Coolest Room on campus is a hole in one!

RELEASED: May 8, 2008

DANVILLE—After two weeks of voting, the results are in: Roommates Derek Tingle '08 and Rus Whalen '08 easily handled the competition. Tingle and Whalen's room in the newly named Stuart Hall scored 46 percent of the vote, while first-year students Emily Arbegust and Cassie Sharp earned runner-up honors with 21 percent. Click photos for larger view.

The winners of the Coolest Room Contest will each receive a Nintendo DS Lite and bragging rights to boot.

Upon learning of their victory, Tingle and Whalen had the following to say: "We'd like to thank our families; they've been such a steady stream of support throughout our time here in the coolest room on campus. Second, we'd like to send a shout out to all the small people...we couldn't have done it without you."

Stuart Hall has a long and varied history. Originally, the building served as a private residence when it was newly constructed around 1915. It was then acquired by one of the College's oldest fraternities, Beta Theta Pi (Epsilon Chapter). Later converted to a funeral home and then Centre Shoppe—the College's bookstore and café—in 1992, its purpose shifted yet again in 2006 when it became a residence hall. The black-and-white checkered tile flooring from the café remains in Tingle and Whalen's room, retaining a bit of character and history from the residence's earlier days.

The building was dedicated Stuart Hall in the fall of 2007 after the famous Centre alum John Todd Stuart who gave Abraham Lincoln his first law books and eventually became Lincoln's first law partner, as well.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.