Lees McRae College - Ontaroga Yearbook (Banner Elk, NC)

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is kim ii Dr. Crain and Dr. Tyson pose following the Symposium on Christian Higher Education. I A willingness to invest people and money in educa-. tion has been a distinctive characteristic of Presby- terian and reformed Christians from the beginning . . . , - Cynthia Tyson Dr. Crain introduces Lenoir-Rhyne President, Dr. John E. Trainer, Jr., to Berea President, Dr. John B. Stephenson. Shaking hands was easy but speaking a little more difficult since Dr. Stephenson had just been introduced to theihors d'oeuvres at the luncheon. I came away from that experience finvolvement with faculty members at universities in Europe! reassured that America, with its institutions of church-related, Christian colleges has a very unique character, and a very unique treasure, in that we must do all We can to see that that great heritage is strengthened, devel- oped, and made available to as many as possible. - Richard Ray Panelist Richard Ray frightj listens to keynote speaker Tyson. lx is 8 ki 1 BQ . Yi SQ if 1 A r ...', X 14 - Inauguration , W .,,,, f 1'- I I tug, vo Symposium panel members: John Kuykendall, Joseph W. Grier, Jr., Clyde Robinson, Jr. Sergeant Jonathan E. Brown,itenor, performs Ain 't Got Time to Die. Stephenson fcontinued from page 10J: Dr. Stephenson, a former faculty member of Lees-McRae College, said, I bring this message as a friend of long- standing at Lees-McRae College, having taught here at one time and having maintained close ties since. I speak as the husband of a graduate and Stephenson: Winds of 1 I

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We know where we are going because we cherish where we have beeng we place value on memory and imagination, the past and the future. The two greatest gifts, I believe, that we can give our stu- dents are roots and wings: roots for understanding our heritage and wings for discovering our future. my accomplishments have turned my accomplishments into our accomplishments. Being the child of a college official is not easy, I know. In a book describing the lives of various college presidents, families, a book kindly lent to us by Jane Stephenson, was the story of the young children who made some use of the fact that their father was the president. Four or five-year-old twin daughters ofthe president were over- heard making the comment, 'We can do whatever we want, our daddy's the presidentf Their mother told them: 'Don't say your daddy's the president? At a party for new faculty members, the children were asked, 'Isn't your father the president?' and they replied, 'We used to think so but Mommy says he isn't.' A To Alice - my wife, my counsellor, my dearest friend, sine qua non fwithout whom nothingj - I know that all com- pliments to me during the last 22 years have simply been praises for you momentarily deflected. Nathaniel West had one of his characters say: 'She made him feel that when she straightened his tie, she straightened much more.' Alice makes me feel that way. John Stephenson shared with me a comment made by Alex Haley when he delivered the commencement address at Berea last spring. The comment was this: If you see a turtle resting' on top of a fencepost, you know he had help getting there. To all of you who influenced my life in large ways and small - I appreciate your help in hoisting me onto this fence- post. And I ask God's guidance as I go about my work. We have long been known as The College That Cares . . . we care enough to have Lees- McRae merit being called Simply the Best. Lees-McRae College has a particular genius. 'It is the genius of Edgar Tufts and those who followed him. Reaching back to the dreams and vision and dedicated work of generations of men and women, our genius has been long-nurtured. It is a genius for caring about people and for caring about quality. When these two elements get together - people and quality - all kinds of exciting things happen. We have long been known as 'The College That Cares.' And that title fits us well. We care enough to provide coun- selin and academic advisement services for each student on an i1 dividual basis. We care enough to exert massive efforts so that our students have every chance to succeed academically, rather than fail. We care enough to foster a campus environ- ment aimed at giving opportunity for our students to grow in soundness of spirit, mind and body. In short, we care enough to have Lees-McRae College merit being called 'Simply the Bestf Today there is an air of excitement at our college because we know where we are going. Not every college is so fortunate as we. We know where we are going, in part, because we understand and cherish where we have been. The two greatest gifts that we can give our students are roots and wings: roots for understanding our heritage and wings for discovering our future. What makes us so confident of our future is, in fact, our past. Our past is important to us. But as Lewis Carroll noted: 'It's a poor memory that only works backwardf We must develop a special quality of perceiving - a quality that gives us a nostalgia for the future. We must seek elegant solutions to our pressing problems of the present. Such solutions demand that we avoid the redundancy of simply copying the the past. Rather, we must adapt the beauty of the past to our present needs - and, in the process, make our new designs uniquely our own. 'Imagination is the beginning of creation,' said George Bernard Shaw. And he continued, 'You imagine what you desireg you will what you imagineg and at last you create what you will.' At Lees-McRae, there is no dearth of imagination, will power, and creativity. Here we have a community of fine minds - but not the sort of minds that T. S. Eliot accused Henry James of having when he wrote: 'He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.' Ours are working minds, tolerant minds, minds with convictions but free of stubbom arrogance, minds like those that have wrought this school out of chestnut and stone, minds dedicated to service and love, minds determined to impart what Alfred North Whitehead called the major aims of education: The giving of 'an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structiue of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it., And at Lees-McRae, education takes place in a context, not in a vacuum. That context is deliberately Christian, no accident about it. It is as deliberate and as solid as that stone pulpit in our Presbyterian church. That stone reaches down to the bedrock and rests there. The stone I'm told came from Beech Mountain - that peak that aspires to heaven. Indeed, the symbolism is essential: The pulpit reaches down for stability, aspires upward for faith and has a Bible resting on it. All are fitting symbols for Lees-McRae as we imaginatively, with faith, carve our educational aims into these mountains. E. B. White once wrote, 'I arise each morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.' Conflicting desires can make a powerful obstacle to planning and executing. But such conflict can also be a powerful motivation. Why must we choose and eliminate when we can combine and encompass. Mae West once said: 'When choosing between two evils, I always like the one I've never tried before.' Alternatives can be dangerous. I remember a cartoon that showed two experi- mental laboratory rats observing a third rat jumping for joy - the caption read: 'He's just been transferred from tobacco research to alcohol researchf But alternatives can be com- bined. That is one challenge of education today - to combine service and esthetics, the dignity of the labor of mind and the labor of hand. Education must develop leadership that copes successfully with ambiguity and paradox - because that is our reality. Such leadership pulls strehgth out of weakness, re- sources out of meagerness, faith out of despair, confidence out of fear. But the confidence is always moderated. Our challenge is not to find absolute certainty or to choose between improving the world or enjoying it.A Our challenge is to qualify our minds to think justlyg our challenge is to find pleasure by improving the world, our challenge is through education to recover in our souls a kind of radical innocence borne of clarity of purpose and characterized by courtesy coupled with courage, intellectual fervor tempered by grace, honor, kindness, imagination and - above alla- humility colored by understanding. As Tom Robbins has said - There are no weird people in the world - only those who need more understanding than others. In closing - G. B. Shaw wrote that 'Anybody, almost, can make a beginning. The difficulty is to make an end - to do what cannot be bettered., Edgar Tufts made what Terry Sanford termed 'an audacious beginning? It is our solemn trust to carry that beginning forward, to do what cannot be bettered. Inauguration - 13

