Wabash alumnus Kevin McCrea ’88 finds himself the underdog in the race for the mayor of Boston, but he’s doing this for much more than his own desire.

Kevin owns Wabash Construction (a catchy name!) in the South End of Boston.  It’s his city.  It’s his town. He’s ready for a change.

His background in liberal arts at Wabash – physics and philosophy – fit perfectly into the construction business and into politics.

For more on Kevin’s race, read the story here.

Just received an email from Prof. Scott Feller.  Scott is in Telluride, Colorado for a conference this week.  During a break, Scott got together with one of his former students,  Ryan Thornberry ’05.  Ryan manages a snowboard shop in the area.  Like a lot of people, he made the trip out here and decided this was perfect!

As it turns out, Ryan hooked up Scott’s son Jake with a complimentary mountain bike and then took Jake on a ride. That’s Jake Feller with Ryan in the photo.

  I also heard from Greg Castanias ’87 who is in Colorado Springs this week.  Greg and his family had dinner with Jim Roper ’68 and his family the other evening.

It’s pretty easy to see why these Wabash guys like it out here. (Written by Grunge in Colorado Springs!)

WABASH Day, the weekend of community service by members of the Wabash community, is just around the corner – Oct 3/4, 2009.

The Wabash alumni board is expecting a big turnout all around the country.

For more details, click here. 

You’ve seen this piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education featured elsewhere on the Wabash web site.  Besides featuring a new Wabash student in the picture, it talks of the outreach by our alumni board to the new class.

This outreach began at an alumni board meeting when some board members described the impact they felt of some early, very personal outreach by alumni and faculty members.  Our board wanted to do the same thing for our newest group of Wabash men.

Just another part of what makes our college unique…

This report just in from alumnus Greg Estell ’85 who describes himself as a volunteer "quality control engineer" for his classmate Jeff Eaton’s enterprise, the Barley Island Brewing Company.

Greg reports Jeff is expanding to a new location in Broad Ripple in the near future (at the corner of College and Broad Ripple Ave.)  and has begun "exporting" his fine beverages to the Chicagoland area.  

We thank Greg for the report and Jeff for his efforts to help the Indiana economy recover as quickly as possible!

As I went by the senior bench (no apparent change there) I thought I’d just do a quick look at the brand new Kappa Sig house.  As you can see from the photo, it’s ready to go.  Landscaping done, blinds up.  All it needs now are the members of the Kappa Sig house!

It’s good to see the project finally complete as it’s been a long term process. But good things come to those who wait and the house certainly has all the appearances of being a high quality place to live.

I can hardly remember what that section of campus used to look like with the old house and the white Phi Delt house just across the street.

I guess I need to wander back over and see which house has the best rooftop ‘fortress"…

At some point over the weekend, the senior bench received a fresh coat of paint. That’s kind of unusual for the summer – very common for the school year.  The choice of paint colors, though, with black a predominant color, makes you wonder who decided to do the painting…hmmmm….

As I took the photo, a Wabash student came up and offered that the bench had been painted by someone from a nearby liberal arts college and that he and his fellow students, having seen the sight, had hastily removed that paint and repainted the bench with the red they could find.  He told me a better paint job would happen this evening – I’ll go back tomorrow.

Meanwhile, as you can see from the recently removed colors, black was indeed a color of choice…and maybe some gold as well?

Andy Gunkler ’74 as been named the Chief Franchise Officer for Al Copeland Inventments (ACI).  Andy brings more than 25 years of experience in the franchising world to ACI.

Andy’s background includes companies such as Houlihan’s Restaurant Group, Kelsey’s International, Quaker Steak & Lube, and East Side Mario’s. 

Gunkler was an economics major at Wabash and worked in the banking world before taking his talents into franchising.

Andy – a special request from the Grunge?  Can you send a couple of those restaurants our way?  

Seriously, congratulations to Andy on the new position.  Thanks to Marilyn Smith for the tip. 

The college said "Goodbye" to Professor of Math and Computer Science J.D. Phillips earlier this week.  The gift was a stocking cap – fitting in that JD leaves us to become the department chair at Northern Michigan University in Marquette Michigan.

JD has the touch with students – he loves teaching and students love taking his classes.  I got to know JD for other reasons (remember, I was a math major for an entire semester!)  JD is an outdoorsman and avid photographer – birds are his specialty.  He also has more than a passing interest in military aviation – that is my chosen specialty.  We’ve had some good discussions over the years about flying, photos, and similar things – NEVER about calculus!

I hate to see those end.

JD looks forward to the outdoor opportunities Northern Michigan will bring and the challenges the new position holds.  And of course, the opportunity to meet and impact many more students.

 We wish the Phillips clan safe travels and all the best!  Oh…the Grunge wishes him good light and fast focus for each shot!

Two of the nine faithful readers of the blog have requested some shots from the California "GaBunge" trip so here you go.  Haven’t processed them or anything else…no particular choices involved…just a sample…

Click here.