Lander Celebrates 100 Years of Chipley. Long-time Board Member Shares Fond Memories

Even at 100 years old, Lander University’s Chipley Hall is still providing a place for Lander women to make new memories.

The Lander community gathered on Chipley’s lawn Saturday to celebrate 100 years since the stately residence hall was built. The celebration was part of Lander’s 2025 Homecoming festivities, and included a birthday cake for the building.

Longtime Board of Trustees member Anne Walker – who has served on the board since its constitution in 1988 and has previously served as chairperson of the board – has given decades of service to Lander since graduating in 1972. Yet, Walker first came to Lander College in 1968, when she moved into Chipley Hall on the third floor.

Walker remembers the details about her time at Chipley – from having to check in and out, the house mother that stayed there and the one telephone at the end of each hall. But more than those details, she holds the memories she made during her two years as a Chipley resident.

“It’s been a main stay on the campus all these years and Lord have mercy, so many years of so many incredible memories that people have,” Walker said. “It’s so important for us to remind ourselves and others of how important history is and, in this case, the history of Chipley.”

Walker remembers study groups in Chipley Hall, including one for a history exam in which students came up with humorous ways to remember certain facts. Then during the exam, “it was all we could do to not be bursting out laughing because we were remembering this stuff.”

Walker recalls that the room she and her roommate, Emily Bearden Gooding, shared was at the front of the building and saw plenty of visitors between classes because it offered a great vantage point for checking out the guys on campus.

The women of the third floor had a “Chipley Third Floor Theme Song,” which was passed down to incoming freshmen, and Walker still remembers the humorous lyrics to that song 57 years later.

Walker said she never got in any real trouble and never did anything “wild and crazy,” but did break all the rules in the rule book her freshman year – all at one time.

“My freshman year, they said you couldn’t borrow anybody’s car, you couldn’t go out with your hair in curlers, you couldn’t go out in pants, you couldn’t go out the end door after a certain time, and obviously you couldn’t drink,” she remembers.

“So one night, I did all of it. I had my hair in curlers, I had on pants, I borrowed somebody’s car, I went to the local convenience store and bought a 98-cent bottle of wine, and I still have that bottle, believe it or not.”

At the time, Lander students received demerits for breaking rules, and Walker and her roommate hadn’t received any demerits as they were nearing the end of their freshman year. They didn’t want to end the year with zero, so following a dance, they waited out in Chipley’s circle with their dates past the time they were meant to check in.

“We were like any other college students,” Walker said. “We just had a good time. Behaved most of the time.”