Honor Scholars Weekend

Sometimes you can almost feel this place fairly humming with excitement.  Homecoming week, Bell week and the last week of classes are examples of high energy times on campus. Add Honor Scholar weekend to that list and put it right near the top. This weekend there are nearly 300 young men visiting Wabash. Everywhere you look on campus you see the prospective  students and most of the time you see them chatting with another student or a member of the faculty of staff. What you rarely see is one of these visitors looking lost or alone. The whole campus is engaged in the effort to welcome the young men who will make up the Class of 2018.  

To celebrate this special weekend which welcomes the next class of Wabash men to the Brotherhood, I thought it might be nice to share some pictures from long ago.

 

This is the class of 1926 and their freshman bonfire. Somewhere in this class is Richard “Dick” Elwell Banta – who often referred to himself as the world’s oldest living sophomore. Dick served Wabash well for many years, sometimes as an admissions officer, sometimes as a fundraiser, sometimes as magazine editor. In short, he did what needed to be done to keep the doors of this place open during its toughest times.

 

 

 

This is the class of 1924 as freshmen and somewhere in this class photo is John P. Collett, later Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Wabash.

 

 

 

 

 

This image was scanned for the reunion book for the class of 1961. It looks like the freshmen have it! Now that is a picture full of energy and focus…and grease!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the class of 1962 at the traditional pep rally at the courthouse downtown. In their pajamas and pots, they are having a ball!

 

 

 

 

Here’s the point in all these photos, the clothes change, the traditions change, the technology changes, but if you just look at the faces of all of these young men, there is a lot that is the same! Like their youthful exuberance or their delight in being “on their own” for the first time. We can see the fun they are having in one another’s company. We feel their delight in meeting new friends, many of whom will stick right with them for the rest of their lives. We feel the brotherhood amongst them all. They are timeless, they are Wabash men.