A Ryors Hall reunion 50 years in the making
Several of the women who resided in Ryors Hall during the 1969-70 academic year gather for a group photo outside of their former 91探花 home during a 50-year reunion this past October. They are: Kathy Drummer, BSED 鈥73; Mary Adams; Mary (Riestenberg) Rush, BSHSS 鈥73; Anne Taylor; Debby Tinker, BSED 鈥73; Mellen (Monaghan) Reckman, BSHSS 鈥73; Roberta 鈥淏irti鈥 Hardie, BSED 鈥73; Donna (Murr) Mast, BSC 鈥73; Marianne Moyer O鈥橠onnell; Jean (Vincent) Wykoff, BSHSS 鈥73; Gay (Leeka) Schueller, BFA 鈥73; and Jan (Cunningham) Hodson, BSHEC 鈥73, MSHCS 鈥96.
The last time they were all together, they were frantically dismantling their first 91探花 home and preparing to leave Ryors Hall.
It was May 15, 1970, and President Claude Sowle had announced the closing of 91探花 following days of increasingly violent protests that swept campuses across the country after members of the National Guard opened fire on a crowd protesting the Vietnam War, killing four Kent State students. 91探花 students were given 24 hours to vacate campus.
It was an abrupt ending to a turbulent academic year. For a group of first-year women in Ryors Hall, it was an abrupt ending to a year marked by building relationships that they would quietly carry with them throughout life.
Fifty years later, those women resumed those relationships, reconnecting online and reuniting in Athens for a weekend of reminiscing, fun and a visit to the residence hall where it all began.
鈥淎ll my life, I鈥檝e had vivid memories of that particular time on campus,鈥 Jan (Cunningham) Hodson, BSHEC 鈥73, MSHCS 鈥96, said of her first year at OHIO and the reason she organized a reunion for a group of women she resided with in Ryors Hall during the 1969-70 academic year.
At the time, Ryors Hall was an all-female, first-year residence hall 鈥 a dynamic that Hodson credits for the close bonds formed amongst those in her first-floor floor section and a few others in the building.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have to worry about looking a certain way. Our doors were always open, and we just got to know each other,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淲e shared everything. We did everything together. We were women, and we were young, and we came from all over.鈥
Many of those women lost track of each other in the years that followed, but Hodson never forgot about them and the moments they shared that formative year. She would come to find out that they, too, had not forgotten.
About 10 years ago, Hodson took the first step in reconnecting with those women. A resident of Athens who worked at OHIO, Hodson worked with the 91探花 Alumni Association to try and find her two Ryors Hall roommates. She found an address for one of them, Renee (Mayo) Jackson, BSED 鈥73, who shortly thereafter received a letter from Hodson, complete with photos from their time in Ryors Hall and Hodson鈥檚 phone number.
Renee (Mayo) Jackson (far left) is pictured with fellow Ryors Hall residents Leslie Fuller, Mellen (Monaghan) Reckman, Birti Hardie and Mary Adams.
鈥淚 called her, and Jan and I have been connected ever since,鈥 Jackson of Alpharetta, Georgia, said. 鈥淚t was a blessed event. All that time that had elapsed between when I left campus the day the University closed to the day she got in contact with me was like time just stood still. We started back just where we left off.鈥
The former roommates caught each other up on their lives and reflected on the months they unexpectedly found themselves living together. Jackson and a high school friend arrived on campus in the fall of 1969 expecting to live in a double in Ryors Hall only to find Hodson in their room. High enrollment that year forced the University to turn many doubles in the residence halls into triples.
Jackson and her high school friend came to OHIO from an integrated high school in Cleveland and were two of the only black women on the University鈥檚 West Green. Hodson was a 鈥渢ownie.鈥 Their backgrounds couldn鈥檛 have been much different, but they 鈥 and the group of Ryors Hall women they befriended 鈥 committed early on to getting to know each other and to learning from one another, often through what Jackson described as 鈥渟oulful sit-downs.鈥
鈥淒uring that first year we forged so much that helped me become a better person,鈥 Jackson said. 鈥淭he things we learned from one another we still value today, and I carried these women in my heart all the way through college and life. 鈥 My education from OU and the cultural diversity I was involved in when I was at OU prepared me for life.鈥
During their phone call, Jackson and Hodson also reminisced about the Ryors Hall women with whom they lived and grew, and they began to imagine a scenario that would bring them all back together.
The idea stuck with Hodson, and in 2018, she reached out to Alumni Association staff for their assistance in locating her former Ryors Hall residents. (Click here for information from the Alumni Association regarding on-campus reunions.)
From there, it snowballed. Connecting with one Ryors Hall alumna often led to finding another. In the end, 15 of those Ryors Hall women began reconnecting online and preparing for a fall 2019 reunion.
