Author of Anniversary Pageant Long Took Part In College Affairs
This article describes Emma Hopper's invovlement in the college as a teacher and also in writing various pageants for the school. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Author of Anniversary Pageant Long Took Part In College Affairs," The Daily Reflector, April 19, 1958.
Emma L. Hooper, author of the pageant to be given in celebration of East Carolina College's Fifteenth Anniversary, has "grown up" with the school for the past thirty four years. This long participation in college affairs, added to an interest in writing, explains why she accepted the challenge of preparing the story of the growth of the college for production as the Golden Anniversary Pageant this spring.
"East Carolina's Spade: To Serve" by Miss Hooper, will be presented in the Wright building on campus May 2 at 8 p.m. and May 4 at 3:30 p.m. Students, faculty members, administrative officers, alumni and other friends of the college will take part.
The spade of the title was used by Gov. Thomas J. Jarvis of North Carolina when he broke ground for the first building of the East Carolina Teachers' Training School on July 2, 1908. It has turned the Earth again and again as new buildings were begun. Through the years it has become a symbol of growth and progress. "To Serve," is East Carolina's motto.
The pageant, beginning with the scene of the first ground-breaking ceremony records through drama, music and the dance significant events in the history of East Carolina from 1908 to 1958.
Miss Hooper joined the faculty of East Carolina Teachers' College in 1924 and has taught in the departmentof English since that time. She has served under each of East Carolina's five presidents.
In addition to her duties as a teacher, she has acted for many years as advisor of the campus chapter of the Future Teachers of America, recognized as one of the nation's outstanding chapters. Since 1939 she has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the East Carolina Alumni Association of University Women she held the office of presidentduring 1945-47, and she has been active in committee work in the local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, national honorary fraternity for women teachers.
Miss Hooper became interested in pageants and began writingthem as far back as 1919, when she was a high school teacher in Mississippi. For the Southeastern Division of the American Red Cross she wrote in 1920 "The Glory of the Crimson Cross," which was given a number of performances in the southeastern states. While teaching at Mansfield College in Louisiana, she wrote and directed, "Upon the Wings of the Living Past," a pageant based on the history of the school.
At East Carolina during the 1920's she twice wrote pageants for class-day ceremonies. In 1934, when the college was preparing to celebrate its first quarter-century, she collaborated with the late Miss Mamie E. Jenkins, member of the original faculty of the college, in preparing a historical pageant for the anniversary. It was never presented because of the sudden death of East Carolina's first president, Dr. Robert H. Wright, only a few weeks before the date set for performance.
Miss Hooper is a native of Mississippi, and when not on duty at East Carolina College, lives in Memphis. She is a graduate of Mississippi State College for Women in Colombus and holds the master's degree from the University of Virginia.
