This week, construction crews began demolishing the historic barn on West Carleton Road for the Meijer grocery store under development. They first removed the wall with the Mail Pouch tobacco advertisement, a relic of American history, which will be reconstructed and put on display in the Hillsdale County Historical Society's new location, which is also under construction. Jack Cote | Collegian
The class of 2024 learned the results of the senior class officer elections at the annual Legacy Board formal dinner.
Joseph Perez won president, Michael Bachmann vice president, Elizabeth Dickinson secretary, Grace Hearne treasurer, and Benjamin Heinrichs social chair. Bachmann said he is consistently impressed by the quality of students in the junior class.
“I am constantly astounded by my classmates' integrity and talent and the friendship that we have fostered,” Bachmann said. “I just want
On Thursday, April 6, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will speak at a dinner hosted by the Hillsdale College Special Events office.
The event will be held at 4 p.m. in the Searle Center, beginning with a panel discussion on K-12 education. A reception and dinner will follow, and the evening will close with Q&A between College President Larry Arnn and DeSantis.
Eighteen Michigan GOP legislators signed a letter earlier this year encouraging DeSantis to run for president. Many students and professors have been left wondering if this visit could mean something for his potential campaign.
"I think DeSantis is in effect testing the waters for running for president," Professor of Politics Thomas West said. "He hasn't declared. The speech is part of that. He wants to get out there talking to people and see whether there's enough support."
to be able to give back to the community that I have been a part of for three years and make sure we all have an amazing senior year.”
He also expressed desires to plan and execute more senior class events.
“I'm hoping to increase the number and scale of the events we host for the senior class,” Bachmann said. “I'd like to add more events to the fall semester as well.”
The senior class officers will begin brainstorming ideas for their commencement speaker this summer.
Dickinson said she is excited to continue connecting with her class, both as a senior and serving as secretary.
“My goal is to make sure everyone gets their opinion heard, whether in class events, opportunities, etc. Dickinson said. “Senior year can be a hectic time, but I want to make sure it's delightfully memorable.”
Dickinson spoke to the unique character of her class, due to both their high school and college experiences being impacted by COVID-19.
“We graduated high school in the height of a pandemic and entered college before the confusion had died down,” Dickinson said. “Despite these challenges, however, we've created some incredible community in the last three years,
and I'm honored and excited to help us finish strong.”
In addition to the election results, senior Haley Strack announced the new members of the Legacy Board. The new board will consist of 12 members: Ella Denning, Caitie Dugan, Lucy Fernandes, Duggan Foley, Grace Gottwalt, Benjamin Heinrichs, Caleb Holm, Evalyn Homoelle, Gabrielle Lewis, Matt Muller, Mary Ruth Oster, and Tristan Wertanzl.
The legacy board selects a senior class gift and fundraises on behalf of the class.
See Officers A2
In the final game of the 2019-20 season, the Charger men’s basketball team took down its long-time rival, the University of Findlay, in a last-second battle to secure their first ever regular season conference title since switching to the G-MAC.
“During the locker room celebration when we beat Findlay to clinch the regular season title, Tharp came up to me and hugged me while I was in the shower,” former twotime all-conference Charger Dylan Lowry said. “It was one of the most incredible moments of my entire life. He had a full suit on.”
Since the 2017-18 season, teams from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University have made multiple trips to the Final Four and even a run to the NCAA Championship, but the NCAA men’s basketball program with the highest winning percentage in the state is from Hillsdale College.
Over the five-year stretch, the team has won 73.94% of its games, going 105-37, which is more than 5% better than any other program in Michigan. Behind them are Ferris St. with 68.46%, MSU with 67.26%, and U of M with 66.46%.
“When you go to the YMCA growing up and there’d be five old guys at the end of the court, and you lost to them 10 to eight, and it’s like ‘how
did I lose to those guys?’” head coach John Tharp said. “Well, they pass, they catch, they play together, they’re skilled. In our own way, that’s kind of what we are.”
Despite playing fewer games than its DI counterparts, Hillsdale was the only one of 25 programs in the state to win at least 19 games in each year since 2017.
The past three years have been especially fruitful for the team. A pair of NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen runs and a bid to the Elite Eight — both the first such runs in program history — cemented the team in the record books of both the team and the nation.
“The last two or three years, it’s been pretty absurd, the winning they’re doing, it’s shocking,” Lowry said.
The key to the program’s historic success, according to current and former players, is simple: the team’s 16-year head coach, Tharp.
“You’ve got turnover in college basketball, guys leave,” Lowry said. “Every year you graduate four, sometimes up to seven guys. Even our staff, none of the current assistants were on staff when I played. Even while I was there, I had probably six or seven different assistants in my five years. There’s one common variable, and that’s coach Tharp. It all goes back to him.”
Tharp recently topped 500 career wins, and holds the program record for wins as a head coach with 297, 125 more than any other coach.
According to former threetime all-conference Charger Davis Larson, Tharp is someone you both love and fear at the same time, saying there simply aren’t many coaches like him anymore.
“It’s such an interesting combination for a coach, I feel like it’s so rare with all the other coaches I’ve seen and had,” Larson said. “He’s someone you truly, truly want to play for, you always do what he says and respect what he says, yet you love him as a father, and he loves you as a son.”
After the team’s final practice before leaving for Evansville and the Elite Eight in 2022, Tharp shared a message with the team.
“He calls us into the old locker room in the back corner of the gym, where everything started for him and his teams 16 years ago,” fifth-year senior guard Jack Gohlke said. “He talked to us about how he started at the program from those days where he only had a couple guys returning when he was the new coach coming in and he had to build the program on toughness and those guys going to battle every day. He talked to us about how we were the next step in the revolution.”
In April 2007, Tharp took over as the Charger head coach following 13 seasons leading DIII Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, to a program record 204 wins.
