TFAA History
Early History
“On Friday afternoon, June 1, 1923, seven of the former graduates of the Toccoa Falls Institute met at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Forrest to organize an Alumni Association.” So reads the first paragraph of the minutes of that meeting, giving birth to the Alumni Association. 
The first business of the meeting, besides the organization of the association, was planning a dinner at which members of the Class of 1923 would be welcomed into the organization. A week later a meeting was called at which time a rough draft of the Constitution was submitted. At the same meeting, a motion was made and carried stating annual dues should be one dollar, and that members should pledge to contribute financially as able toward “permanent improvements upon the Institute grounds.” On June 7, 1924, the first alumni project of building stone pillars for a new entrance to the school was approved.
Mrs. Evelyn Forrest kept the earliest student records in a large ledger. However, as time passed, handwritten records became cumbersome.
In addition to students from the Bible school, high school, and elementary school, a unit of the government-established National Youth Administration was set up at Toccoa Falls, which taught mechanical, agricultural, and commercial courses to hundreds of youth. Also, many students and former students in the military during and after the war had moved frequently, making it difficult to keep up with addresses. Mrs. Kelly Barnes became concerned about accessibility of records for transcripts as the school began to grow. In 1939, Alice Barnes hired one of the business students, Elizabeth (Mires, 1939) Anderson, to begin work on a filing system for alumni records. In 1945, there was a request sent out for alumni to keep their addresses updated, a difficulty still experienced today.
