The Jerry D. Morris Recreation Center, so named to honor the University’s ninth president, will be dedicated in ceremonies July 24.
The recreation center opened in June. A longtime administrator at A&M-Commerce, Dr. Morris served as president from 1987 through ’97. He was a principal proponent of East Texas State University’s merger into the A&M System.During his presidency, Dr. Morris established the Senior Faculty

Forum, which provided a channel of communication between faculty and his presidency. He also initiated the appointment of Regents Professors, a new designation that recognized outstanding achievements in faculty scholarship and teaching. Student concerns were also important to Dr. Morris, who began Presidential Forums, giving students an opportunity to put questions to administrators. Other achievements of his administration were renovation

of several campus buildings and transformation of the former President’s Home into the Heritage House.

Fall naming to honor Austin
Another former president, Charles J. Austin, will have his name added to the industrial engineering and technology building in a ceremony scheduled for this fall. Dr. Austin was the eighth president of the University and served from 1982 through ’86.
After leaving the University, Dr. Austin served as professor and chair of the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The recommendation to name the two buildings after Drs. Morris and Austin was made by Dr. Keith McFarland, current A&M-Commerce president.
It was approved earlier this year by the Texas A&M University System regents. Those regents will attend the Morris Recreation Center dedication during the board’s quarterly meeting, which for this session will convene here.

Professor Mayo’s building also looks to get new designation
If its walls could talk, Mayo Hall would probably claim to own three of the most machismo floors at A&M-Commerce.
Originally built in 1936 as a boys dormitory, Mayo Hall has housed teams of football players and basketball players, many of whom would go down in history with school records and conference championships.

Before being named for our founder, this
hall was known simply as the Boys Dorm.

As if that weren’t enough macho, Mayo also served as home base for a ROTC unit and, during the early ‘40s, a special Army training unit that would go on to fight in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.Perhaps it was all the residual virility that recently helped Mayo Hall achieve a crucial milestone. A review board at the Texas Historical Commission has confirmed that Mayo Hall probably has the architectural and historical muscle to make the National Register of Historic Places.
The review board’s decision to approve the University’s application brought a sigh of relief from University Archivist James Conrad. It was Dr. Conrad who drafted, then escorted, the University’s application for Mayo Hall to the review board in Austin. The board is the principle gatekeeper for applications from Texas and hears about 50 a year. Even though those applications have already passed through rigorous preliminaries that eliminate a number of them, not all are allowed to proceed to the National Park Service for final approval.
Part of Dr. Conrad’s application for Mayo Hall was documentation of its history, including a photo essay by University photographer Dave Walvoord published in the Fall 2001 Pride. Walvoord’s “For Old Times’ Sake: It’s the Mayo Hall of Records” told of fading inscriptions left by University tracksters in the ‘60s.
Its history as a home for champion athletes and the fact that it was the first boys dormitory built after the school became a state college proved a potent justification to the review board. When males students moved into the hall in 1936, it was the first time boys had lived on campus since 1917.onstructed at a cost of $115,000, much of which came from the Public Works Administration, the hall accommodated 70 students and contained a cafeteria and rec room.
The old hall’s unchanged architecture, including its distinctive front stairs to the second floor, proved to be another advantage in being recommended to the National Register, Dr. Conrad said.
In 1945, the name Mayo Hall was given to the building, which until then had simply been known as the Boys Dormitory.
Many college athletes made their home in Mayo Hall, including several football and basketball championship teams of the ‘40s and ‘50s. It was headquarters for a ROTC unit until Education North was built, as well as one during the early ‘40s for soldiers with the Army Specialized Training Program.
The National Park Service is expected to place Mayo Hall on the National Register of Historic Places in the next six months, making the building the second on campus to earn the designation. The Heritage House was listed in 2001.

Morris Recreation Center continues tradition of naming edifices for presidents, others

On July 24 the University community will gather to honor President Emeritus Jerry D. Morris by naming the new recreation center in his honor.
This tradition of naming buildings for faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the University goes back to the early days of East Texas Normal College.
The first building named for an individual was Willard Hall, a girls dormitory built in 1911 after a fire swept through campus, leveling several dorms and the administration building.
Mrs. Etta Booth Mayo, the wife of president and founder William L. Mayo, suggested naming the new girls dorm for temperance crusader Frances Willard. Mrs. Mayo, a strong supporter of the cause (She had led a parade through Commerce to advance Prohibition), had corresponded with Mrs. Willard.
More than 30 years passed before the institution would again put an individual’s name on a campus building.
During World War II, two existing structures received the names of ET presidents: Whitley Gym (Dr. Sam Whitley, then president of the college, had secured funding for the gym in 1934 after the previous gym had burned to the ground) and Mayo Hall, the boys dorm, built in 1935-36, in recognition of founder William L. Mayo.
Following the naming precedent started during the war years, the girls dorm erected in 1947-48 became Binnion Hall, in recognition of the school’s second president, Ralph Binnion. The following year, Dr. D.C. Butler, professor of English and journalism, proposed that the new journalism building, a former Army barracks from a WWII camp, be designated Dealey Hall. Butler knew Mrs. George Dealey, whose husband before his death had been publisher of the Dallas Morning News. Mrs. Dealey made a generous donation to the school to purchase books for the journalism program.
Not long after the death of Sam Rayburn in 1963, the Board of Regents approved naming the new student center for Sam Rayburn, the school’s most famous graduate. The floodgates opened wide in 1965 when the board authorized the naming of buildings for deceased faculty and staff. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, all dorms, both old and new, along with a few academic buildings got the names of former faculty and staff.Falling outside those parameters, however, was the naming in the ‘70s of the recreation center for Joseph Zeppa, a wealthy Tyler oil man and member of the Board of Regents. Dr. Otha Spencer, retired professor of journalism, recalls picking up Mr. Zeppa at the Dallas airport and carrying him to Commerce to see the new building. Spencer recalls that Zeppa “was extremely pleased.”
Another new building on campus, the high-rise dorm, became Whitley Hall, making Whitley the only person to have two major buildings on campus named for him.
Special occasions supplied opportunities for designating buildings for campus administrators. In 1972, during the inauguration ceremonies for F.H. McDowell, the school changed the name of the University Library to the James G. Gee Library to honor the fifth president of the University.
Upon the retirement of McDowell, regents designated the administration building the McDowell Administration Building for him and wife Martha Jo McDowell.
Until today the most recently dedicated building was the instructional printing facility, named for Staley McBrayer, a graduate and inventor of the offset press for printing newspapers.
Now this proud University tradition continues with the naming of the Jerry D. Morris Recreation Center.