Piedmont College - Yonahian Yearbook (Demorest, GA)

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PIEDMONT COLLEGE DEMOREST, GEORGIA 30535 Office of the President: JAMES E. WALTER, President THE PRESIDENT ' S LETTER Telephone 723-3691 The year of 19 73-74 may well be remembered on the pages of history as the crossroads of new maturity for the wealthiest people of the world, the people of the United States of America. The rally call was Energy Crisis. The trigger event was the Israeli-Arab War, resulting in the cut off of all oil from . Arabian countries as a result of our support of the three million Jews in their conflict with one-hundred million Arabs. In the spring of 1969 a group of seventeen of us from Piedmont College visited the rich oil fields of Iran on our 49 day world tour as a history class. We talked with the native leaders about the advantages of world trade. We needed and appreciated their God given abundance of crude oil. They needed and appreciated our American talents of scientific agriculture and modern medicine. World events beyond our control have altered these desirable exchanges for a season. Now we are launched on Project Independence by 19 80. In our homes and at the college we turned down thermostats to 68, and our physicians advised us that we are the healthier for doing it. On the highways we have learned to limit our speed to 50 miles per hour, and the accident death rates over the Thanksgiving weekend came down. Scientists have dreamed and worked for generations on the challenge of harnessing desert heat into cubes that could be packaged like coal and released like a steaming radiator wherever we need warmth in winter. Now the minds and resources of research are moving forward with vigor at a tempo of national urgency. In the meantime we have experienced again the satisfactions of sacrificing a little so that no one in our land needs to be cold. In our college family we have been glad to cooperate with the requests and regulations of government. I appreciate the understanding and good spirit of students who were asked to conserve heat in their rooms and to guard against the waste of hot water in the showers . Doing what we can to meet a genuine need of society provides a deep satisfaction in the heart of each person who lives Gratefully and with Concern for Others in God ' s great family. Sincerely, ( 7 16