Up from the ashes

LITTLE ROCK — Shortly after 4 p.m. on a Tuesday in late October of 2010, alarms began blaring inside the Edwards Commons on the campus of Lyon College at Batesville.

Within minutes, flames were shooting from the structure. Witnesses said at the time that two fires flared in the building, which housed the college’s dining hall. A fire in a trash can was extinguished, but a fire in a linen closet quickly spread. For hours, fire crews fought the blaze, but the facility was a total loss.

On the night of the fire, students were bused to three Batesville restaurants. They were bused again the next morning for breakfast. Within days, a temporary kitchen had been set up by the school’s food-service provider and a nearby gym had been converted into a dining hall. By the fall of 2011, students were eating in a 270-seat temporary dining facility they affectionately called The Temp.

On a Friday morning last month-one of those glorious-weather days that make October such a pleasure in Arkansas-Lyon officials dedicated the new Edwards Commons as part of the school’s Founders’ Day activities. Soon after the fire, Donald Weatherman, the Lyon president, made a decision to raise the money necessary to build a bigger, better Edwards Commons rather than just relying on insurance payments to fund construction of a replacement. The new facility, built at a cost of almost $10 million, features a 350-seat dining hall, a large game room, a bistro, mailboxes, meeting rooms, an exercise room, student government offices, a balcony overlooking a small lake and more.

“One of Lyon’s greatest assets is the strong community of supporters who are willing to step up when a need arises,” Weatherman says.

Edwards Commons was named for the late John W. and Lucille Edwards of Batesville. John Edwards was a former trustee and banker who had given the largest gift to the college ever made by a Batesville resident. The student union portion of the building had been a centerpiece of the campus since the late 1970s, with the dining hall portion completed in 1983. Donations for the new facility came from students, parents of students, faculty and staff members, alumni, trustees and more.

The Lambda Iota chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity marked its 40th anniversary by raising the money needed to fund the furnishings in the game room. The recipes of 30-year employee Brenda Hyatt were compiled into a cookbook, Bakin’ with the B, with proceeds donated to the building fund. It truly was a group effort.

This is a college that, at least in a figurative sense, has risen from the ashes before. Founded by Presbyterians as Arkansas College, Lyon opened its doors in September of 1872 on the block of downtown Batesville now occupied by the First Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Isaac Long was the president from 1872 until his death in 1891. His son, Eugene Long, served two terms as president-1891-95 and 1897-1913. The college was coeducational from the start and is the state’s oldest independent college still operating under its original charter.

Isaac Long began his efforts to open a college after Batesville lost out to Fayetteville in November of 1871 in its bid for the state university. In the beginning, Long and one other person made up the entire faculty.

“Typical of 19th-Century denominational institutions, Arkansas College maintained a grammar school (which was phased out in the 1890s) and a secondary academy (discontinued in the 1920s),” historian Brooks Blevins writes for the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “It featured a curriculum heavy on mathematics, the classical languages (Latin and Greek) and religious instruction. . . . Arkansas College’s first class of graduates in 1876 included three young women who became the state’s first females to receive bachelor’s degrees.”

A location far from the state’s population base and the small Presbyterian population in Arkansas kept enrollment low. Enrollment at the college level was rarely more than 100 students prior to World War I with no more than five full-time faculty members. After the war, the college purchased land in a section of Batesville known as East End Heights and enrollment expanded to about 200 students.

The Great Depression hit the school hard, though, and by the early 1930s there were many Arkansas Presbyterians who feared that Arkansas College wouldn’t survive. Twice, the Presbyterian Synod of Arkansas came within a few votes of closing the school. Supporters in Batesville joined forces with Presbyterians statewide to save the college, though the class of 1944 consisted of just two students. Fortunately for Arkansas College, the post-World War II student boom filled the classrooms.

The college moved to its current campus in 1954 during the 17-year presidential tenure of Paul McCain. A 1981 bequest of more than $14 million byJean Brown of Hot Springs led to endowed faculty positions and increased scholarship support. About the same time, a donation by trustee Shuford Nichols of Des Arc allowed the establishment of a program in which students travel around the world.

In 1994, the board of trustees voted to change the name from Arkansas College to Lyon College to honor the decades of support given by prominent Little Rock businessman Frank Lyon Sr. Frank Lyon Jr. remains a major supporter of the college.

Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.