Brandon Clifton ’06, Deputy General Counsel and Policy Advisor for the Indiana Department of Education, will be a panelist at the 2013 Legislative Conference Indianapolis on Dec. 5.  This is the 22nd year for the conference as the “unofficial” start to Indiana’s legislative session. 

After Wabash, Brandon earned his JD from Barry University – Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law, and then an MBA, Finance from Webster University, with an Independent Focus on Quality Control in Legal Services and Law Office Management.

Brandon is a board member of the Indianapolis Association of Wabash Men. 

Congratulations, Brandon!

Jay Patterson ’65 is a retired attorney and judge in the Dallas area.  As many of us did last week, he answered the question, “Where were you when President Kennedy was killed?”  Jay’s comments in The Dallas Morning News posted on November 22:

Jay Patterson, Lake Highlands: “Like most people, I do have a specific recollection. I was editor of our college newspaper headed in the car from Crawfordsville, Ind., to Carbondale, Ill., with the editor of the yearbook for a weekend publications conference at Southern Illinois University. We were driving in the rain. I remember the windshield wipers like a metronome counting out the beat as each successive radio report got worse and worse.

It was a dramatic and dismal time. When we arrived at Southern Illinois students were standing around the campus crying and bewildered by what had happened. When we returned to Wabash College in Indiana, six of us piled in a car and drove through the night to attend the funeral for the president in Washington, D.C. When it was over, we loaded back into the car and drove through the next night to return to the college.

Thanksgiving week followed so we could collapse exhausted at our homes. I wrote a report for the college paper, the Bachelor, describing the experience. I think as a college student the thing I missed most was President Kennedy’s wit at his news conferences.”

Thank you, Jay.

Photo courtesy of Getty/AFP, Mark Wilson

Several people with ties to Wabash College and Crawfordsville have integral roles in this weekend’s high school state football tournament as coaches, officials, and statisticians.

• Jake Gilbert ’98, Westfield High School Head Coach, will be assisted by Josh Miracle ’11, Jay Dee Flynn ’01 , and Cville native B.J. Schlicher.
• Nick Lyons ’08 is an assistant coach at Cathedral High School.
• Nick Durm ’11 is an assistant coach at Carmel High School.
• Joe Pfennig ’82 is an assistant coach at Cardinal Ritter High School.
• Brent Harris, Wabash Sports Information Director, will be on the stat crew.
• Officials for the 6A title game are Matt Buche ’99 (football alumnus), Steve Hoffman ’85 (Wabash Advancement Office and Wabash Television Broadcaster), Darren Haas (Cville resident and previous Wabash Admissions Counselor), Mark Maxwell (Cville resident and previous Wabash radio announcer), and Jeff Gilstrap (Cville resident and Wabash football fan).

The schedules for the games and teams mentioned above are:

Westfield and Cathedral will play for the 5A championship on Friday, Nov. 29, at 7pm.
Cardinal Ritter will play Tipton in the 2A contest on Saturday, Nov. 30, at noon.
The 6A contest between Carmel and Warren Central is Saturday, Nov. 30, at 7pm.

Steve Hoffman  ’85 left, and Jeff Pfennig ’82 after Ritter’s semi-state win last week.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association’s 41^st State Football Championships will take place Friday and Saturday, Nov. 29-30, 2013 at Lucas Oil Stadium and all games will be televised. Click here for detailed information on the rest of the games and television information.

Our apologies if we failed to include anyone else with Wabash connections — please let us know so we may add to the story!

Good luck to all!

Story by Steve Hoffman.

Wabash was a winner not once, but three times on November 16 in Greencastle!

Professor of Political Science Ethan Hollander and Professor of Economics Christie Byun took home the winning trophy from the Monon Chili Throwdown on Monon Bell Game day in Greencastle.  Ethan and Christie, the only entrants from Wabash out of nine chili entries, submitted their prize-winning, 23-0 Chorizo Chili, and took home the Silver Ladle Trophy.  The money raised from the cook-off went to Main Street Greencastle projects.

On the same day, Wabash College students were winners, too, as they sponsored the first “Monon Well-Beer for Water,” to raise money to build a clean water drinking well in Swaziland.

The third set of winners was the Wabash Little Giants and their fans, for beating DePauw and winning their  5th straight Monon Bell game. Wabash dominated the first half en route to a 38-21 victory in the 120th Monon Bell Classic.

