WABASH COLLEGE Class Agents Letter Class of 1988 Alumni and Parent Relations P.O. Box 352 Class Agents Crawfordsville, IN 47933 Greg Teague Web site: www.wabash.edu Scott Smalstig Email us: [email protected] Scott Quick Phone: (765) 361-6369
January 3, 2013
Greetings Gentlemen,
I hope everyone had a very happy holiday season and that the New Year is treating each of you well. Now that the year has turned and my life is getting back to some semblance of normalcy I wanted to get a letter out to everyone to recap some news and to look forward to our upcoming 25th Class Reunion at the Big Bash 2013.
I was able to make it back to Wabash at the end of September for much of the Homecoming weekend festivities. While there I was able to share a very enjoyable dinner on Friday night with both Eric Stark and Scott Smalstig at the celebration for the Challenge of Excellence campaign. Sorry Brother Quick, you should have answered your phone, both the dinner and the company were great. Highlights from the evening can be found at http://www.wabash.edu/news/displaystory.cfm?news_ID=9648. For those with inquiring minds, the Challenge of Excellence had a goal of raising $60 million by the end of 2013. The campaign ended over a year ahead of schedule with a total of $68,116,695. Thank you to all who contributed over the past couple years, what an outstanding accomplishment.
In addition to the Challenge of Excellence dinner, the weekend marked the 100th anniversary of Homecoming and the 120th anniversary of the Wabash College Glee Club. A particular highlight of Friday evening was a performance of Old King Cole by the Alumni Glee Club, under the direction of our own Eric Stark. Eric also directed the Glee Club during Alumni Chapel and at the Homecoming concert on Saturday evening, an event which I sadly missed. Thanks Eric for sharing your talents over the course of the weekend and congratulations on wrapping up another very busy series of holiday performances as Director of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir.
In early November another one of our own received a very special honor. Every two years the National Association of Wabash Men inducts new members into the Wabash College Athletics Hall of Fame. I am very proud to share that this year the NAWM selected Tom Quackenbush as a member of the Hall of Fame for his outstanding endeavors on the baseball field while at Wabash. Details can be found here http://www.wabash.edu/news/displaystory.cfm?news_ID=9702 Please join me in congratulating Tom on his induction, he’s Some Little Giant.
November also means Bell Game time and this year was no different, okay, maybe a little different. Don’t worry if you didn’t check the score, Wabash won 23-0, sealing a 4 year sweep by the men of the Class of 2013, 4-0 in Monon Bell games. The difference I am referring to was in regards to the rather pathetic attempt by DePauw to steal the Bell from campus. While I don’t usually peruse The DePauw, a very clever name for their newspaper, I couldn’t help but share the following article for your general amusement…http://www.thedepauw.com/news/monon-bell-almost-theft-tradition-1.2949376 . I found the following quote from the article particularly fitting. “Despite losing the bell, all the men were still very pleased with themselves.” Only a Danny…
Turning our attention back to the more educated side of the rivalry, another round of congratulations are in order. This time the kudos go out to Jeff Short. Jeff is an attorney with the firm of Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman here in Indianapolis. Jeff was recently awarded the Charles Christian Leadership Award by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. If you would like to read more about Jeff’s accomplishment please check out the blog post on the Wabash site at http://blogs.wabash.edu/alumni/page/2/ Well deserved my friend, will I be seeing you for our annual ISSMA coffee talk at North Central again this year?
It has been a busy end to 2012 it would seem. If I missed out on any noteworthy news you would like shared with the rest of the class please drop me an email and I will get it into the next letter. But now it is 2013 and time to look forward. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but our 25th reunion is coming up at Big Bash 2013 over the weekend of May 31st through June 2nd. Hopefully many of you have already been contacted by one of the Living Unit reps I mentioned in my last letter and if you haven’t, expect to hear from them soon. I have a couple names to add to the team of reps, Jeff Stahly has stepped up to rally the men of Phi Kappa Psi and Dave Mares has joined the Independent team.
