President's Report - Gordon State College

27
President’s Report
purchased a home in Florida to renovate as a rental property
and that while cleaning it he found a copy of Taps on a shelf in
a bedroom closet. Thinking that it might have value to someone
he called the school and within a short time period the yearbook
arrived, but with no name or traceable owner. That yearbook,
along with others like it, is housed in Gordon’s Hightower
Library or Alumni House for all to enjoy.
One of the most unusual stories of a Taps that found its
way back to campus came from a call almost 10 years ago
from Don Estrin of California.
Estrin called asking if by chance we could copy the 1945
Taps for him as his had been lost long ago. The task was assigned
to a student worker, who made the copies and put them
in the mail to Estrin. Within a few days there was a phone call.
“I received the yearbook copy,” Estrin said, “and it is mine!”
The Taps the student had used to make the copy was Estrin’s
original yearbook complete with all the personal notes and messages
his classmates had written to him so many years ago.
And in case you are wondering, he was happy with the
copy and allowed the original to remain in the College’s collection
for others to enjoy.
Beth Pye, associate professor of library science, is the College’s
resident expert in the care of historical documents. She
evaluates the documents that are donated and carefully protects
them so that they can be preserved for future generations.
The best copy of a certain year’s Taps is placed in special
archival paper, boxed and stored. If additional copies of a yearbook
are donated, one is placed in the alumni house and another
in the advancement office. They become reference books in finding
lost alumni and are valuable in the planning of reunions.
“I had a woman call me a couple of weeks ago to ask if we
would be interested in two annuals and possibly some school
papers that she had inherited from a Gordon Military College
alumnus,” Pye said. “She wanted to make sure that the items
were given to someplace that would appreciate them and give
them a proper home.”
Pye told the woman that the Hightower Library would love
to have her annuals and papers.
If you have a Taps or other Gordon memorabilia that you
would be interested in donating, please contact Natalie Rischbieter,
alumni affairs coordinator, at 678-359-5073 or natalier@
gdn.edu. Gordon is especially interested in Taps from 1932-
1935 and 1937 or any information you may have about whether
the yearbooks were published during these years.
Let your Taps travel home! w
Currently the college has yearbooks from
the following years:
v.1 1912 v. 10 1928
v.2 1913 v. 11 1929
v.3 1915 v. 12 1930
v.4 1917 v. 13 1931
v.5 1918 1936
v.6 1919 1938
v.7 1924 1939-1942
v.8 1925 1944-1950
v.9 1927 1952-1972
as well as the following:
Gordon Grammar School
1969-1970 Bullpups annuals.
Volume numbers seem to indicate that no annuals
were published in 1914, 1916, 1920-1923 and
1926. Alumni from the years 1943 and 1951 report
their graduating classes did not publish annuals.
The College’s collection contains no annuals
from the years 1932-1935 and 1937, even though
there is no reason to believe they were not published.
Volume numbers were not used beginning
in 1936, which further complicates determining if
annuals were produced during these years.