Congratulations, Everyone!

Jeffrey W. Ferrand ’00 is now associate attorney at Leeuw Oberlies & Campbell PC in Indianapolis, where Jeff Oberlies ’83 is a founding partner of the firm.  Jeff Ferrand currently practices in all areas of civil defense, but focuses on litigating disputes relating to insurance coverage, insurance fraud, arson, and bad faith.

On November 14, Jeff presented a seminar discussing “Bad Faith and Extra-Contractual Liability Claims” at the 2013 National Business Institute’s Insurance Coverage Litigation in Indianapolis.

Postscript to the original blog on November 13:
Jeff received the prestigious Outstanding Achievement Award and the Dennis Nebergall Award at the National Society of Professional Insurance Investigators (NSPII) conference on November 17.  The awards are presented for “outstanding achievement in the fight against fraudulent insurance claims.”

Jeff Ferrand ’00 (right) receives the Oustanding Achievement Award at NSPII 2013.

Jeff Ferrand was a Psychology major at Wabash, and then earned his JD from Indiana University School of Law.  Congratulations, Jeff!

Photo courtesy of
Nation Society of Professional Insurance Investigators

Thank you to Jud Scott ’80
for the news update.

Dr. Mauri A. Ditzler ’75 has been named the 16h President of Albion College in Michigan, effective July 1, 2014.

After serving at Wabash as Dean of the College 1999-2005, Mauri went to Monmouth College in Illinois where he has been President since 2005.  Mauri was a summa cum laude graduate of Wabash where he majored in chemistry and speech and earned a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Duke University.

Click here for the press release.

Congratulations, Mauri!

Photo courtesy of Albion College.

Dean of the College Gary Phillips will speak tonight at Lynchburg College, his own undergrad alma mater.  He will discuss problems confronting higher education today, the historical record of the liberal arts in dealing with changing social challenges, and the research done by the Wabash College Center for Inquiry.

Dean Phillips is a 1971 graduate of Lynchburg College (BA, Magna Cum Laude in religion, philosophy, and English), Vanderbilt Divinity School (MDiv, Magna Cum Laude in Biblical Studies), and Vanderbilt University (PhD with Highest Distinction in New Testament studies and linguistics). He has studied at the Sorbonne and Collége de France, Paris. Phillips has taught at Holy Cross College and the University of the South (Sewanee). Before becoming dean of Wabash College, he served in a number of key administrative roles: grants officer, director of Special Studies, director of First Year Program, and Religion Department chair.

Photo courtesy of
Lynchburg College.

Richard J Stephenson ’62 is Chairman and CEO of Cancer Treatment Centers of America.  He is also Gateway for Cancer Research chairman, which held its annual Cures Gala on October 26 in Chicago — raising nearly $2.1 million for clinical trials for cancer treatment.

Gateway for Cancer Research Chairman Richard J Stephenson with Dr. Stacie Macari and 2010 American Idol winner Lee DeWyze at the annual Cures Gala to benefit cancer research. (Photo courtesy of PRweb.com).

Dick founded Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) in 1988, following the death of his mother from cancer.  To keep his mother’s spirit alive, Richard created a new model of care, a whole-person cancer treatment providing patient-centered approach to cancer treatment.

Matthew Deleget ’94 has been selected to exhibit his work at the 2014 Whitney Biennial exhibit in NYC beginning in March 2014, the 77th in the Museum’s ongoing series of Annuals and Biennials begun in 1932.

Matthew is a contemporary artist whose focus is Reductive Abstraction.   He is founder and director of  MINUS SPACE in New York, the only gallery of its kind in the United States which specializes in reductive abstract art on the international level.

Matthew majored in German and Art at Wabash, then earned an MFA in Painting and an MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.  Click here to read more about his art and artist’s statement on his personal web site.

Congratulations, Matthew!

Gene Miiller ’75 is men’s basketball coach at Washington High School in Washington, IN.  He is also his own boss, as he is Athletic Director for the school, too.  He has been coaching for 38 years, starting with his first job as interim coach at Kankakee Valley High School after graduating from Wabash.

Gene has a 614-275 career record that includes three state titles with Washington (2008, ’10 and ’11) and one runner-up finish at Vincennes Lincoln (1984) and more wins than the rest of the coaches in the Big Eight Conference combined (569).  In 2012, Gene was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Have a great season, Gene!

Portrait courtesy of
Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame