Howard W. Hewitt – When one of our own takes the stage for a Thursday Chapel Talk we’re all there for support. Brent Harris made the Public Affairs staff proud Thursday when the honorary Sphinx Club member and Sports Information Director talked about, "The Secret Lives of Wabash Men."
Harris noted his considerable sports involvement and interests but that secretly he was a Civil War buff. His interest started when he was a an elementary school student growing up in Crawfordsville. He shared Civil War history as he learned it from a frequent visitor to that elementary classroom.
It turns out that visitor was a former Crawfordsville Journal Review Sports Editor. Much as that sports editor had a secret life, Harris developed his own alternate identity studying the civil war.
Brent talked about people known around campus and not-so-well known who have interests or hobbies that most people may not know about.
"Look around the Chapel this morning," he told the students, faculty and staff gathered. "We know each other and often get placed into convenient categories. I’m a sports guy, he’s a history major, he’s a member of this living unit, he does this on campus. But what is that secret life we don’t know about?"
Harris urged the Chapel Talk audience to learn the secret lives of their friends, classmates and instructors. "If you don’t know how to start those conversations, maybe just learning something fun about another person will open up that conversation, making it easier to discuss the more difficult topics."
He suggested that such conversations bring us all into the ‘grand conversation’ described by President White to kick off the school year. Such conversations are the building blocks of the Wabash Community.
