From: Edward Dunn, Class of 1969: When I was a Junior in 1968 living on the second floor, north end of Cumberland Hall, I decided to pull a practical joke on Randy Barnes, a Senior at the time. Randy had gone away for the weekend and for some reason his room was left unlocked. I had noticed a large pile of discarded newspapers stacked on the first floor and thought about loosely balling up sheets of the newspapers and filling his room from ceiling to floor. When he opened the door he would face a wall of newspapers and a room stuffed with them. I, and some of my accomplices: Terry Boose, David Bouteiller, David Hatchell, Malvern Barrow and others had the job done in no time. When Randy got back, he was tired and not in the best of moods...so, he didn't think it was as funny as we did. It took us about 5 minutes to clear the room...then he thought it was funny!! Mr. Bruce Pulliam, our faculty resident, was not happy when he heard about it the next day. I thought it was funny, and still do!!

From: Larry Green, Class of 1965: The class of 65, or at least some of us, like to think we put Methodist College on the map. And for the next 40 years Gene Clayton and Bill Lowdermilk tried to clean up all the damage we had done.
     One particular prank that we were very proud of was the infamous Brick Door Incident. The brunt of this caper was Jerry Marcus. For the record, Jerry was Methodist’s first official mascot back in the days when the Monarch was a king rather than a lion. We all looked forward to seeing the sizable Jerry prance around the gym at the basketball games in his green cape and gold crown both of which were made by the cheerleading squad. He was a true delight and helped keep the crowd alive in the very early years of our athletic teams.
     However, Jerry had a short fuse and he also took great pleasure in dishing out insults to all of us although he couldn’t take it in return. . It probably had something to do with his northern upbringing. So the rest of us were always ready and eager to return some grief at every opportunity.
     One particular evening in the cafeteria Jerry was fuming over his Physics results and someone said something to him that didn’t sit very well. He pushed his tray to the middle of the table and stormed out of the cafeteria. Now Myrtle Jones (cafeteria manager) did not look upon that very kindly but that’s another story. By the time we all got back to Cumberland Hall Jerry had already taken off to the library to brood over whatever was said. So we decided to add injury to insult.
     It just so happened that the new dorms were beginning construction and there were palates of bricks just sitting there waiting for us to do something with so we decided to brick up Jerry’s door without, of course, his roommate, Johnny Lipscomb, in it. In just a short period of time we managed to carry enough bricks up the side stairs to the third floor, removed the regular door and made Jerry a new solid brick door (with no doorknobs or hinges). Also it was constructed without any mortar.
     By the time Jerry returned the whole dorm was packed into every room in our section waiting to see his reaction. And as might be expected, his mood had not changed and he definitely did not see the humor in his new door. When he reached his boiling point he yanked a brick from the middle of his beautiful new door and the door came tumbling down. Then he threatened all of us with our lives if we didn’t clean up the mess.
     By that time there were so many guys (all male dorm)involved that no one had to make more than one trip down the stairs with an armful of bricks and right by dorm counselor Mr. Bruce Pulliam’s apartment without even disturbing him. It took Jerry the rest of the semester to begin talking to us again so the quiet was very much appreciated.
     There was no security on the campus in those days except for a self appointed guy named Jack Thomas who lived in a trailer down by the power plant, so whenever we needed to be left alone during one our pranks we simply locked the trailer from the outside and when we were finished we eventually let him out.
     At a recent reunion we visited Cumberland Hall third floor, along with Jerry, and the dents in the floor from the falling bricks were still there. So our infamy lives on.
     There are many stories from the class of 65; however, at the risk of having our diplomas rescinded they are better off remaining unpublished.
     Jerry is a retired teacher and principal from the Philadelphia school district and also served as president of the teachers union. Those poor kids! He has mellowed out over the years and now can laugh at Brick Door caper.

From: Dale Marshall, Jr., Class of 1967: When I was about a junior in college, I had a Triumph motorcycle. I took it up in my dorm room, took it apart, gave it a new paint job, and put it back together. And then I laid black marks up and down the hall with it. I’m not sure if that was the year I was president of the dorm or before. I think before.
      We lived in Cumberland, on the 3rd floor for the last 2 years I was in school. There was a little guy, Johnny Parker, who we called Snake Man. He actually went out at night and would go into the swamp and catch poisonous snakes by hand. He had a cigar box with 15-20 queen snakes and one night someone convinced him to give everyone a queen snake up under their doors.
      When they were building Sanford, we went over and got a new sheet of plywood and took it up on the third floor and put it in the door of the shower, put towels around it to stop up the drain and created us a swimming pool. I’ll never forget when the night watchmen found it. “This is not right, this is not right!” he said and he pushed it in and the water rushed out of room into the hallway. It was 3 inches deep in the halls and ran down the stairs. On the third floor, there was about 1 inch of water in each room. It was amazing that no one got caught. I always said that I got more education the dorm as to how to live than in the classroom.

