The General Classroom Building was once a well-equipped technical school, complete with an auto shop, radio station, and a wood shop, as detailed by maps in the BYU-Hawaii Archives. Sitting on the western end of the campus, the General Classroom Building is one of the oldest parts of BYUH. Today, it houses the Technology and Mathematics departments, and also serves as a general-purpose building. According to Steve Cheney, a former BYUH employee, the Technology Building, as it was known then, housed “an electronics lab, a woodworking shop, classrooms in the center of the building used for all trade-related classes, an auto shop, a machinery shop, and a welding shop. The welding shop was located in what is now the ceramics building.” The computer labs in the southern end of the building were once electronics labs with radio stations, where students would learn and practice Morse code. Mikaele Foley, a BYUH alumni, remembers this program. “One of the teachers in the late 1960s maintained a ham radio station… I remember taking a ham radio class from him, in which I learned enough Morse code to pass the test and get my beginning ham license.” Edwin Pilobello, a former student who studied industrial management, recalled his experience there. “I remember taking and passing the Morse code exam, raising the 10m antenna and CQing anywhere in the world!” A CQ is a type of radio call, Pilobello explained. “We even strung a full wave oriented towards Japan on the coconut trees.” Pilobello also recalled, “We had a side business gooping up the inside of TVs so they wouldn’t corrode so quickly in the salt air.” Past the electronics lab were a few classes mostly used for woodworking, although they saw some other use as well. The northern end of the building was an auto shop with “two large bays with lifts for serious work,” according to alumni and EIL Professor Mark James who graduated in 1979. It also featured a body shop and a paint booth near the back of the building. James noted it was one of the best classes he ever took, learning to save money by doing the auto work himself. “I’ve saved thousands,” he said. People said they have fond memories of the building. Foley recalls some of the fun times spent there. “I remember taking an auto class there from Brother Turley who, at the end of the term, deep-fried his killer scones and honey butter for us. It was so ono. Also, it would definitely be kapu nowadays, but Brother Turley also used to let his little blond-headed daughter play in the shop, get her hands into all the oily/grimy stuff, and ride around with him in his open-top jeep!” BYUH enjoyed nearly three decades of technical instruction in the Technology Building. However, in the Fall Semester of 1986, school administrators decided to stop offering the electronics, automotive, and construction majors. Cheney recalled “technology students were given about four years to complete their major,” before it closed down. Saddened by the imminent departure of their major, students in the Construction Technology Program built a grandfather clock as one last memento that still stands inside the admin offices in the Lorenzo Snow building. In 1989, when interior remodeling began on the main building, some of the workers discovered a bottle with a note in it from the first labor missionaries. The note was turned over to the Library Archives and is still there to this day. The text of the original note:To whom it may concernThis note is in memory of our labor mission, building this great college, The Church College of Hawaii. And also in memory of our plaster gang - our supervisors. Bro. Aurthor PeelBro. Andrew Wilkinson Bro. Edward SittonWe pray that nothing will distroy or mark our little memory note, and that later on in years we will recover it. (11-29-56)Sincerely,Bro. Itasea AnohumukiniBro. Antone Haiku Jr.Witness:Bro. Dan Moa The interior and exterior remodeling in the early ‘90s changed the technology building into what is today known as the GCB. With the rise of computing majors, the southern end of the building was converted into computer labs to house the new major. Two new classrooms were added to the front of the building as well.
Writer: Zeph McKee
