You would have been hard pressed to find a kinder, happier person than Trace Bulger ’19 when he was on campus.
“He was so happy to be here at Wabash,” BKT Assistant Professor of Art Matt Weedman says. “We as faculty were kind of in awe of him. He was a beacon of positive energy like I had never witnessed in a student in my entire life.”
The Sigma Chi junior was a member of the football and track and field teams, but he made an effort to meet everyone on campus and bring them together. Every week, he would invite a diverse group of people over for “Trace’s Munch” to enjoy the food he’d cook and get to know each other better.
But at the same time he was savoring his college days, Trace was developing symptoms of a complicated neurological problem. Today, the former football player and shotput-thrower is mostly homebound. He cannot talk, use his hands or fingers well, or walk without assistance. After seeing specialists across the country, all his family has been able to find out is that he has some symptoms of one thing, some of another. His diagnosis is basically down to either an autoimmune disease or some progressive neurodegenerative disease of unknown cause.
“People leave campus and the fraternity all the time, but normally they’re headed to something that will be better for them,” Trace’s fraternity brother Oliver Page ’19 says. “The saddest thing about Trace was, he was forced to leave because of his condition.”
Trace’s absence is deeply felt. His friends write letters, gather to pray the Rosary at the same time his family does every Sunday, and a group of students is working on bringing “Trace’s Munch” back.
“He’s still our brother,” Page said. “He’s still a member of our fraternity and our class. We aren’t going to let that change.”