News
World record tuba collection to be unveiled during homecoming festivities
Music professor R. Winston Morris has spent decades collecting art, figurines and
memorabilia celebrating the tuba. Now, his collection has a new home after being in
storage the last two years.
The R. Winston Morris Tuba Collection officially opens in Roaden University Center room 342 on Saturday, Nov. 9, during homecoming weekend.
With the theme “Jukebox Homecoming,” festivities get underway on Monday, Nov. 4 with the banner contest in the RUC. On Tuesday, there will be a battle of the air bands in Derryberry Auditorium followed by the canned food drive at Hyder-Burks pavilion on Wednesday. Thursday is set aside for Tennessee Tech Pride Day with a pep rally slated for Friday at the Hooper Eblen Center. Tech’s tradition homecoming parade will get underway on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. with Marc Burnett, Tech’s vice president for student affairs and chief diversity officer, serving as the grand marshal.
After Tech’s football game against Jacksonville State at 1:30 p.m., the focus will shift to the official opening of Morris’ world record collection of tuba artifacts and memorabilia.
“The collection idea then exploded,” Morris said of his nearly 2,300 piece figurine collection. “They’re from all over the world and there’s a story behind each piece.”
Morris began collecting items in the early 1970s with a small lead figurine soldier playing a tuba given to him by Steve Smelcer, 1979 music education graduate.
Only about two percent of the figurines were gifted. The rest he found in gift shops or flea markets while on tour.
“Turns out it’s hard to find items with tubas in them, but I have a radar that picks them up,” he said. “I can hone in on a piece when I walk in a store.”
Over the years, the collection, which was in his house, grew. He worked for two years to get it certified by the Guinness World Records and achieved that status in 2013.
That was when he knew it had to move out of his house.
“I did have a few people interested in purchasing the collection, but in talking with my former students, they made it clear that they wanted it to stay with the university,” Morris said. “I wanted to find a really good home for it.”
He began meeting with officials with the Foundation, who took it over in 2016. Then, the big question was where to place it.
“We looked at various locations around campus, but there were no places for it,” Morris said.
It turned out that there was vacant space in the Regions building downtown that could house the collection. The Foundation bought that building in late 2014 with intentions to house the university’s information technology services and the Tennessee Small Business Development Center on the third floor.
The following spring, the collection had to be packed up, as technology integrator SAIC was going to establish operations in that space.
After a lot of moving from one location to another, the collection is now settled in its new home on the third floor of the Roaden University Center.
“It didn’t take long for the room to be fixed up,” said John Smith, executive director, University Advancement, said.
“I am delighted, couldn’t be happier with this location,” Morris said. “I love it.”
The open house will begin at 5 p.m. on homecoming Saturday and to until 7 p.m. For more information on homecoming, go to https://www.tntech.edu/homecoming/
