SHARE YOUR MEMORIES OF AYRES HALL!
Do you remember your college days when you climbed the monumental “Hill” to get to a class in Ayres Hall? Once you made it to the top and paused for a deep breath, you could look out over all of campus. At that moment, everything in the world seemed possible.
Ayres Hall has become a campus icon, a building that holds lots of memories for all UT students and alumni.
As we anticipate the re-opening of Ayres Hall, we invite you to reminisce with us. Please share your memories below and read the comments of your classmates, friends and teachers.
I had history in Ayres Hall. I remember in 1969 a motion picture crew filming “A Walk in Spring Rain” was set up behind Ayres. We were not supposed to look out the back windows. I saw Ingrid Bergman.
I have many memories of Ayres Hall, mostly in the spring, but one winter one stands out..It was back in the late 70s when we had several long, cold winters with lots of snow. Buses still ran frequently around campus for students to get from one end to the other. I lived in Ft Sanders and was making my way home after class with an armload of books. I decided to take the path down the hill toward Cumberland instead of the roadway, even though there was 4-5″ of snow on the ground. I got about 1/2 way down and went flying! I sailed down on my rear to the roadway as my books went in every direction possible! Of course, when I reached the bottom and stopped, there was one of those buses….LOADED with UT students! I’m sure I provided a lot of laughs that day, and, some 30 years later, I’m still laughing about it!
“The Hill”, in the 1959’s, was for me some of my hardest subjects. Chemistry in
Dabney Hall and Math and English in Ayres hall. One paticular experience was late one afternoon as I was leaving class I heard a man and women upstairs screaming at each other – and using some foul language. After checking I found out they were in a speech class.
Ayres Hall is special to me because of a sophmore English class on the 3rd floor in which I met the guy I would marry and spend 52 years with! He had just transferred from Michigan State that winter quarter of 1954. He didn’t ask me out until the last week of the quarter but it was worth the wait.
I remember climbing to the top of The Hill and to the top of Ayres Hall for an ed. psych class. I always slept through class from exhaustion and because it was so very warm. I grew up hearing the stories of Ayres Hall from my mother. When the stadium was enlarged, my greatest regret was that my view of the “hallowed hill” was almost blocked. I still get a tear in my eye as I sing the Alma Mater at half time and remember my mom as she walked those steps, followed by her children.