Coming to Searcy was “on my bucket list,” said Mary Lou Heckathorn, describing why she and her husband, Cliff, decided to make the 10-hour drive from Topeka, Kan., to Searcy, Ark., Thursday and Friday to visit Harding University.
Topeka, Kan., residents Cliff and Mary Lou Heckathorn stand June 29 in front of Cathcart Hall, a women's dorm at Harding University that was named after Mary Lou's great aunt, Florence Cathcart. The Heckathorns traveled to Searcy to visit Harding for the first time Thursday and Friday.
The Heckathorns had heard many stories but had never been to the college where Mary Lou’s great aunt, Florence Cathcart, has a dorm named in her honor. Cathcart, who died in 1960, was a former dean of women at Harding who wrote the words to the alma mater. Heckathorn’s interest was piqued when a friend gave her a copy of the Winter 2011 Harding magazine where the story of Cathcart Hall’s namesake was told in an article, “Behind the Brick.”
She has few memories of her great aunt but told the story of how Cathcart had been in an automobile accident and, while visiting the family in Kansas, carried buckets of sand while walking as an early form of physical therapy.
But Heckathorn has more than one connection to the university. Her father, Ray Thompson, was at Harper College when it merged with Arkansas Christian College to form Harding. He made the move from Harper to attend Harding in its first year of existence in Morrilton, Ark., where he taught commercial work and took his second year of college courses.
“This trip answered so many questions,” said Heckathorn who toured the campus and also visited with Brackett Librarians Ann Dixon and Lisa Burley. It was there she saw for the first time the 1925 Petit Jean both in print and online with her father’s photo.
“We’ll have a lot to talk about on the way home,” she said smiling as she and her husband departed with one more item crossed off her bucket list.
