(cheerful music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hi, I'm Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support WCTE, the Upper Cumberland's own PBS station because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding.

When I support WCTE, I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Announcer] The Law Offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

(soft piano music) - Many people may know the name Dr. Walter Derryberry for his years as OBGYN in Cookeville, but not many may know Walter as the son of President William Everett Derryberry, the fourth and longest serving president of the Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, serving from 1940 to 1974.

In this episode, Walter shares his experiences growing up as a member of Tennessee Tech's first family and describes the events that shaped this region.

These sometimes humorous stories told in Water's own words include many milestones for the first family and the university, such as a name change, an incredible expansion of campus construction, a world war, integration, student movements, and much more.

This story begins in December of 1939 when Walter was only five years old.

Little did he know that he would spend the next 17 years as the first son, which sometimes worked in his favor, and other times maybe not so much.

(bell tolls) (choral music) - [Walter] Okay, my father's full name was William Everett Derryberry.

He was born in 1906 and he moved to Cookeville in 1939 and retired in 1974 and my mother, of course, was born in Torrington, which is in North Devonshire, in England, her name was Wayte.

Gertrude Joan Pittrude Derryberry.

I was unaware that we were leaving our house in Murray, Kentucky which my folks had just built, which was their dream house.

This is Christmas Eve, 1939, and I had a nightmare that night that Santa Claus was chasing me and that scared me to death.

So I didn't sleep well that night and then we had to get in the car and drive off to Cookeville the next day and I didn't know where we were going, I just knew I was in the backseat of the car.

But then we drove in to this half moon driveway in front of a house that was a Williamsburg Colonial and it looked like it had a great big yard, which it did, five acres, and that was the new home.

- There are just so many roles, there are symbolic roles where the first lady or the president represents the university to the legislature in social events where the first family is really the representative.

But you're also counselors and advisors and host and hostess.

We hosted, as did PD and Joan, we hosted the representatives from all over the world when they would come to the university.

Many events, the Christmas gala comes to mind.

So there are just so many different roles for the first family that sometimes involve the children, sometimes don't, but they're always fun.

- Then after, almost the next day, after we moved into the house on Dixie, we had our first visitor and that was Lottie Farr, who was the wife of TJ Farr, for whom that building is named, who was, at the time, the head of the English department at Tech.

And they had a son exactly my age, we were a month apart, Dr. Stephen Farr.

(choral music) - Most of the information I have regarding the family involves an oral history with Joan Derryberry.

She talks a lot about moving to Tennessee Tech when they came from Kentucky.

She was a little hesitant about actually coming to the campus, she didn't like the fact that there was no roads out of the campus, the only one that we have is Walton Road, it's dirt, it's horrible to travel on, the campus plants and facilities are pretty minimal.

And then the house, the president's house at the time, she was also not super fond of the president's house.

There was only two rooms, the town itself only had one hotel, so a lot of times when people came to town they would play host and every time guests would come into town she said that she would have to move two twin beds out and put them in the sunroom area and then the people would stay in the room and then here they are out of a bedroom.

She mentions in one of her oral histories that Walter had said, you know, it's a good, strong house, and she said that he thinks that he was making it in reference to "The Three Little Pigs" story which he had initially, or she had just recently talked about with him.

- It was just one big enormous playground and we and all our friends played on the campus 'cause there weren't that many students initially until after the end of the second World War.

(radio chatters) - [Megan] We even had faculty members that went off to World War II as well, but what they did, and the administration, and Dr. Derryberry, was we brought in different means for resources that helped both keep the campus active, but also helped the war effort.

So all of a sudden we have about 400 Air Force cadets training as well as putting in flight hours over at the airport and doing different, you know, lessons, they learned things about geography in order to understand the theater of war that is happening that they're about to go to and they're basically being trained before they go to flight school.

- Cadets did come, full uniform, twice a day at eight and five to raise and/or lower the flag.

And so, one time, June and I were playing in front of the administration building between the administration building and the flag and we were on our toy cars and it's five o'clock and here comes the ROTC attachment all dressed out to lower the flag formally and to fold it and do all the right things you're supposed to do with your flag, never letting the edge of the flag touch the ground, for instance, I remember.

And June and I were just transfixed with horror because they were coming right towards us.

Well, here they come, four guys across, and when they got to us, they just divided and went around us and we just sat there dumbfounded.

(exciting marching band music) We were not allowed to misbehave and we were well-known, so everybody knew who the two little bratty kids that ran around on campus were, so we were aware that we had to mind our Ps and Qs and be good children.

