Belmont Abbey College - Spire Yearbook (Belmont, NC)

Page 21 text:

Rev. John Oetgen (center-seated) conferred Honorary Degrees upon Governor Terry Sanford, Msgr. Alfred Horrigan (seated), Edward Gallagher, and Frank McGuire (standing). Rev. James G. Huggin, D.D. speaks to Class Day Exercises Father John confers a diploma.

Page 20 text:

And thus our year ended Time speeded us swiftly to graduation. Too swiftly ! It had taken our youth and made us men, it had taken our ignorance and given us knowledge, and it had bound us forever to the search for Truth. As we took our diplomas into hand and marched away, we felt secure because we knewthat our years at Abbey had given us the virtue, the knowledge, and the philosophy to meet and successfully resolve any challenge which the future might offer. The Processional. Governor Terry Sanford addressing the graduating class Father John conferring an honorary degree on Mr. Franli McGuire.

Page 22 text:

FOREWORD I stand here, a lasting record of the academic year 1961 — 1962. I am the final chapter for the Class of ' 62. Yet for others I am only the first of four chapters. Within these pages you can feel my heartbeat and pulse. Look carefully, for I do here record the birth of college men. Watch closely as you turn each page while I note their growth and their battle for light. Join with them as they march ahead on the road of life; partake of their sorrows and tears, their smiles and plea- sures. If you wish, you may dance with them at their formals or pray with them on the Lord ' s Day or study and work with them in their labors for a degree. Turn just one more page and you will watch them as each receives his badge of achievement, a diploma representing four years of study. This is my purpose, my only chore. I cannot help them in their struggles nor comfort them in their pain. All this they must do alone. I am a recorder of deeds and a folio of pictorial proof. In later years I shall be their memory and recall to them their dreams. I am a holder of their youth and a monument to their stamina and fortitude. I am all this, and I have watched well. I am the SPIRE OF 1962.