Sigma Gamma Rho Founders

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Was Founded November 12, 1922, By Seven Educators In Indiana.

Mary Little, Who Is Is Credited With Being The Primary Founder, Established Sigma Gamma Rho On The Campus Of Historically White, Butler University, In Indianapolis. Vivian Marbury, Bessie Martin, Cubena McClure, Dorothy Whiteside, Nannie Johnson And Hattie Redford, Were The Other Six Women Her Shared Little’s Vision Of And Organization Dedicated To Sisterhood, Scholarship And Service.

Sigma Gamma Rho Was Incorporated December 30, 1929. It Has The Distinction Of Being The First Black Greek Organization On Butler’s Campus. Today It Claims More Than 77,000 Members, With More Than 400 Chapters In The United States And Abroad.

Notable Women Of Sigma Gamma Rho Include: Victoria Rowell (Actress), Vanessa Bell Armstrong (Gospel Recording Artist), Cathy Hughes (Radio One CEO), Hattie McDaniel (America’s First Black Oscar Winner), Anna Maria Horsford (Actress), Cynthia Horner (Editor, Right On Magazine) Tonya Lee Williams (Actress) And Dr. Lorraine Hale (Executive Director, Hale House).

“In Order For Black History To Live, We Must Continue To Breathe Life Into It.” — Hubert Gaddy, Jr.

Hugh Gaddy

Create Your Badge

As someone once accused (behind my back and falsely) of anonymously posting libelous comments about someone on a blog, I have been following with particular interest the story of the Butler University undergraduate student who was sued by the school for publishing libelous and defamatory statements about administrators on a blog.

The blogger, “Soodo Nym,” was critical of administrators for dismissing his stepmother as chair of the University’s school of music.  Among other things, he wrote that the dean of the College of Fine Arts was “power-hungry and afraid of his own shadow” and that he “lied” to faculty and left the meeting “embarrassed” for having done so.  He also sent an email in which he said: “We can create much more trouble than we have so far,” which supposedly put Butler’s provost in fear for his own safety.

Several observations:

• It never ceases to amaze me how thin-skinned some people who reach positions of power can  be.  If you are a leader, you should expect to be criticized, fairly or unfairly, from time to time.  It goes with the territory.
• If there’s any area that should be a “free speech” zone, it is a college campus.  I would not want to attend any institution that sued its students for libel for criticizing, even unfairly, its administrators.
• I would much rather have had my accuser publish his accusations on a blog, rather than behind my back, even if more people might see/hear them.  At least you can refute the former.

“For a minute, I forgot about zombies.” -Britt, an hour after watching 28 Days Later, still shaken

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Went to the Gathering of Readers and Writers last Saturday here in Indy. I freewrote so much I got tired of myself, felt absurd.

Alice Friman’s keynote address bolstered my want for a reading forum in Indy that breathes big breaths, that isn’t panhandling amateur hip hop albums and beating drums and post-apocalyptic shouting through guitar fuzz, that moves like something alive. I’ve an idea inspired by the HTML Giant reading on the El at the Chicago AWP conference last year–guerilla readings–where we all meet in some public space, the IMA, an IndyGo bus, a supermarket, something somewhere, a few people stand up to read, and then it’s over. Dissipate.

During lunch, a guy approached me hard-up to call himself a poet to someone else there. He recommended The Art and Craft of Poetry to me, and when I asked who wrote it he said, “Oh. I don’t know. I’m a poet not an accountant.” I didn’t really understand what he meant by that.

Met Bryan from Book Choy and Booth Journal, who was good people. I’m looking forward to the Booth launch party in a couple weeks. We spoke a bit about what Indy could be.

I want so much from and for this city.

