By mid-afternoon Friday, Ellzey Hall was mostly deserted, andsigns of the escape into Labor Day weekend were everywhere.

At the door to Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s oldestresidence hall was a waist-high pile of brown garbage bags, filledto the bursting point and roasting in the sun. The black tiles ofthe checkerboard lobby floor disguised dead bugs and flecks ofdirt, likely swept out of the dorm rooms in haste earlier in theday to pass inspection. A steely silver padlock hung on the hingeof the old, thin wooden doors, waiting to be snapped in place afterthe last students had departed.

That last group was in no hurry, however. While most of the 48male students housed at Ellzey were probably more than happy toflee the decrepit old structure for a weekend of carpeted floorsand private bathrooms, the “Ellzey Veterans” – now in their secondyear of residence there – were perfectly happy with their collegehome and not at all burdened by a few extra hours’ stay.

“It’s the best residence hall at Co-Lin,” said Hazlehurst’sStephen Holmes, 19, a big student relaxing on a small, flat bed.”We make the campus thrive.”

The Ellzey Hall residents may be the life of the party, but allthe life is leaving their 82-year-old building.

School administrators decided to shutter the second floor roomsthis year, and the unusable basement was taken out of service yearsago. A new roof installed in 2008 is keeping rain from seepinginside the building, but the bricks are cracking, the plaster iscrumbling and drainage is backing up.

With plans for a new $3 million, 18,000 square-foot, 56-beddormitory moving rapidly toward the construction phase, batteredold Ellzey Hall will be closed down before the start of the 2011-12school year to save what’s left of the historic building, saidCo-Lin President Dr. Ronnie Nettles.

“We’ve decided to reduce the wear and tear on the building,” hesaid. “We had an architect come inspect the building, and he toldus renovating it into a modern residence hall would becost-prohibitive.”

Ellzey just can’t take much more. It’s taken a lot over theyears.

The building is one of the original Co-Lin structures, built in1928 when the campus transitioned from Wesson Agricultural HighSchool to a community college. It was named after Russell Ellzey,who came to the high school in the early 1920s and served as thefirst president of Co-Lin.

Ellzey Hall was gutted and renovated completely in 1969, itsoriginal pitched roof replaced with the flat rubber-and-rock roofthat was the first choice in roofing through the 1970s. After 40years, those kinds of roofs need constant maintenance and,eventually, replacement – like Ellzey experienced in 2008.

The roof notwithstanding, Ellzey Hall hasn’t undergone a majorupgrade since 1969, and the prospects for saving it any time soondon’t look good. With Mississippi tax collections lagging pitifullyin the recession and lawmakers axing budgets wherever feasible,colleges’ construction funds are being neglected.

Nettles said Co-Lin’s new dormitory project is being fundedwithout legislative appropriation, paid for by money the collegeput back steadily over the last four years. Paying for a renovationof Ellzey is, at this point, unrealistic – especially consideringthe picture-perfect job the Mississippi Department of Archives andHistory would likely require to preserve the building’s historicalintegrity.

“I can’t imagine how much it would cost,” Nettles said. “They’dprobably want us to put the pitched roof back on.”

Before the semester is out, Nettles plans to approach theMississippi Department of Finance and Administration’s Bureau ofBuildings, Grounds and Real Property Management to seek help withthe building.

Ellzey Hall has to be used for something, Nettles said.

It’s right in the middle of a college campus with an enrollmentof approximately 2,400, an increase of 20 percent in the last fewyears. He explained how he’s running out of office space, classroomspace and – even with nine residence halls – living space. Studentsare parking all over the grounds, he said.

“We’ve got some serious capacity issues already, and there are alot of things Ellzey Hall could be used for – a student center,offices, a learning center,” Nettles said. “Potentially, it couldsolve some problems for us, but it’s difficult to plan without anyknowledge of what that cost might be.”

Ellzey Hall’s future is unclear – it may even stand empty a fewyears and deteriorate further before the funding to fix it isavailable.

By the time its long history is paused next year, the EllzeyVeterans will be gone. But their vote for the building’s future is100 percent dormitory – no matter the cost.

“This is the best dorm, in the best place on campus,” saidFranklin County native Michael Esters, 19, as he pointed throughthe walls of his tiny Ellzey dorm room. “We’ve got all our classesright over here, the cafeteria is that way and the girls live rightover there.”