Melvin L. Stratton was born in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. While attending public schools there, he worked at a printing business and with his father, who was a cabinetmaker. Meanwhile, he tore down auto engines as a hobby. After working on the stage crew both in Cleveland and in Greenville, he graduated from BJU in 1951. In 1953, R. K. Johnson asked him to return to BJU to become stage manager. The following year, when the University acquired the stage machinery from Center Theater in New York City, Stratton dismantled the lifts and turntables and then reassembled them all in Rodeheaver Auditorium, apparently with no photos or written plans. As Dan Turner has written, “He could build anything a stage designer could conceive and repair anything a stagehand could break.” Following his death, the Concert Center was renamed Stratton Hall in his honor.