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I’ve so little time these days; I need to fall in love with checklists. I’ll start with a checklist of checklists I need to make:

1. journals I want to get submissions out to
2. groceries to buy
3. home projects
4. books to read
5. poems to write
6. cats to feed
7. debt to pay off
8. friends to call on the phone
9. family to appreciate before we all die
10. governments to topple
11. celebrities I’d be okay with killing if it were a zombie apocalypse and I came upon them as zombies
12. things I could do without (sublist: things I think I want or need beyond what I already have)

Professional baseball is winding down, college and professional football are in full swing, hockey is just getting started, professional basketball has begun, and college basketball is right around the corner.  Yep, the college basketball pre-season poll has been released . . . which means . . . March is just around the corner!    And, it is not even November yet ! 

The Kansas Jayhawks have been awarded the #1 position atop the poll [no pressure] followed by the Michigan State Spartans at #2, the Texas Longhorns at #3, the North Carolina Tar Heels at #4, and the University of Kentucky Wildcats at #5.  Of course, being #1 in November does not mean nearly as much as being #1 in March . . . it will be interesting to see how the season plays out.  High expectations abound in the hopes, desires, and dreams of many teams I’m sure.

The rest of the top ten include the Villanova Wildcats (#6), the Purdue Boilermakers (#7), the Duke Blue Devils (#8), the West Virginia Mountaineers (#9), and the Butler Bulldogs (#10).

The non-conference season begins in two-weeks . . . First up for the Spartan on November 13th, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles.   Let the Madness begin! 

Go Green!

There seems a ton of stuff to catch up on. You miss a lot when you’re gone for a week. First off:

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Also, Write for Your Life: A Gathering of Readers and Writers is happening in a couple weeks for those in the Indy area. Have you registered/are you going? Looking forward to seeing Andrew and Victoria there. Hopefully others.

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I just had an email from a friend whose son is being sued. By the university he attends. The story was covered in Inside Higher Ed, and although I do not know the ins-and-outs of the episode, it reflects poorly on the state of higher education in this country. The student’s stepmother was dismissed from a chair in the Butler University Music Department and he blogged about it, feeling the dismissal was unfair. I am not privy to the details of the dismissal, but I am intimately acquainted with the ensuing scenario. When the student’s identity was learned, his father, my friend, did not have his contract as Dean renewed. The legal suit, claiming defamation, is still pending.

What saddens me perhaps the most, apart from the obvious social justice issues, is the breadth of such retaliation in institutions of higher education. Having once lost a position in higher education “without cause” shortly after making a principled stand against what I understood to be prejudice, I am particularly sensitive to how schools that have money to hire high-powered lawyers seem to have no difficulty in turning on anyone who criticizes or disagrees with official policy. Isn’t that what higher education is all about? I don’t agree with my colleagues on a regular basis, but that doesn’t mean I want them fired! We hand out and we take in.

If it were simply coincidence that I found a single colleague who also faced punitive action from a school for a perceived slight, I might be persuaded that it was an accident of tragedies — two unlikely victims sharing a prison cell. But no, the evidence has been building for some time. During my last years at Nashotah House I taught as an adjunct instructor at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. A faculty search had stalled in the Philosophy and Religion Department and I was local and willing. I was present to watch as two colleagues (the remainder of the small department) were dismissed (denied tenure and forced out) after having been critical of some administrative decisions. They were among four faculty so targeted, and I watched them go with worry increasing in my gut. “Gag orders all around!” No one was permitted to discuss what was really happening.

It was the next year that I was terminated. After moving to New Jersey, I attended a professional conference (SBL, for those of you in the loop) in San Diego. It was probably not unlikely that the person next to me on the plane was also headed to the same conference since it was a 6 a.m. economy flight. Sure enough, I saw the woman reading some theological tome and knew we were headed for the same place. As I struck up a conversation with her, I learned that she had also been dismissed from a college in the south for advocating equal racial representation on the student council. This was not in the 1960s, but a couple decades closer to our own time. No reason was given, but her contract was not renewed.

