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ESPECIALLY if THE SPECIAL PROPERTY-BUILDING FUND is revived, and
increased sufficiently -- we hope to break ground by July on the
long-awaited auditorium building here on the Pasadena campus.
We first planned this building in 1963. I think it was about
that time I sent sketches of the design for this building to all
the Church membership. But at that time, an emergency developed.
A new freeway was being planned by state engineers, with its
probable path directly through our campus, cutting off half of it.
By RUSHING to completion our new Physical Education facility --
including gymnasium and natatorium, the freeway was diverted to
the eastern border of our campus.
That was the only building we could finish soon enough. That
building has been used every day, and most nights, seven days a
week, ever since. The Headquarters Church has had to meet there
now with two services, Sabbath AM, and Sabbath PM -- besides the
overcrowded Friday night Bible Study. Physical education classes
are scheduled every school day from 8 a.m. and all college
assemblies and forums are held there every week.
Then we wanted to build this auditorium -- (TO BE CONSIDERED
BY US, THE HOUSE FOR GOD, at His present earthly Headquarters)
-- right after the Physical Education plant. But by that time a
dining hall for students had become an emergency necessity. So
the Student Center building had to come next. It also houses the
college bookstore, barbershop, four Ambassador Club (speech clubs)
rooms, and faculty lounge and dining room, besides four student
lounges.
I hoped that SURELY we could build this "House for God" next.
But the student body had outgrown the classrooms, and the new
Loma D. Armstrong Academic Center simply had to come next. It was
in the planning stage at the time of my wife's death, but not
finished until the following year. It consists of the Science
Hall, and the Fine Arts Hall, adjoining Ambassador Hall and the
formal Italian Sunken Garden.
Before that operation was finished, our business department
had completely outgrown our small original Administration building.
It had become scattered all over the campus, with desks in halls
and corridors. Again necessity postponed the beautiful auditorium,
although the architects by that time were well along with the
plans. At the same time a new larger men's dormitory had become
imperative, and also the new much larger printing plant. So those
three major buildings sidetracked the auditorium again. They were
all completed early in 1969.
But, 1969 and 1970 turned out to be years of a "tight money"
situation in the United States, and a financial recession. And
so ALL building operations had to be stopped. The auditorium had
to be postponed again, although all the architects' and
engineering plans were fully complete.
In the Work, we weathered the two recession years, with YOUR
HELP. The Work, for the first time in 35 years, did NOT grow
30% a year -- yet we DID GROW -- at about 11% to 13% each year.