• • oor ree Hall unites as a brotherhood Eve')' £all the walls ofKeller Hall echoed with the sound ofmen as theymoved theirwardrobes and video game systems into the rooms that they would call home for the following months. The fall of 2005 was no different and brought with it a group of more than 30 men who had formed a bond that would probably last their entire lives. The friendships started in the fall of2D03 when 30 men met their freshman year in Harbin HalL The bond among them started with their first week of school and became strong right away when what started as an all-night conversation among freshmen became a group of friends who said they would last a lifetime, sophomore James Calhoun said. "We stayed up talking and laughing for hours," Calhoun said. "[We were] taJking about random stuff. Because of that, we JUSt kept [getting together], and everything developed into a great friendship." That semester all the men lived on the same hall on the third Roor of Harbin, and started calling themselves the Floor Three Fellas, which they said evolved in to the "F3F." "Ie's kind oflike a brotherhood," freshman Darryl Collins said. "It's a group of guys who would do anything to help each other out. Everyone has got everyone's back." Weekly devotionals, prayer groups and rock– scissors-paper tournaments were just some of the things that strengthened the bond among the group of men. They also had cookouts each semester and celebrated the Canadian Thanksgiving together, in honor oftheir friends from Canada, sophomore Vince Ching and junior Jeff Davis. "They are like my family," Calhoun said. "More than family because I do everything with these guys. I love them." Their friendship remained active through– out each year of school by going on trips and hanging out together. They said the highlight of the last two years had been taking a spring break trip down to Vero Beach, Fla., where sophomore Travis Eslinger and junior George Wadsworth lived. The men remained close friends for more than two years as many ofthem stayed together and moved into Keller Hall. "Our friendship goes further than Harding," Eslinger said. ''Acouple ofmeguyswho left school moved to Searcy just to be close to us." Eslinger said they had discussed starting a church-planting team or possibly moving to the same place to help a small church grow so they could stay together later in life. Smaller groups with in the large group of friends enjoyed common interests such as fish– ing, going to concerts and playing video games. Several ofthe men played on the lacrosse team and 11 were in Knights social club. Though group dynamics changed and only 15 original F3F members remained close in 2005, 19 new friends had grown close to the men and their friendship continued to grow. They stopped always referring to themselves as the F3F because they said they did not want to seem exclusive to only certain people. "The name is not what makes us," Calhoun said. "If anything, it is loosely used; Jove is what makes us." -BreonnoWood
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