By Greg Russell - University of Memphis

1937. After several cases of food
poisoning, the student meal format
is changed from table board, family
style to a cafeteria plan.
1938. The State Teachers College football
team goes undefeated and untied,
making them champions of the Southern
Intercollegiate Athletic Association.
Centenarian “flows”
with the times
As 103-year-old U of M graduate Flocene Strickland Murphy chats
with her son in a retirement home, she is aglow in purple. From
the royal purple jacket with a lilac and black scarf draped around
her neck, to a large violet watch, Murphy cannot get enough of her
signature color.
Why dress heavily in purple?
“It just made me sort of a star,” Murphy said.
That, along with her renowned paintings.
Born in Water Valley, Miss., in 1908, she enrolled at West
Tennessee State Teachers College in 1928. Times were tough then
— the Great Depression was just on the horizon — so she took a job
making $10 a week at a downtown drugstore. Though she worked
seven nights a week, she still managed to go to classes Mondays
through Saturdays, and became a sketch artist for The DeSoto
yearbook. One incident she recalls shows how times have changed.
Murphy said an art teacher censored one of her drawings of a
man and woman sitting on a bench in a garden because it was too
racy.
“His hand was on the lady’s arm,” Murphy said. “The art teacher
didn’t like that, so she covered it with flowers.”
Murphy taught art education for 22 years before concentrating on
her paintings in 1975. She often used scenes of running water in
1939. Richard C. Jones, former
college dean, is appointed fourth
president.
1940. The FCC hears the first FM
radio transmission, and Winston
Churchill becomes Britain’s
prime minister.
1941. As enrollment tops 1,000,
the school’s name is changed to
Memphis State College.
Flocene Murphy enrolled at West Tennessee State Teachers College in
1928. She later became a noted painter.
her paintings to help people remember her unusual first name. Her
slogan was “Flowing scenes by Flocene.”
Murphy was also a member of Xi Beta Nu sorority, which became
Alpha Gamma Delta, and was on the homecoming court her senior year.
The last time she set foot on the U of M campus was in 2010 for
an Alpha Gamma Delta sorority dinner event.
The campus has gone through many changes and growth since the
1930s, she said. It makes her proud that the school has flourished.
“It makes me realize that progress is slow, but it’s there,” she said.
-- by Laura Fenton
It’s a jungle out there:
100 tigers such as
these near the Student
Plaza were “released”
earlier this month on
campus as part of the
University of Memphis
Alumni Association’s
“Tigers Around Town”
centennial celebration
campaign. Each tiger
statue represents a
year the University has
been open and will
be displayed at the
U of M through the
end of the year. They
will then be placed
in various locations
around Shelby County.
(See story page 46)
SUMMER 2011 NEWSBITS 9