WILLIAM HAMM INTERIM PRESIDENT
When I earned my BA in the spring of 1966, I was grateful for the opportunities at Wartburg. For me, it rang true when we sang “college of our brightest days.” It still does.
On that day I was particularly grateful for my parents’ encouragement and financial support. I was a first-generation student and also from a low-income family, although neither my parents nor I were mindful of those descriptors.
Still, I recall being told that my dad was yanked out of the eighth grade to work the family farm, and that’s part of the reason my parents were determined that I go to college. Life was very much about carving out a better future for one’s children. I was a beneficiary of that sacrifice.
My parents are the ones that decided it had to be a Lutheran liberal arts college. How did they come to know that?
Somewhere in a drawer I have a photo of me at commencement with my parents, sister, an uncle and two aunts. All four women are wearing hats, so it must have been a big deal, since I don’t have any other photos of them wearing hats.
The older I get, the more I realize what a big deal it was. At the time, it seemed like what any responsible young person would do, but I didn’t realize the extent to which my parents were exceptional in their encouragement or that my hometown was exceptional in its encouragement. God’s blessings often unfold in the encouragement of others.
Moreover, as I have traveled the world I have come to appreciate how much we are blessed by the good fortune of being born Americans. It’s not that we are created superior, but by the location of our births we are surely blessed with superior opportunities – opportunities that are unimaginable to most of the rest of the world.
So, you are richly blessed. I am too. I got to spend a whole year with you. Wow! Every day was a joy, an inspiration, intellectually and spiritually stimulating and yes, a blessing. Thanks for the encouragement.
College of our brightest days, unto thee we chant our praise.