Moments
| SPRING 2021
The National Association of Wabash Men presented its annual awards virtually on March 23. These awards are typically presented at Homecoming Chapel. Congratulations to this year’s winners. Clarence A. Jackson Distinguished Career Achievement Award Robert T. Grand ’78 Robert T. Grand, your brothers in the NAWM stand in awe of your remarkable career of public service. While this work is worthy of our highest praise, we also honor you for your love of and commitment to your alma mater. Each and every time Wabash has been in need, you have answered the call—as fraternity advisor, fund raiser, president of the NAWM, and as a member of our Board of Trustees. It is for all of these reasons that we honor you today with the Clarence A. Jackson Distinguished Career Achievement Award. Bob Grand—you are Some Little Giant!
Jeremy R. Wright Distinguished Young Alumnus Award Russell D. Harbaugh ’06 Russell D. Harbaugh, we honor you for your outstanding achievements in your craft as a screenwriter and film director. You were a record-setting, trash-talking quarterback on the Wabash football team. And yet in spite of your heroics on the gridiron, you are perhaps best remembered at Wabash as an English major and filmmaker. You challenged all of us at Wabash to think differently about what it means to be a man, how students maneuver through Wabash, and what it means to be a college for men. The NAWM celebrates your accomplishments and waits anxiously for what comes next.
Frank W. Misch Distinguished Service Award The Founders of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies It is with a deep sense of gratitude that the NAWM pays tribute to the hard-fought efforts by a group of dedicated young men who founded the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies a half-century ago: Ronald E. Angel, Carlos Lester Armstead, John W. Chambers, Preston Greene, Raymond Griffith, John Alexander Johnson, Dock McDowell, Keith O. Nelson, Anthony R. Partee, Charles G. Ransom, and Victor L. Ransom.
NAWM Alumni Admissions Fellow James A. Wadkins ’84 As a social studies teacher and wrestling coach at Calumet New Tech High School in Gary, Indiana, you have been instrumental in recruiting students and driving interest in Wabash from your school and region. You are so often advocating for young men who have very few options when it comes to exploring colleges. You know—and can demonstrate to them—that Wabash is a place where they will be supported and where they will thrive.
While our nation wrestled with the Civil Rights Movement, these 11 men, supported by faculty and administrators, created the MXIBS as a welcoming place of understanding. Over the many decades since, the MXIBS has evolved to become the College’s most important cultural center that brings together students, faculty, staff, and alumni from all beliefs and backgrounds to better appreciate the lived Black experience, or as you wrote in those early days, “to establish a meaningful dialogue between Blacks and whites so that we can begin to understand each other, and hopefully and more importantly, understand ourselves.”
NAWM Alumni Career Services Award Delon E. Pettiford ’17 Coming through the programs offered by the Center for Innovation, Business, and Entrepreneurship, you were well-versed in career preparation. Now, as an alumnus, you are paying it forward as one of the Schroeder Center’s top volunteers. But you don’t sugarcoat anything; you give our young men a firsthand understanding of what it takes to be successful. The NAWM thanks you for your service to our professional development efforts and lifts you up as a terrific example of what it means to have the No. 1 ranked alumni network in the land.
Honorary Alumnus Stephen R. Morillo H’91 The NAWM would be hard-pressed to find another member of the Wabash faculty who so fully embraces and lives out the liberal arts as you. While you are an accomplished historian, you demonstrate to our students the importance of a full, fun, and well-rounded life. Honorary Alumna Lora Holmberg Hess H’15 We knew you would be a different Wabash First Lady in the autumn of your first semester on our campus. We quickly learned you brought your own academic and professional bona fides. Your experience at other colleges and your insight into philanthropy helped Wabash make significant changes to be more welcoming to the spouses and partners of our alumni. Your genuine affection for Wabash and its people is contagious. Lora, you helped so many Wabash men see that they are their best selves because of the women and men in their lives, and you devoted your time and talent to welcoming all of us. Honorary Alumnus Gregory D. Hess H’19 Your departure during the pandemic prevented us from paying tribute to all that you accomplished as the 16th president of our College. History will remember you as an innovative and creative leader whose ability to see around corners positioned Wabash for success at a time when so many excellent liberal arts colleges are suffering. We thank you for pushing us to develop a better way of talking about Wabash. You challenged us to lead with our outcomes; to tell the world that we are great, not how we achieve our greatness.
Raised over $1.375 million (new record)
8 Challenges unlocked $520,000 Gifts were made by alumni and students from every class from the Class of 1948 to the Class of 2025 (77 years) 73 Affinity Challenges led by 289 challengers Over 5,800 gifts 782 gifts made by Wabash Parents Athletics Affinity Challenges had more than 1,000 gifts Class of 1991 led all alumni classes with 175 gifts in honor of its 30th Reunion The hashtag #AllforOneWabash was used 1,030 times that day
Fredrick J. Urbaska Distinguished Civic Service Award Thomas P. Murtaugh ’88 Thomas P. Murtaugh, the NAWM is humbled by the way you have lived out our College’s mission of thinking critically, acting responsibly, leading effectively, and living humanely. While many of us strive for those lofty ideals, few Wabash men have such concrete evidence of having done so as you.
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