Is it Dingle-DEEN or Dingle-DINE? You’d better get it right because it’s spoken a lot on campus. There’s a Dingledine Hall, multiple Dingledine scholarships, and an oil portrait among other named things. At some point, the marketing and branding folks started to refer to the Dingledine family as “JMU royalty,” playing off the “dukes” theme. That is because three Dingledines had significant impact on this institution. They are: Raymond C. Dingledine, Sr., faculty member from 1914 until 1941; his wife, Agness Stribling Dingledine, an alumna who taught here briefly and then became staff later; and their son, Raymond Jr., who joined the faculty in 1948 and was head of the Department of History. In these two posts, I offer a fresh analysis of these important figures based on new research and with an eye for accuracy. Read on for more!   

Located next to the Little Jimmy statue, Varner House is named for Bernice Reaney Varner, a woman leader whose impressive contributions to this institution’s success deserve greater recognition. This unusual building opened in 1929 as a practice house, a kind of laboratory where women majoring in Home Economics could apply their lessons. Varner was head of the Home Economics department in the 1940s and 1950s. Previously, she served as the first Dean of Women, a groundbreaking administrative position that evolved into today’s division of Student Affairs. Respected by colleagues and beloved by students, she repeatedly challenged society’s rigid gender conventions in her professional work and in her private life as a divorcee who openly lived with another woman for decades. Like Yuri Nemoto and Walker Lee, Varner has a surprising story that improves our understanding of this institution’s history and culture.