Interest in preserving documents and artifacts relevant to the history of LaGrange College is long standing. Official documents such as minutes of the Board of Trustee meetings, the academic catalog and the president’s annual report have been collected and maintained by administrative personnel of the College. For decades the College Library, the Alumni Office, and The Office of Institutional Relations, now the Office of Communications and Marketing, actively collected and continues to collect materials chronicling the history of LaGrange College. Additional collections were also maintained by the Alumni Association.
In 1978, prompted by the request of Mrs. Linda M. Johnston, Class of 1936, the Alumni Council approved the creation of an Archives Committee. Mrs. Johnston agreed to serve as chairman of the committee. Dr. Samuel G. Hornsby, Jr., Professor of English, accepted an invitation to join the committee as a campus representative. As the scope of the project became evident, Mrs. Johnston withdrew from the chairmanship, recommending that members of the committee be drawn from local alumni and LaGrange College staff. The first meeting of the Archives Committee of LaGrange College took place on April 22, 1979. The committee was comprised of: Dr. Waights G. Henry, Jr., Chancellor; Dr. Sam G. Hornsby, Jr., Professor of English; John Lawrence, Associate Professor of Art; Miss Kathryn Cline, alumna; Mrs. Henderson Traylor, Jr., alumna; Mrs. Hubert Dyar, alumna; Mrs. Sam G. Hornsby, Jr., alumna; Seale Hipp, alumnus; Miss Elizabeth Reeves, alumna; Miss Lillian Clark, alumna and Mrs. Carolyn Burgess, Alumni Director.
Miss Clark’s minutes and undated notes detail the work of this committee during the next eight years. An initial budget of five thousand dollars was provided to fund the work of the committee. Preservation of the Alumni Association’s large collection of photographs including class composites dating from 1888 was the first major task undertaken by the committee. Subsequently two rooms located in the northwest wing of Smith Hall were designated for use by the Archives as the collection of documents and memorabilia expanded. Unofficial oversight of the collection was assumed by the Alumni Office.
In 1983 the Forward Fund of LaGrange College was established to fund the renovation of Smith Hall. When the renovation work began in 1987 a significant portion of the archival collection housed in Smith Hall was placed on deposit at the Troup County Archives (www.trouparchives.org). For the next decade and a half, selected records and memorabilia continued to be transferred to Troup County Archives while other archival materials remained on campus. In 2015, the complete collection was returned to the Suber Archives.
In 1998 Loren Pinkerman was appointed director of LaGrange College’s William and Evelyn Banks Library. Hired in part to help bring to fruition the College’s goal of building a sorely needed new library, Pinkerman also shared with President Stuart Gulley the vision of a working on-campus archive. Throughout the library planning process with consultant Jay Lucker and various focus groups, the need for an archive was articulated. Groundbreaking for LaGrange College’s Frank and Laura Lewis Library took place on October 26, 2007. During January of 2009 the library’s holdings were moved into the newly completed facility which included a designated archive. Staffed by two part-time library employees, Suber Archives and Special Collections, named for LaGrange College benefactor Charles Edwin Suber, was formally dedicated on March 29, 2010.
Suber Archives and Special Collections remains a work in progress. It is proving to be a vital and exciting venture. We invite you to browse our website and return often to view new Finding Aids.
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