I vividly remember
the night that we heard a lot of commotion outside of Owen Residence Hall.
Owen Residence Hall was where my wife and I lived
when I began my graduate work at NC State.
Actually that was our first home after we got married.
We got married in August
and we went on our honeymoon, and we came back from our honeymoon
and we moved into Owen Residence Hall. [Laughs]
We thought it was the greatest place, just two little rooms,
but it was free. We didn't have to pay for it,
it was part of the job,
and we thought it was just the greatest place we could ever find to live.
That first year
a student enrolled at State
had begun to go around campus and set small fires inside buildings.
You may have heard this story.
One night we heard a lot of commotion outside of Owen and we looked out
and students from West Campus were just flocking up towards Holladay Hall,
and we looked outside and you could see an orange glow in the skyline.
We came out of Owen and joined the crowd and came up to this area
and when we got here Pullen Hall was completely engulfed in flames.
I mean the whole building was just burning.
I mean I'll never forget that sight,
and I've got some pictures in my office right now that
a student who was enrolled at State when that happened took
the night of the fire and the next morning,
and those are pretty dramatic pictures.
In fact if they're not in the archives maybe they ought to be.
I mean that was a vivid, vivid memory, and of course they caught the guy later and he was expelled
and they tore down what was left of the building
and that location is now a parking lot.
Then they later moved the name, Pullen Hall,
to another building on our campus.
At the time that the fire occurred that was the home for the music department
and so they had to be relocated
and later Price Music Center was built
at the same time that the Talley Student Center was built.