Jim Amidon — Former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke on the campus of Wabash College last Thursday evening. A crowd of over 700 people listened to him recount the days following the tragedies of 9/11 and the controversial Patriot Act that soon followed.
I don’t much care how you come down on Ashcroft politically. He tends to be one of those public figures who is either loved or loathed, and was referred to on campus last week as both a fascist and a patriot. Go figure.
What I do care about is the remarkable opportunity his visit provided for the students who were able to interact with him. To rub shoulders with someone of such great influence in our government — someone who will likely become an important historical figure — was a terrific opportunity for young men enrolled at Wabash.
Furthermore — and significantly more remarkable — it was a very small group of dedicated Wabash students who managed every single aspect of Mr. Ashcroft’s visit.
Now that may not sound like a “remarkable” accomplishment, but as someone who has planned and executed a good number of large-scale events, I can tell you what the students did truly is worthy of praise.
Thanks to a partnership with the Washington-based, conservative-leaning Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the editorial leadership of the Wabash Commentary was able to negotiate the former governor and senator’s visit. Alumni donations and support from YAF helped pay the various fees associated with the trip, but the students managed the effort. All of it.
The students worked out the details of the contract; arranged for transportation, overnight accommodations, and meals; contracted with local security people; booked rooms; wrote press releases; and served as gracious hosts to Mr. and Mrs. Ashcroft. The students even led an effort to get the former Attorney General into a political science class and purchased books for a book signing reception, two events Ashcroft wouldn’t normally do on this kind of trip.
Commentary Editor Brandon Stewart ’08, Managing Editor Josh Bellis ’08, Events Coordinator Tyler Gibson ’09, and Business Manager Trent Hagerty ’09 did the work of an entire staff of professional event organizers, and did so with gobs of political baggage to work through.
They have every right to feel enormously proud of their accomplishments.
Stewart introduced Mr. Ashcroft eloquently, and did so completely from memory. Not bad for a 20 year-old standing in front of a massive crowd while introducing one of the most controversial figures in the post-9/11 era.
After a few self-deprecating remarks, Mr. Ashcroft began to tell the story of what it was like to be in an airplane — on his way to a literacy event in Milwaukee — when news of the terrorist attacks came through on a private telephone aboard the plane.
I looked around at that moment and as far as I could see in the crowd, all eyes were fixed on the man President Bush would ask to ensure that such an attack would “never happen again.”
Throw out the politics; throw out the legislative and judicial debates about the validity of the Patriot Act.
At that moment — here, in Crawfordsville and at Wabash College — we were learning how the events unfolded that day and in the days that followed from the man who was front and center. This story wasn’t told to us by the New York Times or Fox News, but by the person charged to track down the perpetrators of the most unlikely attack ever on U.S. soil.
After an hour of some fresh, but mostly rehearsed remarks, the students of Wabash gave Mr. Ashcroft a standing ovation — not because they all support his politics, but because they appreciated the opportunity to meet him and learn his views firsthand. I was pleased when I turned to see Brandon Stewart smiling with pride.
As the PR guy, I’d like to say these types of opportunities happen at Wabash all the time, and in some ways they do. The College is committed to bringing to campus scholars of great acclaim and putting them in class with our students.
In reality, it’s not often that someone of Mr. Ashcroft’s stature — politically, internationally, and historically — comes to our campus. And it wouldn’t have happened if not for a handful of students, who worked tirelessly to create the opportunity for this community.
Over the years — to avoid being overtly political — I’ve almost never given public praise to the students of The Commentary. In this case, though, I give hearty congratulations to Brandon Stewart, Josh Bellis, Tyler Gibson, and Trent Hagerty for a job well done.
