Reid Chapel: Myralyn Allgood

Published on November 9, 2017

Completed in 1960, Reid Chapel is named in honor of Dr. Avery Hamilton Reid. A 1917 graduate of Howard College and a Baptist minister, Reid served as vice president of Howard College and president of the Alabama Baptist Convention from 1940-1945. His fundraising efforts helped make it possible to move the school from East Lake to Homewood. Reid Chapel is the site of convocations, speeches, lectures and many alumni weddings. Listen to Dr. Myralyn Allgood '61 describe convocation during her years as a student.

Transcript

MYRALYN ALLGOOD: You sang a hymn, you had a sermon, and it was like going to
church.  And you went once a week, every week.  And then it was Monday,
Wednesday, Friday.  And you chose--I don’t know whether we drew lots.  I
don’t remember how we got one.  But we had an assigned seat.  We had to go sit
in it on that particular day and there were people going up and down the aisles
checking to be sure we were there. Now you know there are always ways to get
around the system.  Now it’s one of the things that pledges got to do in
sororities and fraternities.  “All right you pledged, go sit in my seat for
chapel.”  So, that happened some.  But yes, we had chapel. BRYAN KESSLER:  And
were the speakers mostly pastors on campus, in the area, or do you remember?
Are there any memorable ones that stuck out from your time? MYRALYN ALLGOOD:
What I remember most about chapel is that every, other than the first part of
that question was who spoke?  I think the Religion faculty sometimes did,
pastors from around, anybody who was a visiting missionary on leave, just
whoever they could get that was out there.  Birmingham’s a big place.  And we
had lots of resources.  So they just lined up whoever.  It was always great and
different every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But every spring we had what was
called Christian Emphasis week or sometimes it was called Christian Focus week
but we had a whole week of convo.  You went to your regularly scheduled one, the
ones that you were required to do.  But we would have several people, a group of
people would come stay for a week.  It was kind of like a campus style revival.
You know not a revival per se, but they were very informative studies.  And they
met in the morning during chapel time.  And because those people were at our
disposal for us for the week, they would have afternoon sessions, some for
girls, some for guys talking about everything you could think of that would be
of interest to college students.  And they would have evening services as well.
It was great.  We had some really wonderful people come.

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewee	Myralyn Allgood
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection