by Leslie Newman | Jul 6, 2015 | News Slider
Lipscomb’s three swings and a ring saying likely grew because there are so many swings on campus and so often passers-by see couples sitting on the swings. The basic premise of “romantic” myth is that if a couple is spotted swinging three times, then the woman will get a ring. Sometimes love does spring from those swings, other times not. “My brother and his girlfriend used to sit on the swings on campus all the time and they did get married,” 2010 grad Rachel Stevens said. “He even built a swing just like the one on campus in their backyard.” Beaman Library Archivist Marie Byers added another detail to Lipscomb students’ pursuit of a college-romance-turned-lifelong-commitment. Byers said before there were swings there were signature green benches all over campus which were known as “office spotlights.” The benches were placed in very public areas to make sure modesty was a part of any heterosexual seating. The swings of love didn’t even arrive on campus until the spring of 1989, when students spied them upon returning from spring break. The swings accompanied plans for some major buildings on campus. The new library, athletic facilities, an addition to Johnson Hall, more parking spaces and a new baseball field were all to begin construction that July. To make room six run-down houses — they must have been, as students referred to them as “the ghetto” — were demolished. That neighborhood stood where the baseball field is now. Ronnie Farris, head postmaster for The Connection, used to live in the old neighborhood that was displaced for the baseball field. He remembers having a picture of his son on a...
by Kyrsten Turner | Sep 18, 2013 | Uncategorized
The third floor of Beaman Library is home to the Lipscomb archives, including those of The Babbler, the university student print publication that ceased in 2009. The third floor is also where Marie Byers, the Beaman Library archivist, volunteers her time, scanning in old stories and photographs to use in The BabblerExpress. “I like to show off my stuff,” said Byers, motioning to the archive room in the corner behind her chair. The BabblerExpress is a new Lipscomb paper, published by the Senior Alumni Council and mailed out to alumni ages 55 and older. Similar to the Nashville Retrospect, The Babbler Express pulls from old student publications to compose a bi-yearly newspaper for the senior alumni. “The idea came from the Nashville Retrospect, which is the newspaper that’s published, I think monthly. It is a newspaper – only it’s bigger than the current Tennesseean, and it’s larger, like the old newspapers used to be, but it just re-prints articles from The Tennessean, the Nashville Banner and earlier Nashville newspapers from, say, the 19th century.” Byers emphasized that although everyone reading the Nashville Retrospect doesn’t remember what happened fifty years ago, the people who lived at that time do and the stories are sentimental. The same is true of The BabblerExpress. The committee makes it a priority to include a “little of this, little of that” in order to connect with all the alumni, many of whom enjoyed different interests, Byers said. “We do have some guidelines,” Byers said. “We don’t have all sports. We don’t have all beauty queens, and we don’t have all Singarama. We try to show student activities. We try to have something about faculty. “This was the campus newspaper for many...
