When I first returned to the college in 1999, one of my visits was to the Dean of Students office – in those days the Dean was Tom Bambrey ’68. One of the interesting things about the Dean’s office is a large painting of Dean Norm Moore hanging on the wall. It seems that wherever you are in the office, Dean Moore is watching you! Of course that is no different than my college days, when someone needed to be looking after me, for sure!
We don’t have any Center Hall offices in alumni relations nor do we have cool paintings of Wabash legends…but we do have two ghosts that keep pretty close tabs on us (especially me) these days.
R. Robert (Mitch) Mitchum is one of them. Mitch led the alumni effort from the years 1974-1982. Mitch is also warmly remembered as the Wabash Glee Club director.
Many a Wabash man has mentioned the impact Mitch had. Most of the stories start like this: "Back in (fill in the year) Bob Mitchum volunteered me for (fill in the position). The stories always go on with "I wanted to do my absolute best because I just didn’t want to let Mitch down". That’s the true measure of impact…that it has lasted the almost 30 years since Mitch worked in alumni relations.
I hope Mitch doesn’t see some of the reunion numbers for a couple of the classes for this year’s Big Bash – I’ll be getting a visit from him and a message that I have let him down.
The other ghost tomorrow…
