The Early Years
It is interesting to note that all the furniture made for Hoffmeyer Hall were made by the
boys of the Vocational Shop classes. The desks that you see in these pictures were made
by the Wood Working Shop (Wilson Wesley Sherrill?). When I was roaming the halls of
Main Building during football camp of 1969, I also discovered these same desks and chairs
in the girls rooms. Nowadays, I often wondered if these boys carved their initials
hidden somewhere in these desks...

The closets you see in two of these pictures are also believed to be made by the Wood
Working Shop. The bed frames for the dorm was made by the boys in the Metal Shop or
Welding Shop. The girls did some work too, the curtains were made by the Sewing Class.
 

I took these pictures during my first year at NCSD in D group and I thought it would be
interesting to display to the world what the typical dorm room of Hoffmeyer Hall was
like to live in. Oh, yeah, I had crazy roommates to contend with, too.

    
Leon Barnwell ('73) caught using my shoe polish.        And camera shy Spence Jones ('73).    

Four boys to a room, a closet for each boy. With sliding doors for access,
the left portion was to hang clothes and the right portion had shelves and
a lockable drawer. The top of the closet also had sliding doors and was
used to put suitcases and other not often used items for storage.
Oh yeah, that's Leon in one of his "crazy moments".


This was my corner of the room. The bath towels were always placed
at the foot of the bed. The bedspreads were of the military and/or
commercial type. My brothers and I had the same type cloth bedspreads
at home as we did in our dorm rooms. The color of the bedspreads in
the dorm and my brothers' room at home was what I called
'military brown' whereas my bedspread at home was blue.

The guy in the white sweatshirt is me agreeing to a deal with
Gene Oxendine ('72) that if I did his homework he'll
protect me from my crazy roommates...heh, heh.
 

Classmates in A Group

Looks like DC and we know the others are Gary and Kenneth.
Picture provided anonymously.

This picture obtained from page 73 of the 1967 Yearbook is atypical of the rec rooms
at the ends of all hallways of Hoffmeyer Hall. This picture is believed to be taken of
A or B group (Upper School end of HH) because there are no boys of the Class of ' 67
seen here. Three boys boys identifiable are at the upper left: Herman Jackson ('68),
boy in the white shirt is Boyd Arrington ('69) and behind Boyd is Lee McDaniel. The
boy in the hat eating chips is believed to be Dallas Partin ('69).
 

Two more dormitory pictures from Gary can be seen here.

The meandering written below are composed from a variety of sources
collected over the years as well as from personal experiences
and written as a first person account.

In my first year, we had an exercise room in one of the rooms on the first
floor (A group) towards the football field end of Hoffmeyer Hall. It was also
used as part of PE (physical education) after school. The room had exercise
equipment ie; bar bells, weight bench and the like. In the fall of 1966, the
exercise equipment was moved to the basement of New Gym in order to
convert the room to another dorm room to accommodate the ever increasing
number of students that were arriving.

We boys had chores, "to earn our keep" while living in the dorm, the dreaded
mopping and waxing the hallways was done on a regular basis. Towards the
end of the school year, we had to mop and wax the floors of our rooms, although
I don't remember doing them during my times in B or A group. Maybe because
the dreaded chore is still repressed in my mind.

For entertainment, each group had their own television in their group
room, recreation (rec) room, or better known as TV room. B group and
the Upper School side of A group had pool tables. I remember well the
"championship" pool game contests we had several times a year where
we faced off each other till we had a pool "shark" champion.

Of course there were nightly study hours, where we were confined to our
rooms to do home work, Monday through Thursday nights. After study
hour, the canteen opened and some boys scampered downstairs to buy
their snacks before bedtime.

Our home game football contests were held at the Morganton High School
football field, often times on Thursday nights. (For those who came in late:
 the lights on Alumni Field were installed after 1970). And the E and D group
kids walked to the games and walked back to campus afterwards. C, B, and
A group boys had the option of walking or sharing a taxi ride to the games.
All of the girls, however, rode the school bus to the games.

Friday nights, whether the students went home or not, we had a choice of
staying in or going downtown to see a movie at the Mimosa Theatre. Again,
the E and D group kids walked to the theatre and C, B, and A group boys had
the option of walking or sharing a taxi ride to the movie. And again, all of
the girls, rode the school bus.

Back then, the movie tickets for us students were 25 cents. And the taxi
fee was a 75 cents one way so 3 boys could fetch themselves a ride for a
quarter apiece. Our last year of school, the taxi fee went up a quarter. No
problem here...4 boys squeezed into the taxi...

Weekends on campus was pretty much routine; breakfast at 8am instead
6:45am, which meant wake up time was 7am instead of 6am. Saturdays
at 9am, we had to do some campus chores, the memorable ones would be
going to the dinning rooms of each building on campus to mop the floors,
one of which the kitchen staff would give us ice cream when we finished
 up. Other chores might be cleaning up debris on campus grounds after a
storm earlier in the week. Most of the chores were done by 11am.

After lunch at noon, B and A groups were allowed to go downtown for
whatever reasons, another movie (try Fox Theatre), shopping, or taking
advantage of going to Hardee's. Yeah! Remember the original Hardee's
Deluxe Burger (a quarter-pound burger with a tangy mayonnaise)? Or
Big Twin (a two-patty burger with a unique sauce)? Mmm, mmm,
good! Some boys even skipped the school's Saturday's lunch just
to feast on these now no longer available culinary delights.

Those that stayed on campus, played touch football, basketball in one of
the gyms, or when allowed, swimming in the old gym. Other guys just
watched sports or a monster movie on TV. Canteen also opened during
these Saturday afternoons.

Everyone had to be back at the dorm by 5pm, supper at 6 then the
Saturday Night at the Movies in the auditorium of Main Building. Everyone
looked forward to this because all the films were shown in open captioning.

Sunday: up at 7, breakfast at 8, since there were no study hour Friday night,
some students took advantage of the free time till getting ready for chapel
services at 11. Lunch at noon and the rest of the day was "free time". More
afternoon TV movies, canteen opened again. Some would play touch football,
basket ball, swimming, etc. Most times there would be social time with
the girls on Sunday afternoons somewhere on campus. Sunbathing near the
tennis area, maybe a party in the basement of New gym, or a walk at the
front of Main Building as we did during the weeknight social hour.

After the SUB (Student Union Building, now McCord Building) opened in 1967,
Sunday social time were spent there, in the courtyard, bowling, and even
listening to the jukebox.

Sunday evenings were treated as a weeknight/school night. If you didn't do
your homework by then, you were on your own and the students who came
back from home for the weekends had lots to talk about.

There you have it, a boy's perspective of dormitory life in Hoffmeyer Hall. OK,
ladies, how about your perspective of a girl's life in Maim Building?

How about a student's perspective of life in Goodwin Hall?