Tuesday, October 24, 2000:

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From Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Friday, December 4, 1998

Connie Gibbons, using what was once a salad bar as an easel, looks over plans for the Buddy Holly Center. Jim Watkins/Staff Photographer

From rubble to rock
City hopes to transform Depot into Buddy Holly Center by next fall

By MIKE W. THOMAS
Avalanche-Journal

The old Depot building downtown today looks like it may be on its last legs. The inside of the building has been gutted, and the courtyard outside is strewn with rubble and construction debris.

The most recent addition to the historic structure - a kitchen built in the 1970s - has been leveled, and the bulldozers rumbling around moving dirt seem to be waiting impatiently for the order to raze the rest of the complex.

But a set of blueprints spread out on a table in the midst of the chaos holds the promise of renewal for the former train station. By next fall, city officials hope to have the Depot revamped and remodeled into a showcase for Lubbock art and culture.

The central component of the design is to house the artifacts and memorabilia for Lubbock's most famous native son Ð rock 'n' roll icon Buddy Holly. The building already has been rechristened The Buddy Holly Center with the hope that it will one day serve as a focal point for promoting the legacy of artists and musicians who sprang from the dusty plains of West Texas.

In addition to Holly, city officials hope to incorporate exhibits about Roy Orbison, Bob Wills, Waylon Jennings, Mac Davis and many others as part of a West Texas Musician's Hall of Fame. The center also will house the city's fine arts gallery currently located at 26th Street and Avenue P.

Connie Gibbons, manager of cultural arts services for the city, said she would like to host traveling exhibits at the center as well. Already in the works are plans to host a touring photo exhibition in 2001 called State of the Blues. The exhibit features historic and contemporary photographs of blues musicians. Gibbons said she will try to have some of the featured performers visit the center along with music critics and historians who specialize in blues music.

Another possible exhibit is one that features photographs used as covers for Rolling Stone magazine, the youth-centered publication that has reported on rock music since the late 1960s.

There are also traveling puppet shows that can be brought in to attract families with young children, Gibbons said. Once the courtyard is re-bricked, she said, it can be used for numerous activities, including parties, receptions and a monthly acoustical music series.

But the Buddy Holly exhibit will be the main attraction, and the center will finally allow the city to properly display many of the artifacts from the renowned rock 'n' roller's life. The items were purchased in 1995.

Some of the Holly materials that will be on display include the Fender Stratocaster guitar purchased for Holly by his older brother Larry, a suit and tie that he wore while performing, a notebook with his handwritten lyrics to the song ''That'll Be the Day,'' a pair of his signature glasses that he was wearing on the day he died in a plane crash, the original recording contract that misspelled his name Ð Holly instead of Holley Ð and many personal photographs.

Gibbons said she hopes that all the renovations and construction will be completed in time for the grand opening to coincide with next year's Buddy Holly Festival. Currently, there are dozens of volunteers working to bring all of these elements together, Gibbons said.

Mike Thomas can be contacted at 766-8727 or mwthomas@windmill.net