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At Saturday's Class of 1960 Memorial Service, President Pat White rang Caleb Mills' bell in honor of the 36 men from the class who had died before this year's 50th Renion. Since 1971, Wabash presidents have rung the bell—which Caleb Mills, the College's first faculty member of Wabash, used to call the first class of Wabash students to order in 1833— to welcome incoming classes on Freshman Saturday and bless graduating seniors at Commencement Day.
As he stepped to the podium, President White said, “Gentleman, if you will, stand with me and join me in silence as I take up the bell of Caleb Mills and we together ring out our fallen brothers of the Class of 1960. Men whom we remember young and strong and full of life, men who, like our best imaginations of ourselves, remain always young, strong, full of life, loving and true, good and lively; men who will always be in our hearts and who remain with us forever and always, our brothers and brave Wabash men.”
“To hear that bell consolidated every emotion I was feeling in the Chapel,” Reunion Chair Dick Kite ’60 said following the ceremony. “Three fraternity brothers of mine were on that list they read. And Pat rang the bell so vigorously—I thought he might ring it more mournfully, that it could be maudlin, but it was lively the way he rang it—he captured what we’d imagined when we wanted a celebration of our classmates.”
Photos by Steve Charles
 
 

Bill Wildhack ’60 talks with classmate John Thomas on the steps of the Chapel prior to the service.
 

President White took a moment to explain the history of the Caleb Mills Bell.

Former Class Agents Jim Price ’60 and Fred Scott ’60 stood at the podium and took turns reading the names of the 36 men who had died since the class had sat in this very place on Commencement Day years ago.

When the organist scheduled to play for the service did not arrive, retired dentist Alan White ’60 volunteered to play for the service, providing one of the highlights of the Big Bash. 
"I used to sneak into the Chapel when I was a student and play this organ,” White said following the service. “I’d wanted to accompany the Glee Club back then, but they already had an accompanist.”
While Saturday was his first stint as the Chapel organist, White is no stranger to performing. The former organist for St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Carmel, IN, who has performed concerts with the Carmel Symphony Orchestra as well as many solo piano and organ concerts, White had studied music for 13 years before he became a freshman at Wabash and continued his studies for a master's degree in piano performance at Butler University.
Still, Saturday's performance had special significance.
“It took me back to those times I would sneak in here to play, the hours I spent here," he said. "To have the first time I’d played this organ for an audience in this place be in front of my class, for this service, is overwhelming. I cherished every minute of it.”
 
 

Caleb Mills' Bell 

The College's Pioneer Chapel