From: Betty Neill Guy Parsons, Class of 1964: Dr. Terry Sanford participated in our first Baccalaureate and Graduation. He went to sleep on the podium while Bishop Garber spoke. We all smiled, but in those days couldn't respectfully be seen laughing. :-)

From: Tommy Yow, Class of 1966: Dr. The incident I remember as the most funny was the time a group pulled all the furniture in the Classroom Building from the classrooms into the hall. It was total chaos when people arrived for classes the next morning. O.E. Dowd, who was the dean of students and a really great guy, was beside himself. David Altman, SGA president then and I, were summoned to his office and drilled for information. We knew nothing.

From: Marie B. Conner, Class of 1978: I lived in Weaver Dorm for four and 1/2 semesters. Also, I love my years at Methodist. I was encouraged to be a student there by Bill Lowdermilk and Hilda Jones who was my dorm mother. I was very active in the music program and traveled a great deal with the choir with Alan Porter. My dorm memories are the Christmas gathering we would have around the Christmas tree and playing Secret Santas during that week. Talking into all hours of the night, Christian fellowship in and out of the dorm, the friendships that are still strong today, and my education that opened such a beautiful appreciation for all things. Methodist is a special place and home away from home. Thanks for the memories.

From: Yvonne Walker McDowell, Class of 77: In October of 1976, there was a gospel sing at the College. There was a sign outside the College that said “Gospel Sing Here Tonight.” It was left out there for a while and I got the bright idea since I had Mrs. Porter for French and the other two had Mr. Porter for chorus to take the sign and put it in their front yard. There were 4 people including myself, Ruth Davis, Marie Beane, and another person. We went in broad daylight, loaded the sign into my car, and set it up in their front yard. Why neither one of them saw it, I have no idea. But it was Halloween and a little girl came up and asked “Is there a gospel sing here tonight?” instead of “Trick or Treat.” The next day in chorus, Mr. Porter was livid asking who put that sign in his yard. Of course the other two knew nothing about it and I was not in his class so I could have all sorts of fun. Marie, Ruth and I just thought that after 31 years, Mr. Porter needed to know who put that sign in his front yard.

From: The Rev. Dr. Michael Safley, Class of 1972: I lived in room 112 of Sanford Hall all of my four years at Methodist, which was my favorite place on campus. Many of my friends gathered there after class. The funniest thing I remember was watching men slide down the first floor of Sanford on their behind and landing in the lobby. The food was excellent. Dr. Plyler was my favorite instructor because he challenged my way of thinking. Dean Arnold Pope tried to provide as much discipline as possible. He nurtured and disciplined. My time at Methodist was a positive, life-changing experience.

From: The Rev. Dr. Dennis Sheppard, Class of 1977: It was a cold night in January, everything was frozen. My roommate and I woke up early and heard something in the hall, so we went out to check on it. Someone had plugged the water fountain on the first floor of Cumberland and it had flowed into the lobby. The RA was trying to mop it up with a frozen mop singing "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden"!

From: Steve Thompson, Class of 70: I was a lowly freshman in 1966, had but a few friends yet, and lived on the 3rd floor of Sanford Dormitory with a pre-ministerial roommate, also a newcomer to the campus. One night I took down a set of drums stored in a the room closet, and decided to do a 10 minute drum solo at 2 AM.
     I locked the door and by the time I had finished the solo, the dorm captain, hall monitors, and house mother were all screaming outside my door. Throughout the dormitory you could hear a chorus of riotous laughter, some clapping, and many insults (which I can not here repeat). My roommate was lying in his bed with his hands over his ears praying aloud (I do not know if that was for his survival or mine).
     They took away my sticks, but never really did anything else but dare me to do it again. It was a pretty good solo as they go, and as a freelance musician before coming to Methodist, it was time to nourish the desire to hit the skins. Two years later I played drums at the Miss Boiler Plant Pageant which goes to show all is well that ends well!