When Evan Bone ’26 arrived at Wabash College, he wasn’t quite sure where he was headed. But he figured that out one new experience at a time.
“A lot of my high school experience was spent figuring myself out emotionally,” Bone said. “Once I got to Wabash, it was like, now I just need to fly.”
Four years later, he’s far more certain. As an English major with a creative nonfiction focus, he has found something that feels almost therapeutic, a way of making his world make sense.
“What I really enjoy about creative nonfiction is that I get to connect a lot of different topics and areas of my own life to create a narrative of how these things work together,” he said. “By writing and really putting time into fleshing out what I think about the world and how I view my own experiences, it allows me to make more sense of my life and then hopefully help others make sense of their life through reading it.”
Putting together his senior writing portfolio, Bone realized the small gains, especially when compared to some of his freshman-year work.
“Reading the old stuff can make you laugh,” he said. “Now, I think Wabash has really made my dream of being a writer more clearly defined. When I started, I said, ‘I want to be a writer,’ tentatively and anxiously. Now, I comfortably call myself a writer.”
Beyond his classroom exploits, Bone has served as a writing consultant in the Wabash Writing Center, helping countless Wabash students write more clearly.
The Bachelor sharpened him further. As opinion editor for the campus newspaper, he mastered writing with journalistic clarity and perhaps most importantly, convincing others to share their opinions has broadened his range.
He sees the workshops, the editing, the criticism, as preparation for the MFA in creative writing he plans to pursue in the coming years.
His calm approach and easy-going manner make it easy for others to talk about writing, according to Zachery Koppelmann, director of the Wabash Writing Center.
“Those skills are the best things he brings to the Writing Center,” he said. “Talking about writing is not always fun or comfortable, but he calms writers and helps them get past the uncomfortable nature of sessions. He also thinks carefully before he speaks, which helps others understand that he is focused on them and takes them seriously. Evan has developed his mentoring skills and methods, and he has stoked his passion to support others.”
Bone also discovered a leadership on campus with College Mentors for Kids (CMFK), a group that connects local youth to college students through weekly on-campus activities. He rose in his four years in the organization from a mentor to a term as president.
He set ambitious goals as president: more diverse programming that exposed fourth and fifth graders to campus life, including the Fine Arts Center and Wabash traditions. The organization grew from 22 to 28 mentor-mentee pairs under his watch, and exceeded its fundraising target by 150 percent, hitting the goal by the end of the fall semester.
“I’m really proud of that well-roundedness of reaching recruitment goals, activity goals, and fundraising goals,” he said. “I didn't do anything leadership-wise in high school, so discovering that here was really rewarding.”
For Bone, the CMFK value can’t be measured. He recalls a conversation at the annual end-of-year celebration with a grandfather who was raising his grandson alone while the child's parents battled various issues. “He told me, ‘I’ve seen him grow through his time in College Mentors and you guys do so much for us while we're having this big, unstable battle,’” Bone remembered. “I realized that I have power and a space in the world to help.”
Bone earned a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Estonia in April and hopes to finish an MFA within five
years. A Ph.D. is also in his sights.
His goal is to be an English professor, and Wabash has given him a preview of what that life demands. He organized the 2026 East Central Writing Centers Administration annual conference in March, wrangling spreadsheets, scheduling rooms, and managing presenters gave him a fuller picture of academic life beyond the classroom.
“The skillset I'll need to be a professor is pretty robust,” he said. “You think of being in the classroom, you think of writing and grading, but then add organization, logistics, and the people-person skills of talking to so many different people.”
As for what he'll miss most about Wabash, Bone doesn't hesitate to mention the closeness and comfort of campus.
“In many ways, the college environment has parts of life that I wish could last forever," he said. "Having your friends next door, being able to go talk to a professor I look up to, the tightness of this community, and the willingness of everyone to engage and treat you like a friend."
He is not, however, leaving empty-handed. Koppelmann says that Bone, the 2026 winner of the Robert S. Edwards Creative writing award, is not just a writer, but a leader, and mentor.
“As he learned how effective a good mentor can be, his desire to support his others has grown,” Koppelmann said. “He sees that he can make a major impact on everyone he meets, and that drives him to be his best.”