The Big Question
WM asked our readers: "Have you had a moment or experience that really shook up your life?
PRICELESS
On a sunny afternoon in late August 1950—the summer before my senior year in high school—my mother and I were at home when a shiny black Cadillac pulled up in front of our modest, working-class home. Out stepped a distinguished-looking gentleman in a dark business suit, wearing a fedora. My mother answered the knock on the door.
“Is Roger here?” the man asked. “I am Frank Sparks, president of Wabash College, and I have some exciting news for him.”
She invited Dr. Sparks in and he gave us the news—one of the College's corporate donors was giving me a four-year scholarship to Wabash in memory of my father.
My father had passed away five years earlier at a very young age. He had worked for a local company that had a very close relationship with the donor corporation during the World War II years.
Until that big moment, we had no idea if college would be financially possible, but this act of corporate generosity was about to start a 17-year-old “with a skull still full of mush” on an unimaginable journey. I would become the first in our family to obtain a college education.
I had no idea the impact that four years at Wabash would have on my life. To have a faculty mentor like Ben Rogge step into a fatherless young man's life and give him guidance for a lifetime of learning was priceless.
—P. ROGER KUMLER ’55
LIFE SAVERS
My junior year I was a member of the Wabash Crew. We would wake up around 4 a.m., drive to Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis, practice, then drive back to Wabash in time for morning classes. One morning we were driving on I-74 and saw that a Chevy S-10 had been T-boned by a semi. Our entire group sprang into action…on our way to the truck, we noticed it was on fire. I ran to a stopped semi to grab a fire extinguisher, one of the guys broke out the rear window and crawled inside to start working on the driver’s seat belt to get him out. A couple guys were using shirts and hats to scoop ditch water to pour on the driver and keep the fire at bay. We were worried about spinal injury and had to be careful extracting the driver.
We succeeded in pulling the driver to safety just in time to watch his truck explode.
Moments later an ambulance arrived. The paramedics stabilized the driver and credited us with saving his life.
We were late to practice and debated not going; but, Wabash Always Fights…
—THOMA MATTOX ’95
SAVED!
In March of 2016 I was struggling to breathe, and my wife, Dianne, convinced me to get to the hospital—St. Joseph Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania. A seven-and-a-half hour operation gave me a new life with a quadruple bypass and a new heart valve.
In August of the same year, my heart just stopped—no pulse, no heartbeat. Dianne kept oxygen going to my brain until the police and EMTs got there. They got my heart started, then wrapped me in sheets and drove me to the hospital, where I was in a coma for three days. Then, amazingly, I woke up. I left three days later with a pacemaker and defibrillator.
I have had no problems with my mind and memory, but my life has been forever changed. I had been a coach for 46 years, and I had to give it up. I finally realized the stress it was causing me.
I now value every day like it could be my last. Dianne was amazing through all of this; she saved my life.
—HARRY MCGONIGLE ’68
“YOU ARE NOT TO RETURN”
Just prior to the College’s Christmas break in 1960 I got a note to meet with Dean Norm Moore in his office. The Dean was short and to the point: “Feit, you are not to return to Wabash for the second semester.”
For one who was a speech major, sudden shock muted any thought of response. My student teaching experience had gone well. But a dribble of Cs, a couple Ds, and an F going into my final senior semester did not bode well for graduation.
Finding a position with the State Employment Security Division in the Bloomington office, I signed up limestone cutters for winter unemployment payments. Life in a college town with no real responsibilities. What could be better?
Then came April, and, with the sudden death of my father, Ralph Feit, Wabash Class of 1913, I realized I needed to make a change, and I made it swiftly. I had not only let down my father, but, likewise, my family and friends. I had let down Dean Moore, for I had pledged to return and complete my degree.
I completed the next school year at Wabash and went into the field of teaching at the high-school level. Along the way I found my true passion in teaching speech and theater.
In 1993 I was humbled when Wabash awarded me an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for leading in the creation of the first Fine Arts Standards for Theatre Arts in Indiana.
At the ceremony during the rededication of the Wabash Fine Arts Center, there was the real presence of my speech professors, Vic Powell and Joe O’Rourke, along with the spiritual presence of W. Norwood Brigance, Norman Moore, Ralph Feit, and all who had touched my life during those days at Wabash.
That shock on a brisk day in the Winter of 1960 shaped me into who I am today.
—THOM FEIT ’62
MEDICAL MYSTERY
The one big event that shook up my life was the near death of a student-athlete who is now a Wabash alum—Luke Knutson ’17.
I am a certified athletic trainer at a high school and one Friday before a football game I came across Luke sitting outside our high school shivering on an 85-degree day. He didn't feel well, but wanted to go to the big conference game. His older brother was on the team and I convinced him to call his dad to take him home so he could rest and be ready for next week.
The next day I received a call from his mom stating they had taken Luke to Med Express and that he was tested for mono. They also wanted to know of a good doctor to look at his elbow, which was bothering him. I made an appointment for him to be seen by an orthopedic doctor on Tuesday. In the meantime he went to Med Express again for further testing, and they still were telling him he had mono.
At the ortho appointment, the doctor took one look at Luke, sent him down to the ER, and put him in isolation. Tests revealed that he was septic. He was taken via ambulance to Riley Children’s Hospital, had surgery for sepsis, had three teaspoons of infection taken out of his humerus, and was put on IV antibiotics.
About a week after returning to school part time, he felt well enough to come by football practice. I asked to see his scar; it had a huge “blister” over it. I immediately called his mom and told her he needed to be seen ASAP. His mom called later that night. He had another infection and was going to have to have another operation.
After another stay in the hospital, he was able to go home.
Luke finished his high-school career and played football at Wabash for two years before he had to "retire" due to this injury.
To this day no one knows how he became septic. I think of this experience often—it will always be a part of the way I treat each injury and approach the essential precautions we take.
—SALLY YOUNG (mother of Mason Young ’22), whose work as an athletic trainer is the driving force behind Lewis Cass High School’s receiving the Safe Sports School Award from the National Athletic Trainers Association this year.
(Luke Knutson talks about his experience at WM Online.)
SMARTPHONE?
The moment that shook up my life was buying my first smartphone. Convenience, maybe; downtime, rarely. Smarter and more focused? Definitely not!
—LANCE MORE ’91