As they remember the 20th anniversary of a fire in the Garvey Center, the Oklahoma Christian University faculty and staff reflect on experiences and advancements that came from a disastrous fire in the music department in 1997.
The fire caused $1.5 million in damages, and is the reason the Adams Recital Hall, McIntosh Controversatory, Arts Gallery and other upgrades throughout Garvey took place 20 years ago.
According to Chair and Professor of Mass Communications Larry Jurney, after assessing the damage, a committee met to decide the best way to proceed and decided on making additions in Garvey to benefit the student body.
“I think the bottom line was as we started thinking about fixing things and building them back as they were, someone said, ‘As long as we’re doing this anyway, do we have some vision of a way to build it back better than it was before?’” Professor of Music John Fletcher said.
Before the fire of 1997, Garvey was built in a u-shape with only a small lobby for Hardeman Auditorium, and the music, communication and art and design departments in three separate wings.
According to Fletcher, the Adams Recital Hall was the vision of a donor who had a dream of seeing Oklahoma Christian have a recital hall for performances and choir practices.
“When the idea for the recital hall came about, Ken and Lindy Adams latched onto it and wanted to make it the show place on campus that everyone on campus would want to use,” Fletcher said. “They were the real movers and shakers in not making it just another generic room on campus. Now it’s the place everyone wants to use when there is a special event on campus.”
The McIntosh Conservatory is located in the center of Garvey. Originally planned to be a lobby space for students and faculty to congregate going to and from chapel, is now a versatile space used for meals, weddings, exhibits, recruiting efforts and other events.
“The McIntosh people gave us the money to build a gathering place indoors which turned out to be just absolutely marvelous,” Jurney said. “At first, they didn’t know if it was going to be used or not. It was meant to go with the Recital Hall and is now used all the time.”
The Art Gallery was the final major addition during the reconstruction of Garvey. Director of Interior Design Amy Beauchamp said the Art Gallery provides a space for artists to travel to campus and helped increase the professionalism in the art and design department.
“I think for most major universities with a solid art and design program, it’s pretty traditional to have some sort of gallery of some sort,” Beauchamp said. “It’s a good space, and it’s nice to be able to have artists come through and show off their work that the university wouldn’t be able to have access to otherwise.”
According to Jurney, the fire started in the music department on a Sunday morning during Thanksgiving break.
Jurney said he vividly remembers the two students who were broadcasting the weekly Sunday morning radio show, and how they had to crawl out of the building to avoid inhaling too much smoke.
For almost two semesters, students and faculty at Oklahoma Christian relocated around campus because of the fire and smoke damage in Garvey.
“Everyone rallied around and wanted to know how they could help,” Fletcher said. “We still had one semester to go and we were able to carry on with all of our operations for the year.”
Beauchamp, a junior on campus at the time, said she remembers how flexible all of the students were, and has memories from when her classes were dispersed across campus.
“I would say college kids are pretty flexible, mostly,” Beauchamp said. “One of my classmates recently said she remembered being angry. But, the school did a really good job of getting us reorganized. We all squeezed up in a room in the corner of DAH and were able to still have our classes.”
According to Beauchamp, the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) gave the interior design students access to their library of materials needed for them to successfully complete their projects.
“UCO was really great about letting us use their library up there,” Beauchamp said. “For students who couldn’t drive, it was an issue, but overall, we were thankful for them and helping us during that situation.”
The perpetrator, James Hopper, was a student at Oklahoma Christian who was later sentenced to seven years for setting fires on campus on two separate instances.
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