The National Association of Wabash Men presented its annual awards virtually on March 23. These awards are typically presented at Homecoming Chapel. Congratulations to this year’s winners.
Clarence A. Jackson
Distinguished Career Achievement Award
Robert T. Grand ’78
Robert T. Grand, your brothers in the NAWM stand in awe of your remarkable career of public service. While this work is worthy of our highest praise, we also honor you for your love of and commitment to your alma mater. Each and every time Wabash has been in need, you have answered the call—as fraternity advisor, fund raiser, president of the NAWM, and as a member of our Board of Trustees. It is for all of these reasons that we honor you today with the Clarence A. Jackson Distinguished Career Achievement Award. Bob Grand—you are Some Little Giant!
Frank W. Misch Distinguished Service Award
The Founders of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies
It is with a deep sense of gratitude that the NAWM pays tribute to the hard-fought efforts by a group of dedicated young men who founded the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies a half-century ago: Ronald E. Angel, Carlos Lester Armstead, John W. Chambers, Preston Greene, Raymond Griffith, John Alexander Johnson, Dock McDowell, Keith O. Nelson, Anthony R. Partee, Charles G. Ransom, and Victor L. Ransom. While our nation wrestled with the Civil Rights Movement, these 11 men, supported by faculty and administrators, created the MXIBS as a welcoming place of understanding. Over the many decades since, the MXIBS has evolved to become the College’s most important cultural center that brings together students, faculty, staff, and alumni from all beliefs and backgrounds to better appreciate the lived Black experience, or as you wrote in those early days, “to establish a meaningful dialogue between Blacks and whites so that we can begin to understand each other, and hopefully and more importantly, understand ourselves.”
Fredrick J. Urbaska Distinguished Civic Service Award
Thomas P. Murtaugh ’88
Thomas P. Murtaugh, the NAWM is humbled by the way you have lived out our College’s mission of thinking critically, acting responsibly, leading effectively, and living humanely. While many of us strive for those lofty ideals, few Wabash men have such concrete evidence of having done so as you.Jeremy R. Wright Distinguished Young Alumnus AwardRussell D. Harbaugh ’06Russell D. Harbaugh, we honor you for your outstanding achievements in your craft as a screenwriter and film director. You were a record-setting, trash-talking quarterback on the Wabash football team. And yet in spite of your heroics on the gridiron, you are perhaps best remembered at Wabash as an English major and filmmaker. You challenged all of us at Wabash to think differently about what it means to be a man, how students maneuver through Wabash, and what it means to be a college for men. The NAWM celebrates your accomplishments and waits anxiously for what comes next.
NAWM Alumni Admissions Fellow
James A. Wadkins ’84
As a social studies teacher and wrestling coach at Calumet New Tech High School in Gary, Indiana, you have been instrumental in recruiting students and driving interest in Wabash from your school and region. You are so often advocating for young men who have very few options when it comes to exploring colleges. You know—and can demonstrate to them—that Wabash is a place where they will be supported and where they will thrive.
NAWM Alumni Career Services Award
Delon E. Pettiford ’17
Coming through the programs offered by the Center for Innovation, Business, and Entrepreneurship, you were well-versed in career preparation. Now, as an alumnus, you are paying it forward as one of the Schroeder Center’s top volunteers. But you don’t sugarcoat anything; you give our young men a firsthand understanding of what it takes to be successful. The NAWM thanks you for your service to our professional development efforts and lifts you up as a terrific example of what it means to have the No. 1 ranked alumni network in the land.