Student yearbooks from St. Andrews Presbyterian College (now St. Andrews University) are now online at DigitalNC. Yearbooks from St. Andrews span from 1962, when the college’s first class graduated, to 2010.

The collection also includes the yearbooks from two now-defunct schools: Flora Macdonald College of Red Springs, N.C., and Presbyterian Junior College of Maxton, N.C. The names of these yearbooks reflect the Scottish heritage of the Sandhills region of North Carolina: the White Heather and the Bagpipe. Several volumes of the White Heather, including this one, are actually covered in tartan.

Student yearbooks from Brevard College are now available on DigitalNC.

The online collection includes a few yearbooks from two of the schools that preceded Brevard College: Weaver College and Rutherford College.

The Brevard yearbook has been called “The Pertelote” since 1935, the name coming from “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” one of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, and referring to the relationship between Brevard and Duke University. The editors of the 1935 volume write, “The name of this book signifies our relationship to our big brother, Duke University. The title of Duke’s annual is ‘The Chanticleer’. In Chaucer’s old tale, Pertelote was the hen most loved by the valiant Chanticleer. So, since we are in various ways connected with Duke, and particularly of the same religious denomination, we elected to call our annual The Pertelote.”

Fifty-three volumes of “The Spire”, Belmont Abbey College’s student yearbook, are now available on DigitalNC.org. In addition, yearbooks from the now-defunct Sacred Heart College, contributed by the Sisters of Mercy Archives (Belmont, N.C.), are also available. These volumes range in date from 1933 to 1987, when the college closed its doors.

Student yearbooks from Davidson College are now accessible through DigitalNC. Students, friends, and alumni can easily browse over 100 volumes of “Quips and Cranks” going as far back as 1895.

Astronaut Ronald McNair, who died 25 years ago today in the space shuttle Challenger explosion, was a graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. McNair was a member of the class of 1971, and appears a couple of times in the 1971 edition of the The Ayantee, the student yearbook. His senior photo is at left, and a photo from the school karate club is below.

Many of the stories marking the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion mention McNair, who was only the second African American to enter space. The piece that ran this morning on NPR has an especially good story about an early act of courage at a public library in South Carolina.