" DeGroot
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President's Assistant Recalls Mars Hill's Age of Innocence
No TV. No cell phones. No computers. "Housemothers" and "housefathers" in the dorms. Those are just a few of the things that made Mars Hill College in the 1950s different. Ophelia "Fifi" DeGroot knows exactly how life on the Mars Hill campus was during the 1950s. DeGroot graduated from Mars Hill College, which was a junior college at the time, in 1958.
Story by Nicole Robinson
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Miss Virginia as Student ('43), Coach ('57), and Omelet Maker
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Miss Virginia Remembers
It was a world of extreme rules and control, where people were not allowed physical contact in public, where even adults were forced to abide by a bedtime, and there was segregation based on gender. No, it wasn't an episode of the Twilight Zone about some tyrannical future Earth. Thanks to Virginia Hart, who has been a student, teacher, coach, cook, and influential figure at Mars Hill for more than 60 years, we know that this was the college.
Story by Ryan Wright - - Click for Reader Comment
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Long Ridge School today
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Support Sought for Historic Schoolhouse
Because school segregation is a thing of the past, it can be easy to forget that blacks and whites used to receive educations in completely different locations. The Joe Anderson School, located on Long Ridge in Mars Hill, was one of the many schools that educated black students who were not allowed to attend the white schools.
Story by Loretta Akins
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Men's swimming class, early '50s
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Mars Hill's Forgotten
Pool
Coming off a win in their inaugural home opener, the lady
lions swim team will be celebrating in their own Harrell pool this week.
But did you know that long before Harrell pool was built in 1967, another
pool lay beneath McConnell?
Story by Jared Cohn - - Click for Reader Comment
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Marshbanks Light Mystery Solved
Has the question of the Marshbanks mystery light been answered? Kathy Wallin, Class of '51 and alumni secretary from 1951-1988, called into the Hilltop to say that she was here when the light was in use. "There was only one security guard for the whole college. His name was Pop Tolley...."
Story by Jared Cohn
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Dr. Otis Duck made a difference wherever he went
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Beloved Doctor's Trail Grows Dim
Long before Bailey Mountain Dormitory or Disc Golf courses, a fitness trail ran through the Mars Hill College campus. A bronze plaque honoring the remarkable man who built it marked the end point...until bulldozers cleared it away to make room for the new dormitory. Few students remain who still remember the trail; fewer still remember the name of Dr. Otis Duck, who (along with several volunteers) created a beautiful gift to his alma mater.
Story by Jennifer Jones - - Click for Reader Comment
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