鈥淚 thought it was a brilliant idea, and I couldn鈥檛 wait,鈥 Debby Tinker, BSED 鈥73, of Springfield, Virginia, said of the reunion that was held Oct. 18-20 and that reunited her with 12 women she had not seen in 50 years.
鈥淚t was like no time had passed since I鈥檇 seen them before,鈥 Tinker said. 鈥淭he energy was just as positive as it was in our dorm, and it was like we had never been apart.鈥
The women, who came from as far away as Oregon and Florida, took up residence for the weekend in an Athens-area lodge, spending most of their time doing what they were looking forward to the most: talking.
鈥淭hat first night was like a pajama party all over again,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淚t was almost as if we couldn鈥檛 talk fast enough and as if we couldn鈥檛 remember things fast enough. It was magical.鈥
They reminisced about their lives in Ryors Hall, recalling everything from the curfew they lived under (and their ways of circumventing it) to the day the University closed. () They talked about the Ryors Hall friends they couldn鈥檛 find, grieved the one they learned had died in an automobile accident, and simply got to know each other again.
鈥淭he really important thing to me at the reunion was becoming reacquainted with my roommate, Anne Taylor,鈥 Tinker said. 鈥淎lthough we lived together, I didn鈥檛 get to know her as well as I could have in college. I鈥檓 glad I got to spend time with her, that I got to become acquainted with her and hear about her successes.鈥
A highlight of the weekend was the trip back to the West Green and Ryors Hall where a student treated them to a tour of their former home. Their first stop at Ryors Hall? A side window on the first floor 鈥 the window many of them had crawled through as students when out past curfew 鈥 where they seized the opportunity to recreate a photo from that first year.
During their visit to campus, several of the women seized an opportunity to recreate a photo taken outside of Ryors Hall during their first year at the University. Pictured in the photo from 1969 are (from left) Jean (Vincent) Wykoff, Marianne Moyer O鈥橠onnell, Leslie Fuller and Birti Hardie. Pictured in the photo from 2019 are (from left) Jean (Vincent) Wykoff, Marianne Moyer O鈥橠onnell, Birti Hardie and Mary (Riestenberg) Rush.
The inside of Ryors Hall didn鈥檛 much resemble what they experienced as students. The lobby, described by Hodson as 鈥渧ery conservative and colonial looking鈥 in 1969, now looked like 鈥渁 five-star hotel.鈥 The individual mailboxes were gone, the individual room numbers had been changed, and most of the students鈥 doors were shut and the building quiet. It was a far cry from the Ryors Hall they had known 鈥 except for the bathrooms, which the group swore hadn鈥檛 changed at all.
The changes they saw at their old cafeteria were equally as shocking.
鈥淲e walked in that day to see Boyd Hall cafeteria (now the District on West Green), and there鈥檚 a grocery store right as you walk in, which we totally freaked out about,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淲e just sat there in awe.鈥
As the women prepared to leave campus that day, Hodson said they paused for a moment to collect their thoughts.
鈥淲e all sat outside the cafeteria for a while and just kind of thought about what we had seen,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淎nd we thought, this is so different, and it is probably so much better, but we wouldn鈥檛 have traded anything for what we had.鈥
Tinker felt similarly, lamenting in particular how coed living, which occurs in all but one residence hall at OHIO today, affects a student鈥檚 residential college experience.
鈥淓verybody living in coed dorms thinks that鈥檚 great, but they have no idea how much they鈥檝e missed out on,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t was so much fun to live with a bunch of women, and every single one of us was glad there were no men.鈥
鈥淎t some point during that weekend, it occurred to all of us that we had only lived together for less than nine months out of our entire lives, yet we had formed relationships that have endured for 50 years,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淓ven though we hadn鈥檛 been in touch, we were able to come back together, and we connected as older women. It was a beautiful thing.鈥
鈥淚t was like going to the gas station,鈥 Tinker said. 鈥淚 just got all filled up with love and positive energy. It was good to have a weekend, and I wish I would have had more time.鈥
In the days and weeks since the reunion, the Ryors Hall women have continued to stay in touch.
Tinker and Kathy Drummer, BSED 鈥73, who lives in New York were already planning to get together in Washington, D.C. And the entire Ryors Hall group is planning another Athens reunion in two years 鈥 the same year most of them will turn 70.
鈥淭his whole experience just showed me that you really can connect after all these years, and now we have all new friendships,鈥 Hodson said. 鈥淚t was one of the best things I鈥檝e ever done in my life and was one of the best weekends of my life.鈥
Calling all, OHIO alumni! We want to hear from you! Share your memories of Ryors Hall, your time on campus during the 1969-70 academic year, or from your reunions with your 91探花 family in the comments section below.