“The walking tour is our way of honoring the time that Fred Rogers spent on our campus as a student and the many ways he continues to influence the Rollins College community.”
– ROLLINS PRESIDENT GRANT CORNWELL
Rollins College, in its ongoing effort to be branded with a Fred Rogers cattle iron, will celebrate the world’s most famous neighbor’s birthday on March 20 with a self-guided campus walking tour.
It’s actually not that random, as Rogers was Rollins College’s most famous alumnus and majored in music composition and graduated in 1951. He served on the chapel staff as a member of the Community Service Club, the Student Music Guild, the French Club, the Welcoming Committee, the After Chapel Club, and the Alpha Phi Lambda fraternity. He also sang in the chapel and Bach choirs.
The free tour will run from March 3 through March 31 during the regular operating hours of the College’s Cornell Fine Arts Museum; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, and noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The five-stop tour begins at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, where Mister Rogers’ sweater and sneakers, which he gave to the college in 1991, will be on display. Tiedtke Concert Hall is stop two, where a large portrait of Fred Rogers, painted by local artist Don Sondag, hangs. Stop three is on the Rollins Walk of Fame in front of his old dormitory Lyman Hall, where the stone from his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania was placed on the occasion of his 40-year reunion from graduating Rollins. Stop four is Olin Library, where a collection of books, his yearbook, personal letters, and photos from the Rollins College Archives are on view. Finally, stop five is at the marble plaque by Strong Hall engraved with the words that inspired him – “Life is for Service.”
We’ve added a sixth stop to the tour which is at the nearby Floyd’s Barbershop where you’ll find a largescale mural of Mister Rogers on the side of the building. The perfect selfie spot following a successful romp through his past.