- Well, I could talk a little bit about it because John and Heather commented on it, they both lived there briefly and their children were there a lot and I'm sure much like Walter they felt like it was life in a fishbowl.

Whether you're in the house, in a reception out in the backyard, or in the community, you are still in a fishbowl if you're related to the president and first lady.

(soft acoustic music) - Well, there was this mongrel dog, a small dog, and Dammit was just a very friendly dog and lived on campus, he was a stray, basically.

And so, one time, the governor was up and daddy was meeting the governor at the flag pole and the dog came up wagging his tail and licking at the governor's feet and daddy said, "Cut that out, dammit!"

- Just listening to an oral history the other day, Joan Derryberry says if you wanna see a picture of Dammit the dog, look in the 1949 yearbook.

- And so, that became the official name of that dog and from then on, as long as the dog lived, he was Dammit.

And then when he died, they buried him at the foot of the flag pole and he's got a monument, a plaque on the ground where he's buried.

- [Megan] I don't know if it's a joke, but there was five dogs in the 1949 yearbook.

One of them has the name "BDOC" and I was kind of wondering, well, maybe this dog was also called Dammit.

Just in a sense, maybe a lovable sense, I call my cats jerks all the time, so, maybe the dog got a bad nickname.

But there is five dogs and I giggled, I thought, I wonder if she's kidding with us?

(cheerful music) - One time, we came home, daddy had gone fishing and he had left his family car in a spot where we always like to play basketball.

And so, I said to my sister, "Well, I know how to move the car, I'll just do it."

And so, I went out and I got, the keys were in his pant pocket, which was in his bedroom, and I went and got 'em, but it in the car, turned the motor on, and backed the car out of where it had been in the middle of our play area.

And June and I then decided it would be fun to play chauffeur and grand lady, so she put on fancy clothes and I played chauffeur and would take her into the garage and then back her back out, and then drive her back into the garage again.

One time, I wasn't accurate enough in my entry into the garage and I hit the front fender on the wall of the garage door and scared me to death, but I decided I wasn't gonna mention it.

And the next day we were supposed to go to Nashville, the whole family was going, daddy took me out to the car and said, "I see that you had an accident with the car yesterday."

I was torn between trying to say, "No, it wasn't me," but I didn't, I admitted it.

And then later on, mother told me that the reason I didn't get much bad punished from having done it was because she had seen me doing this and had decided, she didn't drive at all, she had never learned how to drive at that point, so she went out and did the same trick I had done, turned on the motor, and she didn't know that she had to put it in reverse to back out of the garage, so she left it in forward gear and rammed the back end of the garage, which was wood and obviously made a scar in the wood.

And so, he couldn't punish me and not punish her, so he just let it go.

- After World War II, the university saw many changes with an influx of GIs returning from war with the hope of earning their college degree.

With the student enrollment nearly tripling on campus, President Derryberry envisioned a five year plan to grow the campus, which Walter describes as his being bitten by the construction bug.

It wasn't long after this that Walter considered his own career path and where he will attend college, but like many other decision in the Derryberry household, individual decision-making was a rare commodity.

(cheerful music) - I really wanted not to go to Tech.

I did not want to be the first boy, as they said.

I wanted to go to my choice of college, and my father said that wasn't an option.

He wanted to, because his dream was to present to me my college diploma, and I, therefore, must stay and graduate from Tennessee Tech before I went away to medical school.

So since he he was paying the bills, I did what he said.

So then I wanted to go Tech and live in the dorm.

Well, he didn't like that either, he said, "If you live in the dorm, you will occupy a space that some other student who's not connected like you are to Tech, you would rob him of the opportunity for him to come to Tech.

And so, you will live at home where you have a place already reserved at Tech."

So I did it.

You just couldn't out-argue my dad.

If you did, you put your allowance in danger, and that was not a safe thing.

(cheerful music) - The word that has to come to mind with President Derryberry's tenure is legacy.

It was just a long-term tenure and it established the presidency and the role of the president at the university.

He served in a period that was just profound for the American society, World War II happened, we were coming out of a depression, then after the war, a tremendous building campaign, a tremendous growth period for the university.

So he put those stamps on the university.

If you build a building today at Tennessee Tech, every architect in this state knows it's got to meet PD's stamp of approval.

- My father came to Tech, he had what he called a five year plan and he wanted to metastasize all over this into town, and he did.

The first thing he built was the mechanical arts, I think, building, called Lewis Hall these days.

