Don’t ask me why I love Wabash.
I’ve always struggled with that question. It’s like asking me why I love my kids. Can you pick out one or two things that capture all you love about them? Can you adequately describe what it means to be a parent? No. It’s a million reasons that you just know the minute you look at their faces. It’s joy, pride, heartbreak, and anxiety. It’s just hard. My kids challenge me all the time. I learn something new about myself every day.
Kind of like Wabash—it’s such an intangible thing that is difficult to explain unless you’ve experienced it. Joy, anxiety, challenge, accomplishment. I grew up at Wabash. Perhaps that’s why I always feel at home when I’m on campus. Wabash is my place. It’s a place where I feel comfort and pride.
Had it not been for my dad, I may never have known Wabash. His story is the Wabash story.
Paul Hawksworth Jr. ’56 grew up in a low-income household in Chicago. As a kid, he aspired to be a foreman at the local canning factory just like his dad. He never dreamed about going to college until these guys from Wabash saw him play football and offered him a scholarship. He didn’t even really understand what getting a scholarship meant or why they wanted him. Suddenly an impossible dream he never knew he had was made possible.
Wabash changed my dad’s life. It moved mountains. It was that big of a shift for him—and then for us, his family. Instead of spending his life on the line in a canning factory, he went on to become the CEO of an international company, traveling the world, and opening up new possibilities for my mom, my siblings, and me.
However, he never forgot what Wabash did for him. He made it his life’s mission to continually say thank you. For that, and for so many other reasons, he was the greatest role model a kid could have. He was generous—not only to Wabash, but to many causes he believed in.
I learned to give by watching him as I grew up. He loved Wabash and poured himself into it. He gave financially, but he was also involved on the National Association of Wabash Men (NAWM) board and served as a trustee. He hosted many events, endowed funds for the Glee Club, and went on to receive an Alumni Award of Merit.
I am incredibly grateful for what Wabash has done for me, too. So, during the Giant Steps Campaign, my wife, Rem, and I drew upon his inspiration and made a pledge to endow a scholarship in my father’s name—The Paul D. “Howie” Hawksworth Jr. ’56 Memorial Scholarship. It’s a way we can honor Dad while also helping the college he loved, and I love, continue its mission to change the lives of young men.
Dad made loving those people and places he believed in look easy. But I know my parents made sacrifices for my siblings and me and for him to be as involved at Wabash as he was. No matter what, they always managed to dig a little deeper—for us and for Wabash.
When my parents were first together, my mom heard all about Wabash. She didn’t have the opportunity to attend college and certainly didn’t understand the affinity Dad had for the small school in Crawfordsville.
I will never forget a story Dad once told me. At a certain point early in their relationship, he took Mom to campus for the first time, likely Homecoming Weekend. It was very important to him that she visit the place that meant so much to him. As they were driving back home to Chicago, the car was quiet. Then Mom said, “Paul,” and he looked at her and she said, “Now I get it.”
Like so many of us, I bet she wouldn’t have been able to explain why she got it either. It’s just something you have to experience yourself. I’d like to think that she came to understand what an important role Wabash had played in shaping the man with whom she had fallen in love.
It is our hope that in some small way our scholarship will help young men realize their dream of attending Wabash so that they too can go on to achieve something they never knew possible.
In Wabash,
Jim Hawksworth ‘96
President | NAWM