{"id":312,"date":"2014-09-08T00:38:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T00:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=312"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:57:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:57:23","slug":"for-the-sheer-joy-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2014\/09\/08\/for-the-sheer-joy-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Sheer Joy of It!"},"content":{"rendered":"

He took piano lessons from the\u00a0woman who has accompanied the Wabash Glee Club for more than 25 years, so it\u2019s only fitting that Sam Vaught \u201916 has become the College\u2019s \u201caccompanist.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s a member of the Glee Club, plays \u201cOld Wabash\u201d at Chapel Talks, is the student organist on campus, plays at Tuesday religious services in Center Hall, and was a part of the musical team that performed at President Hess\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n

Watching all this has been a pleasure for Vaught\u2019s teacher, Glee Club accompanist Cheryl Everett.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam\u2019s music is something that didn\u2019t come easy for him; he\u2019s really worked at it,\u201d Everett says. \u201cJust thinking back to how he started as a little boy and watching him play and develop the confidence and happiness he has now has been so rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like his music, Sam\u2019s passion\u00a0for Wabash didn\u2019t come easy either. A self-described \u201ctownie\u201d who grew up five minutes outside of town just off Wabash Avenue, Vaught planned to attend college anywhere but home.<\/p>\n

The leap from townie to Wally took time as he struggled to separate the College from his deeply set misperceptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe further I got into high school the more I began to understand the College as an educational institution, and if I could separate it in my mind from my hometown, from everything I\u2019d ever known, it made a whole lot of sense as a place to come and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wabash Professor Rick Warner attended the same church as Vaught and became a catalyst for that understanding. The two traveled together on a church-sponsored mission to New Orleans in Spring 2010. That began to open Sam\u2019s eyes to Wabash and the liberal arts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalfway down we started talking about what Wabash was like for him and what it meant to me,\u201d Vaught says. \u201cI discovered that this wasn\u2019t just the brick buildings that I\u2019d seen my whole life. This is a place with a world-renowned faculty in religion and the other departments I was interested in. There is so much opportunity here, but I probably would have taken it for granted if I hadn\u2019t sought it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Warner, it was an opportunity to connect with a student who possessed a thirst for knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is very smart,\u201d says Dr. Warner, \u201cand his interests are so incredibly broad. He\u2019s one of those guys where there wasn\u2019t anything he was uninterested in. I would have never forgiven myself if he had gone to a school that didn\u2019t allow for a breadth of intellectual focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a time of aggressive recruitment, Warner backed off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had heard enough from me,\u201d Warner says. \u201cAt the end of the day, a guy has to own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And own it he has. In addition to diving into the arts, the religion major has pursued passions in history and the classics, studying Latin and Greek, and caught the travel bug with immersion trips to England<\/a> and Germany. He took a Glee Club excursion to Ecuador,<\/a> is studying Spanish this summer, was involved with student government, and is on the Board of Directors of the Montgomery County Historical Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a Renaissance man,\u201d says Warner. \u201cHe\u2019s a reader. This is a guy who will talk to you about what he\u2019s been reading. That tells me that he has an active intellectual energy. He never dominates a discussion, but he is the guy who has the nuance that someone else doesn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaught has charted a course for his own brand of success.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what I want to do,\u201d Vaught says, \u201cbut I know what I want to study. I found that the education I get in religion and classics, and the way those two fuse, is a type of education that works for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Warner says, \u201cWhat we do really well here is work with guys who are going to come to the plate and work hard. Somebody with some real energy can go through the roof here. Sam is one of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such an impact is not lost on fellow students.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam is a bright soul that says \u2018yes\u2019 and \u2018what can we do about\u2026\u2019 with enthusiasm more times than not,\u201d says Jeremy Wentzel \u201914. \u201cNot only does he recognize opportunities where others may not, but he proposes, acts, and follows through with an engaging personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaught\u2019s self-discovery hasn\u2019t been limited to academics; he\u2019s also changed his musical focus from the piano to organ. The switch has provided a new challenge and given Vaught a new stress reliever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to go in to the Chapel whenever it\u2019s not being used\u2014often in the dead of the night\u2014and just play. No one is around and I can forget about everything else and just play.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The challenge now for Vaught becomes determining his future. He has applied for a semester abroad at Harlaxton College in Lancaster, England to travel a bit, experience Gothic masterpieces firsthand, and develop an independent research project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a student and a learner at heart,\u201d Vaught says. \u201cI am happiest when I am learning something new. Discovery and knowledge for knowledge\u2019s sake are huge parts of what make me, me. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here at Wabash. It\u2019s what I wanted and what I needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to graduate from Wabash with the ability to hold two completely opposite ideas in my mind, be able to judge them rationally, keep them there together, and not dismiss one flippantly. I find myself challenged so much here to think outside my own experiences. If that\u2019s the only thing I come away with, then Wabash has done something right.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sam sits at the piano in the Chapel and smiles when asked to play something of his choosing. He is in his element, completely at ease. It\u2019s a look that Everett is very familiar with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he plays for the sheer joy of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that Sam will be one of these people after Wabash who will make a difference in the world. I don\u2019t know where, but I can almost see it coming. There is a joy in what he does. He\u2019s always ridiculously happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaught\u2019s response is a fitting coda. \u201cNo matter what I do or where I go, I will always have music. It will always be a part of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Richard Paige<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He took piano lessons from the\u00a0woman who has accompanied the Wabash Glee Club for more than 25 years, so it\u2019s only fitting that Sam Vaught \u201916 has become the College\u2019s \u201caccompanist.\u201d He\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-works-in-progress"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2014\/09\/vaughtlores.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}