See Basketball A9
College President Larry
Arnn is back to work after undergoing brain surgery on March 22, he announced in an email to students, faculty, and staff on Wednesday.
“I feel better than I have felt for some years,” Arnn, who is 70, told the Collegian after his surgery. Arnn, who had more than 30 examinations and spent eight days at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was treated for a rise in fluid and pressure around his brain, he said.
“Brain surgery sounds very serious, but this one is not,” Arnn wrote in his March 29 email. “I was intending to announce this at convocation, but people tell me there is speculation going about.”
Arnn said he broke the news of the surgery to a crowd of people on March 25, so they wouldn’t wonder why he was wearing a baseball hat.
“I make the boys take their baseball caps off in the dining hall all the time,” Arnn told the Collegian. “And the people there probably didn't know that, but I did. And so I just mentioned that I had brain surgery on Wednesday. And everybody laughed and I said ‘well it’s not a joke, but it's okay. Don't worry about it.’”
According to Arnn, who became college president in 2000, the news of his surgery spread quickly.
“A couple of people called me and said ‘you're going to have to say something about this because now it’s going around that you’re near death,’” Arnn said. “And I’m not.”
Arnn said he first noticed something was wrong when he had trouble riding his motorcycle and developed difficulty balancing.
“Three years ago or so, I became a not very good motorcycle rider, and I had been pretty good. I became a nervous motorcycle rider,” Arnn said. After seeking chiropractic care for his back pain, Arnn said chiropractor Kevin Walton ’94 suggested his lack of balance could signify a greater problem.
“As time passed, people began to notice I was walking slower,” Arnn said. “And my elder daughter especially became belligerent about it and said that I had to go see a new doctor in town, Scott Kirsch. And he figured it out by just talking to me for 45 minutes.”
Arnn soon had appointments booked at the Mayo Clinic, where several of his family members have been treated in the past.
See
A2
Matthew Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributor to the New York Times. He was previously a national correspondent for The Week. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
What is The Lamp?
The Lamp was a response to two needs, real or perceived, in journalism. One was the absence of what I would call an orthodox Catholic print periodical, something distinct from the sort of horse race reporting on what the bishops are doing or what the pope is saying. That can be done very ably, but it's not exhaustive of what Catholic journalism could be. So there's a sense that we needed something that would fill that space, but there was also a sense that so many wonderful magazines like The Weekly Standard had either disappeared or existed only as in some kind of skeleton form. We thought there was plenty of room for a publication that was devoted to good writing on all sorts of subjects for its own sake. There was a strong sense that it needed to be a print product. People are interested in escaping what Cardinal Robert Sarah calls “the dictatorship of noise;” they want to be able to go lie down in a hammock and rest their eyes and read something.
Does The Lamp appeal to a larger audience beyond Catholics?
I think there's a sense in which so many attempts to create a kind of relevant Catholic or Christian media end up being so cringe-inducing. There's a sort of excellence that is intrinsic to certain genres. By pursuing that kind of excellence for its own sake, just writing well about bowling, or, you know, small town libraries or whatever, there's a sense in which that's Catholic journalism, both with a capital “C” and with a lowercase “c” since it's universal, and it’s of interest to everyone.
Why did you decide to print The Lamp using metal plates?
The official reason is that our designer, who is very precise and fussy about these things, says that it
Officers from A1
“Being invited to join the legacy board is a huge honor,” Denning said. “I’m looking forward to working with the alumni office because it’s a great reminder that I’m part of something far bigger than myself. I think Hillsdale does a great job of creating relationships that last long after graduation. Being able to stay connected through our community is something I’m very grateful for.”
Holm is currently on the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, so he wasn’t able to attend the dinner. Holm has served on the 1844 Society since his freshman year due to his belief in the mission of the college.
“This new role on the Legacy Board will give me and my fellow board members a much more hands-on role in giving back to the college,” Holm said. “We must preserve what makes Hillsdale such a special place and at the same time mark the future that we hope to leave. It’s a tall task, but I am confident that the team will be up to it.”
looks better and that anyone who really knows you can tell. The secret reason is because it's part of our deliberately cultivated fogeyish image.
What are you working on now that you are excited about?
For old magazine hands, the most interesting issue is always the one two out from the one now. The one that you just did you've totally forgotten about.The one that you're about to put to press is tedious because it's work. But two issues down the road is just whimsy and magic. So I'm thinking about The Lamp two issues from now.
Did you finish college?
I'm not sure about the status of my diploma because of a long-standing dispute about interlibrary loans that actually involves Hillsdale. There was a book, a very rare book by the philosopher F.H. Bradley. The only library in Michigan that has it is Hillsdale. They sent it up to me. I read it. I put it back in the dropbox, and they said I hadn't returned it. So my school said that I had to pay $3,000 or something to replace “Aphorisms” by F.H. Bradley. I don't know whatever became of it. I hope you guys have your copy of F.H. Bradley's "Aphorisms," but the school still maintains that I owe them $3,000. I've been lucky so far that I've never had anybody ever ask me for an official transcript, because I don't think I can get one.
How did you break into journalism?
The summer after I graduated, I started sending stuff to magazines and newspapers. And apart from a little bit of writing for my college paper very early on, I didn't have any sense of how to do this. I started writing book reviews occasionally for The Washington Times, and I wrote a long feature for the American Conservative. And I thought, “how do you get a job doing this?”
I saw that there was this internship at the American Spectator, which in those days was in print monthly. I applied, and to me it was completely a shot in the dark. I had no idea whether I would be accepted. I was, it was unpaid, and I had to move to Washington, D.C., with no money. Those were heady days. I can remember
DeSantis from A1
Other confirmed and potential presidential candidates have visited Hillsdale this semester including Vivek Ramaswamy and former Vice President Mike Pence.