And then next came the infirmary, which is now the ROTC headquarters.

And he was bitten by the construction bug.

- It's basically he created the campus that we see today.

They brought kind of scholarship to Tennessee Tech, they brought the arts to Tennessee Tech, they were both heavily involved in music and art.

And not to mention, you know, the growth of the campus, and then the change from the campus being kind of just a normal state college, normal school, to becoming an institution with graduate studies, which he brought to campus in 1958.

Suddenly we're no longer just an education institution, we're a research institution.

(cheerful music) - I was directing this play that my chemistry club folk put on.

And so, I had all the scripts, and I was in charge of getting it going.

And so, one time daddy had gone on a trip somewhere and he left his keys at home, which included the master key to every building on campus.

So I needed to get word to the cast about a rehearsal change, so I found his keys in his bedroom and off I went to the post office at Tennessee Tech.

This is confession I shouldn't tell.

Anyway, and let myself into the post office and ran around and put notices into the boxes of all my cast members.

And lord, if I'd have been caught about that, I would have been in deep water.

But I did it dead of night, I didn't turn on any lights, just sneaky little Walter.

- The totem pole was part of a rivalry between MTSU and Tennessee Tech, who are historic rivals.

They decided to create, you know, this is gonna be the trophy that we get.

And every time one team would win the football game, the totem pole would go to the one team and they'd keep it until the next game where it goes to the other team and your victory is not just winning the game, but also the fact that you have the totem pole.

- After a few years, some of the more adventurous students decided they would try to steal it.

So there was always students on guard, 24 hours a day, guarding Harvey, which was what they called the totem pole.

And that also led into how we got the eagle because the same ringleaders of the theft of Harvey, which never succeeded, they got the notion that they were gonna get the eagle from Mount Eagle Hotel and mount it at Tennessee Tech.

And I happened to be in the auditorium that day for public programs and they opened the...

The associate student body president made the presentation of the thing, it was on stage with the curtains closed, and then they opened the curtains and made the presentation of the eagle and my father was sitting in the first row, first bank of seats right off the stage in public view, and he was not a small man, and he jumped up from his seat and planted his hand on the stage from the floor of the basketball court and leapt up onto the stage and took possession of the eagle.

Fortunately, we had a person in Cookeville who was a friend of the man who owned the Mount Eagle Hotel and he convinced the man to give it to Tech, so that's how we got it.

And the student unrest, but wasn't that nice.

- My understanding of the history of the alma mater was that Joan was not happy with the fact that the alma mater that we were playing during the football games was the same as the alma mater being played by other teams as well and she decided the university needed something original.

Of course she's very involved in music and a very talented singer and musician herself.

- I remember still yet hearing the genesis of the Tech hymn.

Mother was playing the piano and daddy would sing a phrase and they'd argue about it.

Finally, it got all worked out with them together.

- And yes, she definitely gets the credit for it, but in her words, they did write it together.

- Words and music by Joan Derryberry, but left daddy out, 'cause he was part of the building of that tune, of that Tech hymn.

But things happen like that.

(choral music) If there is a Derryberry legacy, it would have to be in education.

- Well, I think the uniqueness comes from the fact that he served so long and so well.

I mean, he was known all over the state and the nation and he was truly just someone who designed this campus and his impact is still seen there today.

So I think that's the big legacy.

- That was daddy's world and he ruled.

You know, he was a benevolent dictator, but dictator indeed he was, both to us and to the faculty.

(choral music) ♪ Tennessee Tech ♪ ♪ God prosper thee ♪ ♪ Deep purple stand the mountains ♪ ♪ And golden sets the sun ♪ ♪ We proudly wear these colors fair ♪ ♪ Until our goal is won ♪ ♪ We pledge thee faithful service ♪ ♪ Our love and loyalty ♪ ♪ Oh Alma Mater Tennessee Tech ♪ ♪ God prosper thee ♪ - Anyone that has attended or visited Tennessee Tech University knows the name Derryberry and the legacy that has been left by this outstanding family.

And now, thanks to Walter, we now have a behind the scenes look, a little more of the story from the lens of Walter's perspective as he lived it.

I hope you have enjoyed this episode about Walter and his family and we hope to see you next time when we go where stories live.

(soft piano music) (exciting marching band music) (cheerful music) - Hi, I'm Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support WCTE, the Upper Cumberland's own PBS station, because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding.

When I support WCTE, I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Announcer] The Law Offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

(cheerful music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.