NORMAL - Illinois State University bid farewell Friday to its oldest residence halls with a formal ceremony on the lawn between Dunn-Barton and Walker halls.

"We heard it was being taken down and decided to come to this," said Kathy Bromer, a Naperville woman who spent the early 1980s as a student living in Dunn Hall. "It is a little sad, but they're old."

She joined classmates Linda Stoops of Lemont and Sandra Fey of Normal at the decommissioning ceremony and building tours that followed.

"Those buildings were old when we went here," Fey added.

The circa-1950 residence halls that make up central campus will be razed this summer to make way for a nearly $44 million, 170,000-square-foot Student Fitness and Kinesiology and Recreation Center.

In February, ISU trustees OK'd spending $1.3 million to tear down the buildings.

Before the halls are torn down, workers must clear asbestos and lead paint, among other tasks.

As part of the campus's long-range housing renovation plan, those buildings won't be replaced.

Before the buildings are demolished, workers will retrieve artifacts from the red brick buildings. Some will be incorporated into the new student fitness building, while others, such as bricks, will be sold to individuals wanting a piece of the history, said Steve Adams, ISU student affairs vice president.

He led the Friday afternoon program.

Among guests were John Scott of Bloomington, the grandson of Richard Dunn, for whom one of the buildings was named. Standing with with daughter Erin Scott, now a senior at ISU, Scott recalled being an 8-year-old attending the opening ceremony of the buildings in 1951.

He also got a kick out of the building being replaced by a fitness center. "Kinesiology was my major," he said, laughing.

Adams talked about the buildings' history, including Walker Hall's time as home to ISU's International House, and about the decades of culture that flowed through those halls.

"Today is undeniably bittersweet. But the memories, the memories of this building are their legacy," said Adams, noting 44,000 people had called the three dorms home.

State Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa, who at one time was ISU's student body president, shared his memories from life in Walker Hall in the 1970s.

"This was not a day I was looking forward to," he said.

He shared stories of camaraderie, collegiality and friendly pranks in Walker Hall. And Amy Vito, who currently leads the student government for the central-campus dorms, also said she and fellow students had created a time capsule of life in 2008 to go into the new building.

ISU President Al Bowman called decommissioning the residence halls an emotional moment.

He said wherever he travels and meets ISU alumni, the ones who lived in central campus always have memories to share.

"But Illinois State is an institution where heritage meets vision," he said, noting he hopes to find the same depth of feeling from students in the future who form memories in the new fitness center.