"We had in 2016 a bunch of candidates coming here," West said. "Ben Carson was here, Ted Cruz was at one point. It's just kind of what we do. We let people come in and speak, and people react in any way they want."
According to the Detroit News, DeSantis will also attend the Midland County Republican Party's Spring Breakfast on April 6.
"Gov. DeSantis needs no introduction, and we are excited to announce he is coming to Midland," the Midland County GOP said in a statement.
According to the contact center, event registration is currently closed with a growing waitlist. George Washington and Winston Churchill Fellows are some of the few students on the guest list for the event.
"Especially attending a college that places so much emphasis on the importance of an education that teaches
trying to decide, “should I pay for Metro fare or have a pack of cigarettes today? Can I eat this afternoon?”
I would not recommend doing an unpaid internship. You really should be paid for working.
Why did you decide to leave D.C.?
I had a general sense that in the space of only not quite half a decade, I had really lost touch with where I was from. The world of my Michigan childhood, which I remember in sort of idyllic terms, had disappeared, and I didn't even know about it. I was just as out of touch as people who, in sort of Washington political terms, I would have thought of as my ignorant adversaries. I was blindsided by this. Just a few years had been enough to transform every aspect of where I lived. And having been back, the transformation has only continued to pace. We drive around and there are billboards for cannabis dispensaries, payday lenders, Dollar Trees. That's what rural America is now, and it's a shame, but it's a shame I want to share in.
How did leaving D.C. affect you professionally?
That decision, it seems like this sort of a quaint, charming thing, but to leave the place where your job is and to go back home — it's not an easy decision. It's not one that I would take lightly. If you've been working in Washington or New York for a few years, you miss those connections: the people you go and have a drink with or you know, meet for lunch. That becomes a lot harder to do.
What is your advice to anyone who wants to go into journalism now?
What's important now is expertise, or at least something that can plausibly be presented as expertise — mastery of some body of fact or area of inquiry. I think for students, whether they're interested in, reporting or commentary or some mixture of both, it's really important to recognize that it's very hard now to be a generalist, to be the kind of person who wants to unburden himself with his opinions on classical music, sports, and the decline of cigarette smoking, and some Senate bill or whatever it is. It's better to have an area.
critical thinking, it will be interesting to hear first-hand from Mr. DeSantis how he views the government's proper role in that, and how he views recent Florida policies as either helping or hindering such a goal," sophomore George Washington Fellow Vivian Turnbull said.
Sophomore Winston Churchill Fellow Gwen Thomspon said she appreciates the opportunity to hear from these political figures first hand instead of through the media.
"I have not followed DeSantis' career as eagerly as some of my classmates, and so I'm excited to hear him speak in person, and judge him based on a firsthand experience," Thompson said. "Especially since Mr. Ramaswamy and Vice President Pence have both visited, and as we look ahead to election season, it's been great have direct experience of these important figures. You can read the news all you like, but there's nothing like seeing and hearing the man himself."
The Alumni Relations Program will reopen its student-alumni liaison program this summer, giving current students the opportunity to connect with alumni.
“College means partnership. That partnership doesn’t just end once you graduate; this is a lifelong partnership that students have with the college,” said Braden Vandyke, assistant director of student and young alumni programs and 1844 Society’s staff adviser. “We want to engage alumni no matter where they are geographically or generationally, and one of the ways we think is a great way of engaging them is by going to where they are.”
The alumni office is looking primarily for students in the Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois area, and the program will pay students $50 for each alumni they meet with, says Vandyke.
“The idea of it is that we hire students, contract them really, because it’s not your traditional nine to five job,” Vandyke said. “The hired students are given a list of alumni in their area to reach out to and set up meetings with. It could be over coffee, or a meal, or anything of that type.”
Ben Wilson ’22, reporter for the Washington Free Beacon and former edi -
tor-in-chief of The Collegian, participated in the program during the summer of 2019.
“It was great to go talk with alumni from the school and just tell them about my experience as a student. And I think it was good for them to hear a student perspective,” Wilson said. “It was a new perspective for me, as I had just finished my freshman year at the time, and it gave me a new awareness of the different Hillsdale experiences that many of our alumni had.”
Hillsdale College admissions counselor Greta Dornbirer ’22 also participated in the program during the summer of 2019. She said she learned a lot about the college from the alumni she met with.
“The Hillsdale many of the alumni attended in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s is a different Hillsdale than today,” Dornbirer said. “So meeting with a current student, I think it reminds them of their college experience, and then they’re hopefully more likely to get involved in other alumni things in the future, because it’s great for us to keep alumni involved in the school and it's such a unique opportunity to be able to share with them —f rom a student’s perspective — what Hillsdale is like today.”
Dornbirer said she came away from her summer with
positive memories and new relationships with alumni, some of which lasted beyond the summer.
“There was one lady who I went out to lunch with and she was so nice and so sweet,” Dornbirer said, “And she ended up visiting campus later in the year and dropped me off this little gift and it was just so sweet.”
Out of the several meetings Wilson had that summer, he said one stuck out in particular.
“There was one man I contacted, and he was like ‘come on over to my house and we’ll go out on my boat,’ so I went over and spent that evening in this beautiful boat with this guy and a bunch of his frat brothers and they were just reminiscing about their glory days,” he said.
Ultimately, the program aims to draw alumni back and to reconnect them with the college, said Vandyke.
“Alumni are the chief beneficiaries of the college–they are what we as a college produce,” Vandyke said.
“And obviously, we always want to welcome alumni back to campus, but sometimes that’s not possible, so we want to come to them. Our ultimate goal with these meetings is just to reconnect alumni with the college, and what better way to do that than with the students themselves.”
Hillsdale College faculty and staff will exit the classroom and perform skits, songs, and various talents at the second annual Faculty Revue on Friday, March 31, at 7 p.m. in Plaster Auditorium.