Why do I bring up the Big Bash, well, because we want you to be there. The College will be sending out formal invitations in the coming weeks but the registration website is up and online as I write this. You can find it at https://www.wabash.edu/alumni/reunion/signup so what are you waiting for, get out there and get signed up right now. Yeah, I know you have time but seriously consider getting registered early. Why, because your registration might just be what sparks someone else to register and attend the Big Bash. People want to see their friends at reunions and when they don’t see their friend’s names on the attending list they tend not to sign-up either. Sign-up for as much or as little as you like, put together a foursome for the Wally Wabash Golf Outing Friday morning, catch lunch on campus, come to the reception dinner on Friday night and above all, try to make our Class dinner on Saturday evening. Heck, there’s even a brunch on Sunday.
There is something for everyone, remember that Chapel Sing is Saturday morning. Spouses, partners, significant others, kids and to varying degrees even pets are welcome. Keep in mind there are no kid or pet specific activities and your better half might find all of our reminiscing a bit tedious, but drag them along anyway, they will get over it eventually. Bottom line, get out there and get registered. Many of you have already told us you are attending so make it official. Go ahead and look, my registration is already out there and I hate drinking alone. I might even get talked into playing some golf, who knows.
Good, now that you have registered I want you to do one more thing, contact someone you want to see back at the Bash and convince them to attend. The Reps and I can only do so much; we need your help getting everyone back to Wabash. Don’t forget, the hotel of choice in C’ville is the Holiday Inn Express. They have a block of rooms reserved so tell them you are with the Big Bash. Might want to reserve a place to stay now as rooms are going very quickly there and the Riviera is 25 years older than we remember it being. Phone number for the Holiday Inn Express is (765) 323-4575.
Celebration of achievement has been a recurring theme in this letter and I want to add one more item to the list. In my last letter we introduced the Buy a Brother a Brew campaign; this is our take on the College’s Donor Challenge. Alumni Affairs has challenged our class to get 75 men to make a gift to Wabash by the RSVP deadline for the Big Bash. If we get 75 donors by then, they pick up our bar tab at our Class dinner on Saturday night. The amount you give doesn’t matter, the act of giving to Wabash is what counts. So whether you can make it back for the Bash or not, go ahead and make a gift today, why wait, right? I know, I started this section off by talking about celebration and thus far I’ve just been reaching into your wallet.
Well, I do want to celebrate because as of this writing we are at 44 donors of the 75 Alumni Affairs has challenged us with. Bill Swift would tell you I was never that good at math but it seems to me we are already over halfway to our goal. While we are at it, why not raise the bar a bit, 88 would be a rather poetic donor total in this our 25th year as Alumni. The following men have already made a gift to Wabash this fiscal year, why not join us on the list?
Loren Anderson Gary Bacon Brad Baldauf Joe Bentivoglio Adam Brazus
Ed Broecker Rick Burgett Paul Christian Karl Ellensohn John Elliott
Mark Fritz Mark Gilbert Ben Grisemer Ryan Hartzog Dave Hawksworth
Drew Houseman Chris Janak Marty Kaiser Jim Kelleher Mike Keller
Dave Landau Jonathan Lupton Dave Mares Doug Mawhorr Brian McGue
Tim Morrison Arun Muralidhar Chip Park Adam Price Steve Prince
Jeff Qualkinbush Greg Redding Nick Roth Jeff Short Seung Sim
Scott Smalstig Tim Smith Kurt Spoerle Jeff Stahly Greg Teague
Mark Walker Jim Wszolek Jon Zink
And last but certainly not least, Grace MacKay, the widow of Donald MacKay, who gives to Wabash every year.
I know many of you give and give regularly and that by the end of May your name is usually on this list. All we are asking you to do is give a little earlier. If you don’t regularly make a gift to Wabash what better time than now is there to make one? I didn’t put this list in here to shame or embarrass anyone, I just felt it appropriate to specifically say thank you to those who have already given, we appreciate it and, more importantly, Wabash appreciates it. I intend to have a new list in my next letter for those who give between now and then so that we may continue the celebration. Yeah, I’m having some fun with the whole Buy a Brother a Brew thing and the open bar would be a nice reward for reaching a goal. But the real winner when we give is Wabash College and the students of today who are sitting where we sat all those many years ago, many of whom are probably sweating Comps right about now. When I look back at all Wabash and the education I received there has provided me and my family over the past 25 years it really isn’t that hard for me to reach into my wallet. How about you?
See you at the Bash!
Greg Teague ‘88