By this point in time a clear image is coming into focus in my mind. It is not a pretty picture. The scene shows a juggernaut called Higher Education, bloated, powerful, wearing a mortar board, with a killer football team yapping at its heels like wolfhounds, but terribly afraid of criticism. Those who lie crushed under its great feet, the general issue instructors, have earned their place in academia by taking the hard knocks and criticism that are anticipated and constantly delivered in higher education, but the juggernaut drowns out any criticism of itself with allegations of being molested by the critical thinkers it hired to give it respectability and who now lie supine in submission beneath it. Something has gone horribly awry. And instead of talking it over, human-to-human, lawyers are hired to frighten off the weak and silence discussion. “Anything you say can and will be used against you,” thank you Sergeant Friday!

Like a co-dependent spouse, I will always love higher education. It has cradled our most influential minds and taken us beyond our earth-bound dreams. The academy has brought us to the place where we stand today. But universities now also parrot the corporate model and intimidate those who do not take their inspiration from free-market economy. If you feel inclined to voice a vote for the rights of students, this link will take you to a petition for the dropping of legal charges against my colleague’s son. (You will be taken to a donation page after signing the petition, but donations are purely voluntary.) I understand it to be a vote for common sense and personal freedom of expression.

Here’s an interesting story: an undergraduate at Bulter University blogged about administration and their (according to him, evil) ways, and is now being sued by the University for defamation and making people feel unsafe because he was mean to them.  If you read the whole article, you get a sense that there was really nothing libelous or defamatory in his comments, but that university has an army of attorneys on its payroll and they wanted to punish the kid (who blogged anonymously, but since revealed his real name) and his parents (both of whom happen to be faculty at Butler).

What’s fascinating about this story is not the fact that a university would sue its own student – as the student points out on a newly started blog that is designed to chronicle the lawsuit (“I am John Doe”), university’s claim that they did not know who the author of the blog was is false (according to him) – but that there’s such a high level of sensitivity to criticism evident in the attitude of administration here – don’t say anything negative or we will sue you. A simple “We will not leave this matter alone” is taken to mean something vicious like “We will come to your house and make you feel unsafe” – the student himself says in the article that he was certainly passionate about his blog and probably wrote mean things, but still he felt that what he was saying was true and so forth.

Let’s take this scenario and imagine a world in which faculty members behave the same way as administrators at Butler – if I write an anonymous review of your article and I write that “this is a poorly argued series of conjectures that in the end come to nothing substantive” and you take it personally, can you then sue me to reveal my identity and call my review libelous and defamatory? I mean I am suggesting in my review that you wrote a shitty paper implying therefore that you are an idiot and a horrible scholar – can you sue me for that?

What about student evaluations? What if I read a student evaluation for a faculty member and it says something like “This guy doesn’t know how to teach, this is by far the worst class I ever took” – can I sue this anonymous evaluator and having revealed his identity ask him to compensate the faculty member he was mean to?

Clearly, this utter legalization of our interactions (plus corporatization of our universities) is creating an atmosphere in which people with money and opportunities will file lawsuits against their neighbor’s loud music or against their mother-in-law dislike of their personal taste in clothing or their boss’s bad breath – what is going on here?

What started as a study in business for some Butler University students has grown into a full-fledged “green” company aimed at taking the stress out of composting.

Back to Earth Compost, the brainchild of junior Conner Burt, started as proposal for a class called Real Business Experience.

“It’s very experiential learning. We use a small-business model that the students actually plan and define themselves,” said program coordinator Dick Halstead. “Those who want to actually go out and run their businesses, which is funded by the university.”

Burt and his partners proposed a central composting location on campus that would be fueled by kitchen scraps and other items picked up weekly from area subscribers.

He said he got the idea while waiting in line for a cup of coffee.

“I realized that in Starbucks they offer biodegradable cups, which is a good idea, but if they go to the same landfill as all of the rest of the trash, the problem really isn’t mitigated,” Burt said.

Back to Earth Compost now occupies space behind Butler’s baseball fields, and is prepared to handle between 20 and 45 households, and possibly some Broad Ripple Restaurants as well.