The Student Activities Board decided to bring back the event for a second year after a positive reaction to the event last year.
Last year’s event featured a musical performance from Professor of Philosophy Nathan Schlueter, a game of pictionary with the art department, and a storytelling skit with Associate Professor of Philosophy Ian
Arnn from A1
“They're very savvy at the Mayo Clinic. And they know about people like me. So their instruction is to rest as much as you can. And I don't need to, so I'm working,” Arnn said.
Arnn said apart from soreness from the surgery, he is “a fully operational Death Star,” and appreciates the college’s support.
“I am grateful for the support I have had from the college community. Every -
Church. This year, Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic will be playing the electric guitar for one of the acts.
“I think SAB wanted to repeat this event after last year because we received a lot of positive feedback from the student body and the SAB staff enjoyed the event just as much,” said Madelyn Clark, director of student activities.
According to Clark, the idea was from members of SAB’s team last year.
Clark said there are lots of moving parts that go into planning the event.
“A lot of communication goes into this event. Mainly our SAB members are asking professors who would be
one knows my wife is the greatest, and she has been in this matter too. Neither of us has regarded this as a crisis,” Arnn said in his email.
Arnn added that he is ready and eager to continue his work at the college.
“I intend to keep at the work we have all been doing together, which is a responsibility and a privilege to me,” he wrote.
Kathleen O’Toole, assistant provost for K-12 education and daughter of Arnn, said he has treated
interested in participating and then helping professors come up with an act if they don't already have something in mind,” Clark said. SAB is also working to communicate with the college’s audio/video department.
Junior Claire Henzel attended the event last spring.
“It was really fun to see my professors in such a different light,” Henzel said. “Not only was the event super fun and entertaining, but I was shocked by how talented some of these professors are. I think it is great that SAB is bringing this event back for a second year.”
the surgery with his typical humor.
“He was working right up until the morning of the surgery and he was working the morning after the surgery, to the point where we had to tell him ‘please stop and go to sleep,’” O’Toole said. “ I talked to him right before the surgery and I talked to him again the day after and he was himself the entire time.”
The K-12 Education Office will partner with the Institute for Excellence in Writing to create a new structure and style curriculum, based on Hillsdale’s K-12 Program Guide, for third through eighth graders. The first set, designed for third graders, will be available in summer 2023.
Hillsdale students, alumni, and local families will serve the community this Saturday, April 1, for the 4th annual Day of Service.
The 1844 Society and GOAL office partner to plan the annual event. Anyone interested can sign up with a team or independently through a Google sheet link in the GOAL newsletter. Volunteers will work on various service projects from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“The teams disperse and go to assigned projects, which range from cleaning up elderly people’s yards to doing a volleyball clinic with kids in the community,” senior and student director of GOAL Lucy Cuneo said.
After their work, all volun-
teers will meet in the Searle Center for lunch and live music.
“You’ll work on a project for about an hour and a half, then we’re having a big old celebratory pizza lunch in the Searle Center,” Cuneo said.
The 1844 Society’s involvement in Day of Service is recent, according to Braden VanDyke, assistant director of student and young alumni programs and 1844 Society’s staff adviser.
“This is only the second year the 1844 Society and Alumni Office have partnered with the GOAL office for the annual Day of Service,” VanDyke said.
Both VanDyke and Cuneo hope to keep expanding the event.
“We’re hoping to grow Day of Service from 350 volunteers to 500 volunteers,” Cuneo said. “Almost every dorm is partic-
ipating, as well as the Greek houses and off-campus houses.”
VanDyke said he wants to bring in more non-students as well.
“Last year we had just a handful of local alumni, and this year we’re hosting a slightly larger group,” VanDyke said. “We’re also excited to emphasize it as a family event. We have families with middle school and high school students and even participants as young as 6 years old.”
Cuneo said she sees the Day of Service as a benefit for students.
“As poor college students, we don’t have a lot of money, but what we do have is time,” Cuneo said.
Cuneo said Day of Service not only serves the community but may also form connections for the students.
“There can often be a difference between a proverbial ‘town and gown,’ and I think this is one of the best ways to bridge that gap and also learn more about other GOAL programs,” Cuneo said. “You might learn about how you can serve Domestic Harmony as you’re assembling gifts, or you might make new friends through the community sports volleyball clinic.”
Students can sign up all week, including the day of, and will be assigned to one of the already registered teams.
“A lot of the projects are outside and we don’t know what the weather will be like, so bring a warm jacket, a hat, gloves, and a good attitude,” Cuneo said.
The abortion discussion is far from over, Sherif Girgis, associate professor of law at Notre Dame Law School, said in his speech “Abortion and the Law After Dobbs.”
On March 23 in Plaster Auditorium, Girgis talked about the future of the pro-life movement in the United States.
“The question of the next years and decades is whether, in a world where the dominant ethos is not almost uniformly pro-life, our country can find a stable and peaceful equilibrium in which different states take different approaches on the issue,” Girgis said.
The Federalist Society invited Girgis, former law clerk to Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Samuel Alito, to speak on the future of abortion. Girgis said while Dobbs settled the question of a constitutional right to abortion, it opened the door for federal and state battles in the coming years.Girgis argued unlike most policy issues in the United States, which are often left to the state-level, abortion is an issue both sides feel so passionately about that it cannot be left to local decision-making. Instead, both sides are seeking “the most centralized, nationalized, and permanent solution to the debate,” according to Girgis.
The potential issues that may arise in the wake of Dobbs include access to contraception, laws which require fetal remains to be buried or cre-
mated, and legal challenges to waiting periods and mandatory counseling before obtaining an abortion, Girgis said.
The recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade, has sparked a flurry of legal and political battles over the issue of abortion.
