“I’d say one of the biggest keys to creating a 50th reunion [fundraising] group is forming a good executive committee. You don’t try to limit it to the people you hung out with.”
On an early fall day in 1969, Jimmy Wilson, C’73, P’01, P’23, headed over to Woods Laboratories with his friend Dale Morton, C’73, to sign up for Advent Semester classes. The two were casually chatting in line when Morton noticed something unusual. “Dale said, ‘Jimbo, who are those five girls?’” Wilson says. “I told him, ‘They’re probably professors’ daughters who are auditing classes here.’” Morton accepted this explanation, but cautiously. “About five minutes later, he said, ‘Well, I understand who those five are—but what about the 30 over there?’”
Their confusion was quickly resolved, but not without some teasing. As Wilson describes it, Walter Merrill, C’70, P’02, P’06, and Eric Newman, C’70, who had been proctoring registration, overheard the conversation and began laughing. “They said, ‘Did y’all not know that Sewanee admitted women?’”
What started as a news flash is now an honored chapter in Sewanee’s history—in 2019, the University celebrated 50 years as a coeducational institution, and in 2023, Wilson joined Nan Tucker Jennings, C’73, in leading fundraising efforts to recognize the milestone. As co-chairs of the Class of 1973 50th Reunion Committee, Wilson and Jennings helped secure nearly $1.1 million for two major projects: the Class of 1973 Endowed Scholarship Fund, which is a need-based scholarship fund designated for first-generation college students, and the development of the Sewanee Welcome Center. Both initiatives were chosen to honor the Class of 1973’s unique status as Sewanee’s first class to welcome women as full-time undergraduates.
Jennings, who grew up in New Orleans, says she applied to Sewanee “sight unseen” at the encouragement of the Rt. Rev. Girault Jones, T’28, former bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and Sewanee’s chancellor from 1967 to 1973. She was also prompted by the Rev. Daryl Canfill, C’59, the University’s former assistant chaplain, with whom she’d traveled to Mexico on a mission trip. Though the idea of pioneering Sewanee’s new gender balance was slightly daunting, Jennings says, “I love a challenge.”
On the Domain, Jennings found her niche as a religious studies major, part of the Sewanee Ski and Outing Club, and, as a senior, president of the University Choir. “The choir was a huge part of my time at Sewanee,” she says. “It’s much like being on a team—we were so supportive of one another and worked together so well.” Still, being at the forefront of Sewanee’s coed transition wasn’t always easy, she says. “Some upperclassmen and professors were against [the change] and unhappy that women were disrupting their Mountain.”
Wilson says he was glad to share his classes with women, but he also noticed ways in which Sewanee was slow to adjust. While male undergraduates had their clothes washed, dried, and pressed for them, women were left in charge of their own laundry. Then, there were the urinals in the University’s all-female residence halls. Jennings says she and her hallmates put a plant in one and gave it a colorful, but perhaps unprintable, name inspired by the male physique.
Though Wilson and Jennings ran in different crowds during their undergraduate years, they say it was an easy decision to come together as 50th Reunion Committee leaders. “I’ve got the organizational skills, and Jimmy knows everybody,” Jennings says. Sewanee locals appreciate Wilson as the longtime co-owner of the Blue Chair Café and Tavern, as well as the uncle of acclaimed novelist and Sewanee English and creative writing professor Kevin Wilson. As an undergraduate, Jimmy majored in psychology and served as president of Chi Psi. He also competed on Sewanee’s football team, until a neck injury sidelined him. Both Wilson and Jennings were members of the Order of the Gown, but Wilson may have put his academic standing on the line a few times—for instance, when he joined Henry Lodge, C’72, P’01, P’05, Yogi Anderson, C’72, P’99, and Dan Sain, C’72, in borrowing a Sewanee police cruiser and taking it for a joyride around campus with the siren blaring. (“That is a true story,” Wilson says.)
When putting together a reunion committee, Wilson and Jennings leaned into their personality differences. “I’d say one of the biggest keys to creating a 50th reunion [fundraising] group is forming a good executive committee,” Wilson says. “You don’t try to limit it to the people you hung out with.” With a solid group of class representatives in place, the co-chairs explored possibilities for a class project. “I know Sewanee is always looking for endowed scholarships,” Wilson says. “That’s how the University enrolls people who can’t afford to come.” The committee elected to earmark the Class of 1973 Endowed Scholarship Fund for first-generation college students in tribute to Class of 1973 women who broke new ground on campus.
At the same time, “we wanted something brick and mortar,” Wilson says. He recruited an old friend and fraternity brother, Jim Patching, C’73, to help brainstorm, and the two drove around the Domain gathering ideas. In the end, they wound up at Wilson’s restaurant, The Blue Chair, and looked across the street to the former Sewanee train depot. “Jim said, ‘Is anyone going to do anything with that?,’” Wilson recalls, “and I said, ‘Well, I’m with the Sewanee Business Alliance, and eventually we’d like to make it a welcome center.’” It didn’t take long for the idea to click with Jennings and the rest of the reunion committee, particularly given the Class of 1973’s welcoming role in Sewanee’s history.
Ultimately, 61 members of the Class of 1973 provided gifts and pledges totaling more than $950,000 for the Class of 1973 Endowed Scholarship and more than $122,000 for the establishment of the Sewanee Welcome Center. Additional support from the Mountain Goat Trail Alliance, the Sewanee Civic Association, and the Sewanee Business Alliance helped bring the center to completion. Along with serving as a hospitality hub for Sewanee visitors, the center is the new starting point for the Mountain Goat Trail and, for the next three years, will house staff from Head of the Crow, a new Tennessee state park.
In deciding on their 50th reunion projects and setting fundraising goals, Wilson and Jennings worked closely with Associate Vice President for Advancement Terri Griggs Williams, C’81. Williams says she was excited to see the reunion committee set a high bar—and surpass it. “Jimmy and Nan had a very ambitious plan to commemorate the Class of 1973’s legacy, and they assembled a committee that reached double finish lines,” she says. “It’s an impressive accomplishment.”
While Jennings says her path wasn’t always smooth at Sewanee, she never doubted she belonged on the Mountain. Recently, she discovered a genealogical connection to the South Cumberland Plateau—one of her ancestors was a Revolutionary War soldier who lived in Cowan, Tennessee. Considering her family history, Jennings says her arrival at the University “was destined, in a way. Sewanee was home.”