For $5 a week, customers within five to 10 miles of campus get a bucket to fill with compostable material, which is picked up weekly and its biodegradable liner replaced.

In the spring, the plan is to give those subscribers their contributions back in the form of nutrient-rich soil.

“We’re done our research, and we’ve found that 30 percent of household waste is organic material that can be composted,” Burt said. “We’re trying to provide people who don’t have the time or the space to compost; we’re trying to make it easy for them.”

The company will also be partnering with Butler’s Center for Urban Ecology to work on a pilot study for a fraternity or sorority house composting effort. Ultimately, it could turn into a campus-wide effort.

“We’re just going to take it this semester and see how it goes,” Burt said. “If it goes well, we have some options and maybe another class will take over.”

Back to Earth Compost is expected to officially launch this week. Those in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood interested in taking part are asked to contact Burt at btecompost@gmail.com or through the company’s Facebook.com fan page.

~Tell them you heard it @ Green Buzz!

Source: Indiana News

A few years back I had the privilege of working at the same university as Dr. Michael Zimmerman, currently a biology professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. In my temporary stint as a Lecturer in the Religious Studies department at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, I discovered that Dr. Zimmerman, then the Dean of the College of Letters and Science, was the very man responsible for the Clergy Letter Project. I had read about the project before; in an attempt to demonstrate that Creationism is not mainstream Christianity (nor science, for that matter), the Clergy Letter Project was attempting to acquire a few thousand signatures from the ordained of various denominations who were willing to admit that evolution posed no threat to their religion.

As an occupational hazard of someone with my background, I know many, many clergy. I offered to solicit some help in reaching the goal on the list and spent the rest of the semester contacting various sacerdotal practitioners who rightfully saw the Creationist ploy for what it was and continues to be. Creationism is nothing short of an attempt to break through the church and state separation clause and attain federal support for a particular religious viewpoint. That particular viewpoint is not shared by the majority of informed Christians, but the population is easily swayed by Creationist rhetoric. Creationists do not deserve sympathy, for they are much more aggressive than they pretend to be. Subterfuge in the cause of truth is a contradiction in ethics.

Religion may be hardwired into human brains, but it need not seek to pick fights with factual truth as it is learned. At each stage along the progression of human achievement, various religious believers have felt that the new knowledge discovered confronted their faith with unsurpassable barriers. Faith, however, is a belief system, not a factual construct. If faith requires proof, as even the Bible itself says, it is not really faith at all. If you know any clergy who are willing to sign on for common sense and belief in the rational world in which we find ourselves, please send them this link and ask them to weigh in on the question. Nearly 12,000 clergy have signed to date. There are even separate lists for Rabbinical and Unitarian-Universalist clergy. Don’t worry about the Creationists. They will always be back for more.

An early Creationist attempt at intelligent design

It has been a very exciting couple of weeks!  The week following our engagement was also my birthday week so my lovely FIANCE and my parents came down for the weekend to celebrate!  My parents took lots of pictures of the newly engaged couple… definitely motivation for the wedding diet!  We had a great dinner out with my parents and spent a lot of time talking details!  I got my wedding planner binder and my first wedding magazines and have been living on theknot.com!  This past weekend, Jordan’s parents came down to Nashville and we got to spend some time with them so it has been a great 3 weeks!

Along with the wonderful visitors, we also got our budget for the wedding so we are officially ready to pick a date and start the planning!  We are planning on getting married in October of 2010 and since he is from Wisconsin and I am from Ohio, we have decided to meet in the middle and have the wedding in Indy!  Our dream was to get married in Holcomb Gardens on campus… but I was devastated to find out they no longer do weddings there!  I am trying to work with Butler and talk them into it.  I actually have been semi-successful but I don’t have any verification yet, so until then we don’t have an official date!  Once we confirm if we can or cannot have the ceremony there, we will pick our reception venue.  We have been looking all over the place, there are so many decisions!

