1942 graduate funds concert and lecture series at ASU

Published 8:38 pm Friday, January 26, 2007

At one time, a young Robbie Nelle Christopher loved to act.

As an Athens College student in the early 1940s, she studied drama and speech, but said she left her acting days behind when she met and married “the man of my dreams.”

On Friday, Robbie Nelle Christopher Livingston returned to her alma mater to contribute $100,000 to Athens State University to endow a concert and lecture series “to bring the college and the community together,” she said.

Robbie Nelle graduated from then Athens College in 1942.

“I taught at Piney Chapel for a year and then worked at a bank for awhile,” she said. “Then I married the man of my dreams.”

The dashing, young U.S. Coast Guardsman, J. Harrison Livingston, swept her off her feet, as one would say in those World War II days. The couple moved to Knoxville.

“I always had an interest in drama, but I was too busy raising a family,” she said.

The couple had two children, Jay Livingston, who teaches at the private Webb School in Knoxville, and Ann Livingston Huie, who is married to an attorney.

The couple supported the University of Tennessee and endowed a chair in immigration and population in the Geography Department of the Knoxville campus. Two years ago, Robbie Nelle’s husband died at the age of 92.

“I was in plays here at McCandless Auditorium and I was very interested in the McCandless renovations. I decided that instead of putting money into mortar and bricks, I would put it in a lecture series to benefit the whole community,” she said. “We had been benefactors of the University of Tennessee, but I wanted to do something for my college.”

Over the years, Robbie Nelle came back to Athens many times to visit her family, including brother Jimmy W. Christopher and sisters Shirley Christopher Wood and Helen Christopher Patton. Although Robbie Nelle enjoyed her Athens College days, especially acting in plays such as Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” in which the all-girl student body played the male roles, she had never returned to the campus until Friday.

“It looks like it did, only prettier,” she said. “It really is a beautiful college.”

The J. Harrison and Robbie Nelle Christopher Livingston Concert-Lecture Series will begin in the fall with speakers or performers tentatively planned for four times a year.

“We are committed to initiating a series that will be attractive and culturally enriching to the university as well as the community,” said ASU President Dr. Jerry Bartlett.

The gift will be managed by the ASU Foundation and earnings will be used to support the series.

“It is my hope that this will allow us to grow in our vision to be a cultural center for the Athens and Limestone County community,” said Bartlett. “The Livingston series and our efforts to renovate McCandless Hall will reinvigorate this effort.”