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U. S. Army Field Band and Soldiers' Chorus Launches Inauguration QT Major Frank G. Dubuy, Director of the Soldiers' Chorus, poses with Dr. Bradford L. Crain, Lees-McRae President, during inaugural week activities. The United States Army Field Band delighted an overflow audience in Williams Gymnasium as the opening performance for the weekis inauguration activities at Lees- McRae College. The Field Band is composed of the Army's finest soldier-musicians. Many have studied in the country's leading conservatories and schools of musicg many have performed with major symphonies and leading dance orchestras before entering the service. The band's concert repertoire appeals to all audiences, offering classical, semi-classical, and popular selections, choral arrangements, novelty numbers and military marches. The program .was a stirring mix- ture that helped all those in attend- ance to reflect not only on the per- formance but on what it means to be an American. Following a patriotic prologue and several classi- cal renditions, the Soldiers' Chorus introduced several songs from My Fair Lady, and the program con- cluded with a stirring rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the patriotic march - Stars and Stripes Forever. The last of three standing ovations for the band brought the group back for an encore of When the Saints Go Marching Inf, The Soldiers' Chorus, an integral part of the band, performed at an 1.1200 a.m. Tuesday concert in Hayes Auditorium. With Dr. Crain's interest in literature it was appropos that the group presented three madrigals with text by William Shakespeare and two selections from Frostiana: A Girl's Garden and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening from texts by Robert Frost. Selections from The Barber of Seville were presented and the pro- gram's tone changed with a spiritual entitled Ain't Got Time to Dief' featuring tenor Sergeant First Class Jonathan E. Brown. A salute to Duke Ellington was made in the arrangement offered of the haunt- ing classic Mood Indigo. The Chorus concluded its program with the light, top-tapping, finger- snapping rendition of Save the Bones for Henry Jones. 'Sf fellow faculty member at Lees-McRae and as the son-in-law of a woman who attended fthe then Lees-McRaeJ high school and later the college and a man who was in charge of the college's business affairs for many years . . . I speak as a friend of the com- munity and the region . . . and, of course,I speak as a friend of Dr. Bradford Crain, distinguished graduate of Berea College, humanist, teacher, scholar, and academic leader whose many distinguished qualities have led him to his present achievement. I might say that while Berea cannot take credit forpall of Dr. Crain's fine qualities, many Bereans' are pleased that they might have had some small part in nurturing the excellence they could see in him early. Bereans are pleased that Brad Crain has taken the leadership of a college which has so many parallels with our own: a strong sense of Christian mission, a history of edu- cational service to the Appalachian region, a faithfulness to the past which still allows it to embrace an altered future. Dr. Stephenson continued, This institu- tion has seen almost epochal changes during its lifetime. The boarding school which was the foundation for the establishment of the college was here before Avery County was created. In the early days before the founding, good education in this area was not readily available . . . yet there were un- daunted souls who were challenged by what they found here . . . Edgar Tufts was one of these. He set aglow a sacred flame by building a church and a school . . . change continue strong in this high place. Inauguration - 15