Many states are turning to state lawmaking mechanisms and referendums to try and achieve permanent and sweeping change at the state level.
“People who regret Dobbs will repair to state courts to try to get them to declare a state constitutional right,” Girgis said. “The first instinct is to try to get permanent relief at the state level through the state constitution.”
Additionally, some states are trying to punish those who assist in the performance of an abortion across state lines. This, however, raises complex constitutional questions about the extent to which states can regulate extraterritorial conduct, Girgis said.
Another option is to pursue action at the federal level. This could involve attempts to pass federal legislation either banning or declaring a statutory right to abortion that would supersede any state attempts to regulate the issue, Girgis said. Given the highly polarized nature of the debate, it is uncertain whether such legislation could garner enough support to pass.
While there are some existing federal laws that could be used to regulate abortion, they are limited and unlikely to be
used to nationalize the issue, according to Girgis. State-level battles will likely continue, with pro-choice advocates seeking to protect access to abortion and pro-life advocates seeking to restrict it.
“It is very hard for Congress to do anything, much less pass a law that nationalizes the abortion issue.” Girgis said. “So even though the impulse on both sides will be to do that on both sides in one way or another, it will unlikely to happen anytime soon.”
Since it is unlikely for new legislation to pass in Congress, both pro-life and pro-choice sides may try to exploit existing laws, Girgis said.
Pro-lifers could use the Comstock Act, passed in 1873, to make mailing abortion drugs a federal crime. Meanwhile, pro-choicers might argue for equal protection and the 13th Amendment, but the former was already ruled out by Roe, and the latter doesn't apply since abortion bans were not aimed at slaves or their descendants, according to Girgis.
Finally, pro-choicers may appeal to the free exercise clause and claim religious exemption, but the state must have a compelling interest in enforcing the ban, which brings up the issue of moral status, Girgis said. Thus, the abortion issue remains unresolved at the federal level and is likely to continue in state courts and legislatures. Even still, the pro-life side does have a way of constitutionalizing their preferred result, Girgis said.
“There is a strong originalist case for thinking that the 14th amendment is not just that it allows states to ban abortion, but that it requires them to ban abortion to give equal protection to the unborn life,” Girgis said.
Girgis said there are sociological and legal obstacles to this argument taking hold.
“Many will want you to clear a very high bar before you use an originalist argument to take a very fraught and political issue out of the people’s hands,” Girgis said.
Sophomore Kody Richards said she has attended previous Girgis lectures and always enjoys hearing from him.
“Professor Girgis does a really good job of articulating high-level moral and legal issues in a very understandable way,” Richards said. “Listening to him talk about Roe v. Wade last year, I felt like I understood it in a way that I wouldn't if I had not listened; I feel the same way now listening to him talk about the post Dobbs discussion.”
Sophomore Toby Klooster said he appreciates Girgis discussing the issue from all angles.
“Every time Professor Girgis comes here, I love it I really enjoy how he lays out every perspective on an issue, especially with the constitutional law, which obviously here at Hillsdale, we are very interested in,” Klooster said.
Students who visited Israel during Christmas break are offering an information session on the Passages Israel program tonight in Lane 123 at 6 p.m.
Junior Fernando Bravo is coordinating the information session and said it will cover topics including trip logistics, the application process, the cost of attending, and trip itinerary.
“We are also having some students briefly share some highlights from their experience in Israel,” he said.
One of those students, senior David Swegle, said his
trip to Israel with Passages was amazing.
“We had a phenomenal tour guide who was a wealth of knowledge and joy,” he said. “We had the opportunity to go to 5:30 a.m. Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which was my favorite part of the trip.”
Swegle said attending the Passages trip was one of his primary goals in college.
“Passages offers a great opportunity for Christian college students to both connect with their faith in the Holy Land and learn more about the current geopolitical situation in the region,” he said. “Hearing from other
Hillsdale students who had traveled to Israel with Passages in prior years made me want to go even more.”
According to Bravo, students don’t have to plan on applying for Passages to attend the information session.
“All students who are even remotely curious about what a trip to Israel with Passages looks like should attend,” Bravo said. “There is no pressure to apply, and all we are looking to do is to share our experience to give students an idea of what to expect leading up to and during the trip.”
Students interested in attending should come with
“We are excited to partner with the Institute for Excellence in Writing to provide the students at Hillsdale-affiliated schools with a comprehensive writing curriculum that is both rigorous and engaging,” Assistant Provost for K-12 Education Kathleen O’Toole said in a press release.
The curriculum will teach students to write using “brevity, clarity, and creativity,” according to a press release.
According to the IEW website, students using the existing IEW curriculum will learn nine ways to formattheir compositions, as well as stylistic techniques to improve their writing.
Hillsdale Academy literature teacher Ellen Condict said good K-12 writing curriculums center on skill-building.
“A writing curriculum for K-12 needs to concern itself with careful scaffolding of skills, building the students up at each level without trying to rush them through the thought process and stages of
development that all writers reach at their own pace,” Condict said. “A good curriculum will offer students many opportunities for repetition and mastery of particular skills instead of leaving them to rely on innate ability.”
The existing IEW curriculum is already used in some classical schools and homeschools, and teaches students to write by slowly building on skills learned in previous lessons and previous years. Students learn how to enhance their writing by adding “dress-ups,” such as the who-which clause and strong verbs, according to the IEW Structure and Style Overview. Students also learn basic organization and formatting, which allows them to keep their thoughts consistent throughout their pieces.
“IEW does a wonderful job of making concrete the stylistic moves that gifted writers grasp intuitively; making connections and bridges between ideas doesn’t come automatically to most young writers, and the IEW curriculum gives them tools to work towards real proficiency with language and rhetoric,” Condict said. “It gives students small, clear areas to work on instead of vaguely assuming that they can improve their writing by learning general principles alone.”
