Claudia (Cashbrook) Morgan lived in Lincoln Hall when the residence hall was first opened.

She still remembers her move to room 362, moving her possessions up a ramp into the entrance, avoiding the dirt surrounding the new residence hall.

“That’s my room!” she said, pointing to her former window with excitement during Saturday’s alumni campus tour.

“I’m sure it still looks the same,” she said. Morgan remembers life in Lincoln, 50 years later. She’s been to every Homecoming – save one – since graduation in 1956.

Morgan remembers opening her window and shouting to the men who lived in Douglas Hall.

That’s when Robert Buzzard was the university president, the school was called Eastern Illinois State Teacher’s College, and the graduating class only had 216 members.

Elizabeth (Baker) Hewey lived on Second Street with her grandmother when she was an Eastern student.

She rode along on the tour cart wearing a navy blue Eastern sweatshirt in honor of her 50th reunion Homecoming.

Hewey and Morgan have corresponded since graduation in 1956 after meeting at Eastern.

The two education majors reminisced with another alum and business major, Dick Livengood, and his wife, Joni, while Laura Golgan, a junior communication disorders and sciences major, was the golf cart driver and tour guide.

The three alums remember what their Homecoming was like.

They made floats for the parade, went to the football game, and of course, went to parties.

Livengood is the former president of Sigma Pi fraternity. Before the tour, he even paid a visit to the fraternity house.

Campus was much smaller when he was here. The library was as far south as campus went. He remembers a nine-hole golf course and fields surrounding campus.

Livengood hadn’t been back to his alma mater for more than 10 years.

He and his wife live in Phoenix, but made the trip for his reunion.

Joni Livengood received her master’s at Eastern, and accompanied her husband to his reunion. She wasn’t ready for the chilly October air, resorting to buying an Eastern sweatshirt at the union bookstore.

“We’re just barely out of triple digits,” she said of her home in Arizona.

“They asked me to come back; I said ‘why not,'” Livengood said. “What do retired people do anyway?” he joked.

He was amazed at Eastern’s current enrollment – more than 12,000 students.

“That’s about 10 times than when we started,” he said.

Livengood paid $85 per semester, plus room and board while at Eastern.

The alums were in awe of the changes on campus, like the construction of Doudna Fine Arts Center and the reconstruction of Blair Hall.

But some things will never change, like the gigantic tree outside Old Main.

“That tree was 100 years old when we were here,” Morgan joked.

“It’s really changed a lot,” Livengood said. “And, I think, for the better.”

Three of the 28 alumni who returned for the reunion were honored at Friday night’s pep rally.

Alumni Services sponsored the campus tour, which 15 people hopped on golf carts to tour the much-updated campus.

Saturday night, the Golden Anniversary alums were honored with a dinner and induction into the Livingston C. Lord Society. Each alum who returns for their 50th reunion receives a pin and is inducted into the honorary society.