President and Mrs. White react as the student body, including Sphinx Club President Jimmy Kervan, ring them out.
President White prepares to give his final Chapel Talk
Before the President began his remarks, he congratulated Peter Santa Maria on his acceptance into graduate school.
Many students captured the President's Chapel Talk in picture and video.
President White's invocation: 'God, I love Wabash!'
President White told a hilarious story about his adventures with the Dork Club, including several
Daniel Craig apologized to the President for not winning their joint game of Risk.
As he does when he rings in classes, President White asked the huge crowd to stand and get to know one another.
Meet your teachers, gentlemen, said the President.
The students gave President White a prolonged standing ovation at the end of his remarks.
The standing ovation continued for a few minutes.
Student Body President Jeremy Wentzel named Pat and Chris White Honorary Senators.
Wentzel said of Chris White: Mrs. White, we’re really going to miss you! Your tireless assurance that Crawfordsville become a better place over the past seven years shines through the many organizations you have touched with much passion and care.
The student body rang out President and Mrs. White.
Ringing out the President and Mrs. White.
A post-chapel picnic lunch was attended by 500 students, faculty, and staff.
Reva from Bon Appetit kept the sandwich buns refreshed
President White at the luncheon
President Patrick White delivered the final Chapel Talk Thursday of his seven-year presidency with passion, occasional humor, and considerable emotion.
“During this time, gentlemen, we have all worked hard to be worthy of the nurturing love of Wabash College,” the President told a packed Chapel crowd. “ We have laughed and cried together. We have worried together, disagreed about matters of very grave importance, and you have told me when you thought I was decidedly wrong in no uncertain terms. Faculty and staff, we have worked so hard and I have been so amazed at your love and care for the students of Wabash, for your constant creativity in so many ways, nurturing of one another and of our best imagination of who we can be as Wabash.”
He called Wabash a community of learners – students, faculty, staff and alumni. He said all four groups “taught me so much daily about what it means to be Wabash, about leadership and wisdom.”
The morning talk included a few very emotional moments. Jeremy Wentzel ’14, Student Body President, gave brief remarks and presented certificates to the President and Chris White naming them Honorary Senators.
Click here to watch the President's entire Chapel Talk and the following presentation.
But the moment that caught the Whites by surprise and brought a few tears to the Chapel came at the end of Wentzel’s presentation. Students stood in the balcony and used small replicas of Caleb Mills’ bell to “ring out’ the President.
“Here at Wabash, with our Wabash friends, with our colleagues and students, we feel accepted, valued, nurtured, and challenged,” the President said. “I suggest we love this place, this college because here we feel worthy of love. Here our lives matter. You have all heard me praise you gentlemen, saying, you have no idea how good you are. This is another way of saying you have no idea how worthy of respect, how worthy of love you are.
“Family, community, home, friendship, brotherhood, all come to mind as we talk about this place, this world, but Wabash is all these and more, we are a collegio, literally a binding together, a college, bound together not only in the pursuit of knowledge, but in attention, care, affection, and dare I say it, love for one another."
Near the end of his remarks he asked everyone to stand and shake hands with friends, teachers, and those who would be teachers just as he has done each of the past seven Augusts during Freshman Saturday.
He then offered his farewell:
“So no goodbye but fare thee well, Wabash, I will always love thee, and may we together hold this college deep in our care and have it live and prosper as we return to Wabash the love and courage and the power we have learned. May we remember forever,
“Wabash is always awake,
“Wabash Always loves,
“Wabash Always Wonders,
“Wabash always dreams, and through it all,
“Wabash Always Fights, and Always, Always, Always, Always … means Always.”
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