Anyone interested in using the new curriculum will be able to access it through IEW.
co-founder Edwin Feulner will speak on life and leadership on April 4 at 7 p.m. in Dow A & B.
Feulner, senior fellow at Hillsdale in D.C., was president of the Heritage Foundation from 1977 to 2013.
“Fuelner’s talk will be about his life and the lessons that he has learned throughout the organizations that he has founded, and the themes that he has seen throughout the various organizations as well,” Undergraduate Program Coordinator Mary Greco said.
Fuelner has visited Hillsdale College in the past, but has not recently given a speech on campus, according to Greco.
Fuelner has traveled extensively and met a wide variety of people throughout his career.
“Hillary Clinton’s first boss in D.C. was Dr. Fuelner,” former WHIP student and junior Elizabeth Dickinson said.
At the time, Fuelner had been involved in the Republican party, prior to his time at the Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation is in the process of launching Project 2025, which intends to prepare for the next conservative executive administration.
“There is a big story behind how the Heritage Foundation came to be,” Greco said. “He’ll talk about Heritage’s history, what it is today, and where it’s going. The Project 2025 is
preparing public servants for a new administration, and the Heritage Foundation is sponsoring that.”
Fuelner maintains an integral role with the Heritage Foundation, even after the conclusion of his time as president, according to Greco.
“The Heritage Foundation is transitioning from a think tank to a more active role in politics through Project 2025,” Dickinson said. “Fuelner talked about that shift in D.C. as well.”
He visits the students on WHIP at least once every semester, and WHIP students are also able to get coffee with him while they’re in D.C.
“We had breakfast with Fuelner one morning, and it was really cool to get to talk to him,” Dickinson said. “We talked about the flow of American politics, particularly the flow from the Republican Caucus to the Freedom Caucus and what brought that about.” Dickinson said a semester in D.C. away from Hillsdale leads to growth and opportunities.
“WHIP gave me a lot more confidence in who I was through the opportunities that I was given,” Dickinson said. “It was an opportunity of a lifetime, and there were so many ways to witness the professional world. It taught me a lot about myself, what I want to do with my life, and what I can do.”
questions to gain more insight into traveling abroad, according to Bravo.
“Good questions to prepare might relate to the student's favorite moments of the trip, how Passages navigates the denominational diversity of its participants, how the student’s view of Jewish-Christian relations was impacted by the trip, or any questions about what it is like to travel abroad,” Bravo said.
Swegle’s advice to students is to talk to those who have already gone on the Passages trip.
“We all had a great time and want others to experience Israel too,” he said.
Online : www.hillsdalecollegian.com
Editor-in-Chief | Maggie Hroncich
Associate Editor | Christian Peck-Dimit
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News Editor | Maddy Welsh
Opinions Editor | Elyse Apel
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Sports Editor | Isaac Green
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Features Editor | Meghan Schultz
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Assistant Editors | Linnea Shively | Michaela Estruth | Lauren Scott
| Olivia Hajicek | Tess Owen | Olivia Pero | Thomas McKenna | Jane
Kitchen | Michael Bachmann | Carly Moran
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The editors welcome Letters to the Editor but reserve the right to edit submissions for clarity, length, and style. Send submissions to the Opinions
Editor at ehawkins@hillsdale.edu before Saturday at 3 p.m.
The opinion of The Collegian editorial staff
As students begin to map out their classes for the fall semester, some may desperately be in need of a one-credit class to take a break from the seemingly never-ending requirements of The Core. From courses about thriller author Dean Koontz to surveying Japanese Anime, the humanities are dominating the CSP game.
While most departments offer your typical three-credit intensive course, CSP classes focus on a range of interests depending on the professor organizing them.
More departments should offer specialized courses as a
means of focusing on certain themes or topics within their department. Economics and various STEM fields are just as deserving of these classes as other departments.
The current one-credit opportunities in the STEM departments are limited to things like research development and scientific writing, but the Sports Studies department has a monopoly on specialized courses relating to science. Sports Studies offers classes like “Medical Terminology” and “Women’s Health & Nutrition,” both of which would be useful for any student in any major.
Ideas for these courses can come from what professors are currently doing their research work on and can be just as much of a survey of future research as much as a historical overview. Students should advocate for special topic additions to the course list and should discuss ideas for new classes with their professors, since professors may not know if students are interested, or able to keep up with the extra workload of another class.
With experienced professors who have devoted their lives to academia, often with niche interests themselves,
it would be a great benefit to offer more one-credit opportunities each semester in each department. More departments should work to include classes they are interested in or think students may enjoy. The stress of required courses can often paralyze students and trick them into thinking that college is all work and no play. But sometimes play comes in the form of work, and one-credit courses can help reignite the spark of interest in students’ academic endeavors.
Over 700,000 Michigan residents lost power during the recent ice storm. As power companies scrambled to restore energy, Hillsdale College hurried to install backup generators across campus to ensure dorm residents had power. Weather-related blackouts illustrate the weakness of the energy grid and fuel cries for more clean or renewable energy.
“Clean energy” is energy that comes from natural resources. Solar, wind, water, nuclear, and geothermal are all considered “clean energy,” with solar, wind, and nuclear being the most common.
The most common justifi-
cation for clean energy is the reduction of greenhouse gases, but proponents also cite blackouts as a reason to ditch fossil fuels. However, despite the recent ice storm-related blackout in southern Michigan, there are a few reasons why clean energy is not the best solution to counter another ice storm.
Let’s start with wind turbines. Consumers Energy operates a 60-turbine wind farm in Hillsdale County as part of a “$246 million investment in Michigan’s clean energy infrastructure.” One cited benefit of the turbines, besides the clean energy, is that they “provide an ongoing revenue source for participating landowners,”
many of which are farmers. The truth about wind turbines is less straightforward. Turbines require acres of land to produce enough energy. Remote areas are best, but the energy must somehow be transmitted from the wind farms to more urban areas. Hillsdale is a less populated city, but it is still impossible to build turbines downtown.