I never knew how much went into picking a reception… it already is starting to hurt my brain just thinking about it!  I need to make some type of spreadsheet to keep track of it all.  I am going to Indianapolis this weekend for my lovely key-sis Laura’s wedding and cannot wait!  I am sure it will really get me excited and catch more of the wedding fever and I’ll get a better idea of what to expect!

I kind of have an idea of colors… but I’m not going to give away any details yet because I do have a way to go.  Knowing me, my mind may change 20 times by next October!  I do know that I totally want to go to the running of the brides sale at Filene’s basement… Have y’all ever heard of it?!  It sounds like so much fun and what deals on the most gorgeous designer gowns!  Anyone who feels like taking a trip to Cleveland with us in October – let me know!  I’ll even make you a team t-shirt (yes, I will be having t-shirts).

I am very excited to get our venues picked because then I can start all the fun details!  As always, please send suggestions my way!  Especially those of you who have had or have been to weddings in the Indy area!

Engagement perk #1: Driving!  Anyone who knows me knows I do not enjoy driving and avoid it at all costs… but I’ll tell you what, it’s an entirely different experience when you get to look at your ring finger on the steering wheel with a pretty ring on it!

Goodbye for now!

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for coming to visit my very first blog.  In honor of my recent engagement I’ve decided to document the journey with everyone as I’m sure it will be an exciting ride!

In October of 2010 I will become a Goetzke which is why I decided to title my blog “Good as it Goetz” (I know… corny maybe but I like it!)  I plan on keeping up with the blog and sharing my wedding-planning experiences.  My wonderful mother has ordered me a wedding planner book that will tell me everything I need to do to plan a wedding because otherwise I have absolutely no idea where to begin!  So, until the planning starts I’m just going to tell you the story of how we met and our engagement story.

Jordan and I met freshman year of college at Butler University.  My group of girl-friends and his group of guy-friends was mutual so we spent a lot of time doing things together but the two of us didn’t really know each other or talk much.  I honestly couldn’t tell you my first impression of him because I don’t remember – it was all overwhelming trying to meet people and make new friends – all I know is he was wearing a blue shirt.

Over the course of first semester Jordan and I closely became great friends and got to know each other.  Often times we would stay up late sitting in the hallway talking or online and he became one of my best friends at Butler… little did I know what was going come from it!  I remember all of the guys telling me that he liked me.  If he did he sure had a funny way of showing it because I got the complete opposite impression.  I was intrigued that the rest of them thought he was into me so I was eager to get a sign that he did.  Leaving campus for the first big break (Thanksgiving) we talked a lot while we were home and I started to realize that maybe I liked him a little bit more than just a buddy but I was still so unsure on if he even was interested in me at all.

Over Christmas break I got really sick and ended up having to be in the hospital for 4-5 days for a kidney infection.  When he and his mom sent me a package while I was in the hospital, it finally started to hit me that maybe there was something more there.  I came back to campus early for recruitment and was anxious for him to get back a week later so I could see him!  When he got back we finally ended up sharing our first kiss and it was history from there…  From that day (January 22, 2005) we have been together and I couldn’t be happier than I am with him.

On July 18, 2009 I got engaged to this wonderful man at the place we met: Butler University.  I had driven up to Indianapolis late Friday night after work with two of my friends who are also in Nashville.  I went to sleep exhausted after our long drive around 2 o’clock in the morning.  Jordan had an oil change at 8am (because he figured I would still be sleeping) and then a golf outing with the guys at 9:30.  He woke me at 7:30am when he was leaving and gave me a kiss and said he should be back in about 30-45 minutes after his oil change.

Twenty minutes later I got a phone call… it was Jordan so I answered to hear him say “you’re going to kill me…”.  Still half-asleep I asked why and he explained that the small shop (on Pennsylvania and 49th) had double-booked the time and it would be about an hour or two before his car was done.  He asked me if I could pick him up so he didn’t have to wait there.  Tired and cranky I asked if there wasn’t anything else he could do to pass the time because I had just gone to bed 5 hours before.  He said he was going to walk to campus and see if the bookstore was open but he hoped I could pick him up so he could get his stuff ready for the golf outing.  Reluctantly I threw on a hoodie over my pajamas and grabbed Chloe and got in the car.  I called him when I got close and asked where he was and he told me he had decided to go for a run on campus and huffing and puffing said he was doing the stairs at the bell tower.

