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CSU's Revival

Four lives, 19 buildings lost in Wilberforce touchdown

WILBERFORCE | Pat McGee's supervisor had just spotted swirling debris from a window in Central State University's cashier's office and ordered everyone into the building's basement. But McGee took a moment on that stormy April afternoon in 1974 to place a quick, frantic phone call to her home in Xenia.

McGee told her husband to wake their 3-year-old son from his nap and head to the basement. She hung up and ran down the steps to join her co-workers.

"Several of us huddled in a corner by the wall," McGee recalled. "We could feel the pressure change in our ears, and we could hear glass breaking, along with the screams of some people who had taken cover in a rest room.

"It sounded like several trains. When everything quieted down, everybody went upstairs and looked outside in amazement at all the damage that was done in just a few minutes."

Ohio's only historically black public university was a wreck. The tornado, which seconds earlier had chewed through the heart of Xenia, destroyed 19 of CSU's buildings, in addition to the damage inflicted on neighboring Wilberforce University and on several nearby homes.

Four people were killed in the Wilberforce area, although the death toll would have been much higher had the tornado not spared CSU's dormitories, cafeterias and student union from serious damage. The victims included 19-year-old CSU student Laura Hull, who had jumped into a car and tried to drive to her sick stepmother's house as the storm approached; 51-year-old Ralph Smith, a 23-year CSU employee who also was killed in his vehicle; 50-year-old Evelyn Rockhold, treasurer-manager of CSU's credit union who was alone in the building when the tornado struck; and 44-year-old Oscar Robinson Jr., who worked as a postal clerk in the U.S. post office on Brush Row Road on CSU's campus and was caught beneath a collapsed brick wall.

The postal clerk's 14-year-old daughter, Janell M. Robinson, had stayed home from school that day because of a badly sprained ankle. "My father came home for lunch, so I was the last one in the family to see him," she said.

Janell Robinson, who holds a temporary secretarial position in CSU's manufacturing engineering department, remembers riding out the storm at home with her mother and brother. Otherwise, "I've pretty much blocked stuff out. I don't remember a whole lot."

But she still feels the loss.

"I've yet to get married, but the thought of him not being able to walk me down the aisle, I'll certainly miss that," she said. "But life goes on."

Life went on for Central State and its students as well - but not without some more close calls. State officials initially balked at promising to rebuild the badly damaged campus - until President Richard Nixon came to CSU to tour the campus along with Gov. John Gilligan. When then-CSU President Lionel Newsome mentioned to Nixon the uncertainty of CSU's future, Nixon didn't hesitate. "He said the federal and state governments together will rebuild" both Central State and Wilberforce universities — "and he would help cut the red tape," Newsome recalled in a 1984 interview.

Gilligan responded to Nixon's remark with a quick, "Yes, Mr. President." And CSU's rebuilding was assured.

There was, however, the matter of what to do the rest of the school year. CSU still had its 2,200 students, but most of its academic buildings were unusable.

Newsome vowed to find a way to complete the school year. Twelve days after the storm, CSU resumed classes, using various study areas in residence halls, rented portable classrooms and borrowed space from Wilberforce University and Greene County's vocational school.

"It was pretty makeshift," said CSU Athletics Director Theresa Check, who was a CSU senior in April 1974, preparing to graduate in June. "People were making do with whatever they had."

And they made it work. The class of '74 graduated on time, and soon, construction was under way on several academic buildings.

The physical scars have faded, but memories of that day haven't - especially for Pat McGee, whose quick phone call home likely saved her husband's and son's lives. Moments after her call, McGee's house was destroyed while her husband and son huddled safely in the basement.

"Every year around the first of April, you get to thinking about it," McGee said. "You never forget about it. You always think about it."

Contact Mark Fisher at 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com