A study on the impacts of low-frequency noise in turbines found that, despite the low volume, it can cause health problems ranging from headaches to dizziness to heart rate disturbances. Despite attempts to reduce noise, another study shows that, while daytime noise is relatively quiet, wind farms disturb sleep patterns. The same study notes that noise from wind turbines is more irritating than other noises at the same volume.
Good Friday will begin like most Fridays at Hillsdale College. We’ll stumble into our morning classes, exhausted by a long week of academic work and looking forward to what we hope will be a relaxing weekend.
But that’s not how I grew up observing Good Friday.
My family and I devoted the morning of Good Friday to preparing our home for Easter and listening to my Dad read a meditation on the Passion. There was a severe and heavy atmosphere those mornings. God was suffering.
Hillsdale is a Christian college, as its mission statement attests. But at the risk of being more Christian in name than in fact, Good Friday here begins at noon.
The problem with the college’s current schedule of only canceling afternoon classes on Good Friday is two-fold. Not only does it neglect the spiritual needs of students and professors, it creates logistical issues with syllabi.
Students don’t generally put themselves in the shoes of professors creating a syllabus; however, it’s a valuable exercise for the imagination - I promise it’s not as dark a place as the midterm scheduled on the day after Spring Break made it seem.
Suppose you are laying out the schedule for a 1 p.m. core class you teach every semester. The spring semester is going to cause difficulties.
Robbed of 50 minutes, it is potentially difficult for a professor to prepare students for the exams and papers they are required to write by the end of the semester - never mind that professors tend to fall behind their syllabi schedules anyway.
While you’re struggling to figure out how to fit all the
required material into your class, your colleague with a morning class is planning to cancel it. Partly because a minority of students are likely to actually show up and partly because the class distracts from the day’s solemn character. It is also difficult for professors who teach two sections of the same class in the morning and afternoon.
Holy Week is a sacred time for Christians. Good Friday’s solemnities begin on Thursday night with a commemoration of the Last Supper and the events at the Garden of Gethsemane. They follow Christ’s passion, death, burial, and, finally, His Resurrection on Sunday morning. They are at the heart of our shared Christian faith.
Entering into the spirit of these three critical days in the calendar begins by closely following their historical events - which one can hardly do while trying to pinch themselves awake in a baby bio class at 8 a.m. on Friday morning.
During these solemn days, students and professors should have the opportunity to set aside their textbooks. While academics are important, these three days should be dedicated to renewing ourselves spiritually. Academics can become paramount again on Easter Tuesday.
For a college that is devoted to Christianity, it is strange that classes take place until noon on Good Friday. Let students and professors leave academics behind for a day - cancel the remaining classes on Good Friday.
Aubrey Gulick is a senior studying history and journalism. She is a senior reporter at the Collegian.
The turbines also negatively impact wildlife. One energy company recently pled guilty to its turbines killing approximately 150 bald eagles. Harms associated with turbines include disrupting habitats, lower survival and reproduction rates, and noise pollution. Bats are particularly at risk from turbines, with thou-
sands dying every year. Another problem is that, while turbines have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years, there is no great way to dispose of them. Companies are not required to dedicate funds for cleanup, meaning that while old turbines might be torn down, companies are not required to do so. If they are removed, the parts usually end up in a landfill instead of being recycled or reused. Another form of clean energy is solar panels. A major benefit is that small panels can be attached to individual buildings. Some
companies build solar panels on homes, and the electric grid buys excess energy from homeowners. But solar panels do not work at night. Some panels can be connected to batteries, storing energy for later use, but they are a relatively new technology. Most of them work in real-time, meaning they only last until the sun goes down (battery options are usually expensive). Weather data shows that, on average, Michigan sees 10 clear days from December to February, and sunlight only reaches the
ground 36% of the time. The result is that during winter months, solar panels would only function at 10-25% of their full capacity. It would be wise to improve and diversify energy sources to help avoid another ice storm-related blackout. For now, however, resources should focus on improving the current energy grid.
Chance Cook is a graduate student at the Hillsdale College Van Andel School of Statesmanship.
Detroit businessman
and self-proclaimed “quality guru” Perry Johnson launched his presidential campaign with a fart.
It was not his own fart. It was the fictional fart of an inflated Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, in a cartoon Super Bowl ad.
A rotund Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, also waddled across the screen, asking for more money as whimsical music played in the background.
“That’s not the solution, it’s the problem,” Johnson replied in the ad.
When Johnson presented his platform of federal budget cuts, he presented an unoriginal idea as if he were the first to suggest it.
“If Congress cuts the budget just 2% a year, problem solved,” he said in the ad.
Johnson said he hopes to sell the idea with his book, “Two Cents to Save America.” Or at least, he hopes to sell viewers on his book.
“Get two books, send one to Schumer,” he said in the ad.
In a CPAC Republican presidential primary poll, Johnson placed third, behind former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Johnson won 5% of the vote, beating former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who won 3% of votes, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who won less than 1%.
Johnson claims to have a wealth of experience in the automotive industry, as he founded the Perry Johnson Companies Group and sustained jobs in Michigan for four decades.
“Johnson brought quality control to Detroit that saved the American automobile industry,” the narrator said in the ad. “Next, he’ll save America.”
But he never saved the auto industry, according to Bridge Michigan. He can never successfully explain his actual accomplishments. According to his website, he has written more than 15 manuals covering topics from Total Quality Management to Statistical Process Control and ISO/QS-9000 systems.
Terry Boboige, president of Perry Johnson Registrars, tried to clarify what this means.