I drove down Lake Rd. and saw a guy running the stairs from a distance so I pulled up and parked and walked halfway to the bell tower (still half-asleep mind you).  I got closer and realized it was not Jordan so frustrated I turned back around to head back to my car to get my phone to call him.  A very cute guy in a shirt and tie came out from nowhere and called my name and my heart dropped when I saw him standing there by the lake.  I got nervous and my heart sank and I ran to him asking why he was dressed up.  Confused and excited started to think what if this was it?!  He hugged me and said a lot of really sweet things (don’t ask me what because I was busy squealing and sobbing and in complete awe and disbelief).  He pulled out a beautiful ring and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

Of course I said yes and at 8:20am was no longer tired at all and was ready to tell the world I was going to marry the man of my dreams!  Jordan left shortly after for golfing with the boys and I spent the next several hours on the phone with my family and friends telling them the great news!

The reason I was in Indy in the first place was to see our friend Annie who has been teaching in Qatar for the past year.  All of our friends from freshman year were in town for a mini reunion (thanks Annie!).  There couldn’t have been a better time to celebrate than with our amazing friends who have been there with us since day one of our journey 4.5 years ago!  Thank you to all of you who were there with us to celebrate.  I am very blessed to have the most amazing man to spend the rest of my life with and we are both very blessed to have really amazing friends.

Thanks to everyone for the messages and e-mails and phone calls.  Stay tuned for more updates, for me this really is as good as it goetz!

Daniels can’t think of too much positive to say since he has been pretty much non-existent this year during Indiana’s legislative session.   So at Butler University’s recent graduation at which he gave a speech, he decided to trash the “Boomer” generation with a mea culpa of  “don’t be like us.”

Photo Credit:  Indy.com (Alan Petersime)

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Oh, come on.  It really is time now – 40 years later – to get over blaming Boomers.  I have heard ad nauseum for decades now how the Boomers have ruined the world.  It really gets old – especially when it isn’t true.  Since my generation of the 1960s, two more generations have entered the world’s stage – and have done quite a bit to mess things up.  These youngsters are also called the “me” generations.

Those born in the 1970s have been dubbed Generation X (born to the Baby Boomers) and those born in the 1980s and 1990s have been dubbed Generation Y (Echo Boomers).  Both of these groups are today’s young people, those who also have been accused of being selfish and taking for granted that the self comes first.

But since Daniels is having a tough time in his home state legislative endeavors, he has decided to deflect attention from the real shape of Indiana’s finances and jump on the old saw that the Boomers really messed things up.  And, wow, he actually believes he has the power to seek forgiveness by saying “we’re sorry – don’t be like us.”

If he thought he would get rave reviews, he was wrong.  Many disliked his negative tone and felt his speech belonged in a different venue.  Some felt it was simply a “put-off.”  I guess Daniels decided not to follow the old adage that “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything.”

But ya got give the guy credit – at least he stayed true to his character:  nothing to say, so cry and whine and find a scapegoat for his lack of inspiring advice.

It was my great honor to present the obituary tribute to my dear friend and colleague, Gary Wells, at his memorial service today at Northwood Christian Church in Springfield Oregon:

Gary Hale Wells was born Jan. 4, 1932, in Boise to E.H. and Ruth Williams Wells.  He died May 30, 2009 in Springfield, Oregon at the age of 77.

Gary grew up in Boise and his was active at Boise First Christian Church, which is now named University Christian Church.  Gary graduated from Boise High School in 1950.  Early in his high school years he met the love of his life, Hallie Morris.  They dated throughout high school and were married on April 22, 1951.

