If nobody picked up the phone, callers left messages on an answering machine. Such devices are largely relics today but somehow the one used by Spectrum survived with its original tape.
A librarian and faculty member who had advised the group for years had stored it in her garage. "When I plugged it into the wall, it was so heartwarming and heartbreaking to listen to it.
All these people were saying, "I am so glad you are here,'" recalled Joshua Burford, who earned undergraduate and master's degrees from the university.
Burford, 45, who is queer and grew up in Anniston, Alabama, first listened to the recorded messages in 2008 while assembling the Miller-Stephens GLBTQ UA Student Organization Collection housed at the University of Alabama.