last long, but continued the growth and prosperity of Lees Junior College. In 1961, Troy R. Eslinger became president of Lees and remained in post for 27 years. Eslinger oversaw many changes to the campus, including the renovation of Old Lees and the removal of the belltower. In 1963 the board of trustees began plans to build a new dorm room because of the overflow of Jackson Hall and the very small Bach Hall. With the help of the E.O. Robinson Mountain Fund and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Meteer, the new dorm was completed in 1966. It was called Meteer Hall, as the Meteers had donated $10,000 towards it. Around the same time, E.O. Robinson Mountain Fund provided a second gift as it proposed to donate $25,000 to the college on the basis that they match the funds. This was the start of the plans for the new Library/Science Building on campus. By the 1980s, Lees trustees were planning to update more of its campus. In Nancy Stamper Begley's Had It Not Been for Lees, she talks about plans for a new Performing Arts Student Center, with building to begin in the 1983–84 school year. The project fell through, possibly because of financial difficulties. Lees Junior College officially changed its name to Lees College in 1984. It remained a private two-year liberal arts college despite the name change. Eslinger retired in 1988. Financial difficulties in the 1990s In the 1990s Lees had financial problems. This was due to many factors: being a private college in a region of poverty; the spread of public institutions nearby; competition with other institutions for funding; little endowment; and many other factors. Enrollment was not the problem – the college was about average with about a 350 student population. The board of trustees asked Charles Derrickson (a former alumnus and faculty member of Morehead State University) to help fix the situation after William Bradshaw resigned to move to another institution in 1992. Derrickson found that it was financially difficult to keep the college going and felt that the only way to not have the doors closed would be to have an outside institution take over. He convinced the board that this was the case. Derrickson looked into several different institutes including Morehead State University, Pikeville College (now University of Pikeville), and the University of Kentucky. Eventually, the University of Kentucky were interested as they had