Gary and Hallie moved to Eugene, Oregon, where he attended Northwest Christian College, (now University) graduating with a Bachelor Degree in Theology in 1955.  Their first daughter, Linda, was born during their time at NCC.  While a student, Gary served at Pleasant Hill Church of Christ, co-ministering with the late Rev. Sam Anderson.  He also pastored at Irving Christian Church.

Gary had a passion for both ministry and education all his life. After graduating from NCC, they moved to Clarksburg, Indiana, which is near Indianapolis.  He earned his Master of Divinity degree from Christian Theological Seminary, followed by a Master of Science in Speech Communication from Butler University, both in Indianapolis.  At the same time he served as the minister of Clarksburg Christian Church.  The three boys, David, Timothy and Jonathan were born during their time in Indiana.  The family shared that Hallie typed all of Gary’s papers.   With all of that work, Hallie probably deserved an honorary degree, as well.

After having earned three degrees, and with six years in Indiana, the Wells prepared to enter full time ministry.  As all of you know, Gary and Hallie always approached each decision in their life with prayer.  At this important moment they were ready to serve God anywhere in the country.  Well, with the exception of California.

So, as you’ve already probably guessed, they were called to Oakdale, California.  Gary plunged into his new work.  In six years the church had grown to 150 members, built a building and the congregation was debt free.  Janet, daughter #2 and child #5 was born in Oakdale.

Gary’s next ministry was in Santa Cruz, on the California coast, at Garfield Park Christian Church (now named The Circle Church).  He served there for fifteen years, developed a successful small group model, and was known as a compassionate and skilled pastor and counselor.  It was also at Garfield Park that Gary pioneered the program called Associates in Ministry, which he continued after he came to Northwood.  Over 25 individuals have gone into the ministry as a result of Gary’s mentorship and that program’s impact, including our own pastor, Barry Lind.

In 1981, the Wells decided it was time to try a new road on their journey.  They moved to Eugene.  Northwood was looking for an interim minister at the time, and Gary and Hallie agreed to accept that call.  What no one realized that it would end up being a 13 year interim.  All right, not really, because the church called him to be the senior minister.  During his ministry here, along with his pastoral leadership, Gary helped Northwood grow from a small neighborhood congregation transitioning into its second generation to a church positioned to grow into a significant community presence.  He continued the AIM program offering NCC students the chance to explore ministry.  Gary also began his very popular “Walk Through the Bible.”

At the same time, true to his love of higher education as well as ministry, Gary became the chaplain at Northwest Christian College.  That is where our lives intersected, because I was the Vice President and Dean of Students at NCC while Gary served NCC students as chaplain, counselor, and taught on the faculty in speech communications and pastoral ministries.  He was a wonderful colleague and we spent many hours working together.  Gary retired from NCC in 1993.

He continued his pastoral work for another two years, retiring in 1995 from Northwood.  NCC granted him a richly deserved honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree in 1996.  His citation stated:

Gary Hale Wells, (NCC ‘55), minister, retired, is awarded the doctor of divinity, honoris causa, in honor of distinguished leadership within the church and the community.  Twenty-seven men and women, most of them Northwest Christian College students, have participated in a ministry training program designed by Gary.  The internship combines mentorship with academic requirements and practical aspects of ministry, and result in highly motivated and capable ministers early in their careers.

Gary and Hallie spent the years of their retirement active in the lives of their children, as well as the life of the church.  As pastor emeritus, Gary served with the same integrity that he had served throughout his ministry.

That is a brief walk through the life of Gary Wells, lover of Christ, husband, father, grandfather, greatgrandfather.  Pastor, educator, leader, man of integrity.  One who lived the fruits of the Spirit and dedicated his life to help others find that Christ who gives those same fruits to all who love him, too.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  But if I am to live on in the flesh, that will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose.  But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.  (NAS, Phil 1:21-23.

Kenneth Ziniti: Gonzaga University MA-ORGL Graduate was uploaded by: gonzagaonlineDuration: 279Rating:[More..]


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