“PJR understands the importance of impartiality in carrying out its management system certification activities, manages conflict of interest, and ensures the objectivity of its management certification activities,” Boboige said on the
website of the company, which falls under the umbrella of Johnson’s larger corporate group.
If neither Johnson nor his staff can offer a straightforward, concise definition of his accomplishments, voters cannot expect him to communicate clearly as president.
The only comprehensible part of Johnson’s career is that he calls himself an automotive “quality guru,” but he is more like a usedcar salesman.
Johnson sent millions of “junk faxes” to potential customers in the 1990s, violating federal rules, and used prison labor for telemarketing, according to Bridge Michigan. When he ran for Michigan governor in 2020, officials found his nominating petition signatures fraudulent, and disqualified him from the race. For someone who focuses on quality assurance, Johnson couldn’t assure the quality of his own campaign.
The 75-year-old Johnson won’t woo the female vote with his profile on the defunct dating site LoveCity.com, which he shared in a March 2022 tweet. His profile photo features a much younger Johnson, wearing an outdated white suit and the hair style of a rich frat brother.
“I am a fun, bright, entrepreneur with a great sense of humor and a strong need for adventure,” his profile said. “I am a little over 6 feet tall, 185 pounds with an athletic build. My picture is on the screen. I am looking for someone 21 to 35 who is bright and extremely attractive.”
Johnson listed his age as 35, but he was born in 1948, so he was at least 48 years old at the time. Apparently, Johnson is overqualified in one area –dating.
“I’m not a career politician,” Johnson said in a tweet. “Real person, was likely on dating sites before married to my wife.”
If Johnson continues to push ads like his campaign announcement, he will win the vote of edgy young adults. But he will lose the vote of anyone serious about politics.
The next president should offer more than flatulence and platitudes. Johnson thinks he is America’s only hope, but America’s only hope is to choose someone else.
Logan Washburn is a junior studying politics and journalism. He is an editor at the Collegian.
It pays to be a bureaucrat.
Michigan’s $76 billion budget fuels special interests appointed to the state’s key economic development agency, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The MEDC hands out millions of dollars in economic incentives annually, while also wielding considerable power scheduling the pay out of economic grants. The MEDC is a unique
state agency in that it has an executive committee made up of private business owners and community stakeholders, meaning these individuals do not have to give up their stake in their companies to serve on this board. Members of the MEDC’s executive committee can still receive grants from the state legislature toward their private business ventures even while serving on the committee that negotiates their contracts. One member and an
appointee of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Fey Beydoun, received a grant for $20 million toward her nonprofit, Global Link International, according to an article reported by the Detroit News on March 20. Other businesses owned by members of the MEDC have also received grants.
Beydoun filed paperwork to incorporate the nonprofit 10 days after receiving the budget appropriation from the Michigan legislature on
July 1, according to the Detroit News. The $20 million grant was a part of the nearly $1 billion “enhancement grants” lawmakers use to earmark special projects for businesses in their districts.
Recipients that receive these grants are required to provide additional quarterly reports and a final report when the grant term ends, the Detroit News reported Mach 20. Beydoun is not the only member to receive a grant in the 2022 budget.
The president of the Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, Thomas Lutz, who also serves on the executive committee received a grant of $5 million for skilled trades promotion, according to the Detroit News.
The budget listed Republican former Speaker of the House Jason Wentworth as the legislative sponsor of Beydoun’s grant, according to documents the Detroit News received from the State Budget Office. Wentworth told reporters he met with Beydoun about the project, but denied including her grant in the budget.
Beydoun told the Detroit News Wentworth was the sponsor. Meanwhile, the former chairmen of the House and Senate committees on appropriations, former Rep. Thomas Albert and former Sen. Jim Stamas, said they did not know how the grant got added to the budget. The Beydoun saga shows a lack of responsibility among legislators.
Several ethical questions arise from Michigan’s economic development appropriations process. For one, there needs to be more accountability on the legislature’s side to be forthright with the public about the appropriations included in the budget. There is also an apparent conflict of interest with members of the MEDC negotiating the terms of payout for grants that they received from the state.
During the consideration of the 2022 budget, the legis-
lature added these “enhancement grants” hours before passing the budget early on the morning of July 1. The public and legislators had no chance to comment or really examine these appropriations thoroughly.
Like other state employees, members of the MEDC’s executive committee should have to follow the State Ethics Act. Specifically, members of the MEDC must recuse themselves from participating in the consideration of grants where they have a vested financial interest. Additionally, state lawmakers should exclude these members from grant consideration until their term has expired.
It is absurd that members of the MEDC’s executive committee can lobby state lawmakers for taxpayer-funded grants toward their private business ventures, while administering the payout of those same grants toward “state economic development appropriations.”
Either the MEDC can continue to administer the payouts of these grants while adhering to state ethics regulations, or the legislature should downgrade the agency to an economic advisory body to the governor. It’s time to choose one or the other.
Josh Hypes is a junior studying politics and journalism. He is the political coorespondent at the Collegian.
Despite the support that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has built for a Republican presidential campaign, he should not run in 2024 – he should run in 2028, when Donald Trump has exited the political world.
If DeSantis decides to run now, he only serves to split the Republican party and then lose to the Democrats in the general election.
In a recent CNN poll, Trump is the Republican party’s top choice, garnering 40% support among likely Republican voters and Republican leaning independents, even after his scandals and allegations of insurrection.
The current governor of Florida will lose because he cannot style himself as both the next Trump and the “not Trump.”
If DeSantis wishes to run for the nomination, he cannot both appeal to the MAGA base and the socalled “never-Trumpers.”
The first group will not view him as tough on issues and the second group will condemn him for being too tough on those same issues.
Without Trump, the allure of DeSantis would cease to exist. Most of the latter’s supporters are people who view him as Trump Lite, or Trump without the bad combover, fake tan, and mean tweets.
But this begs the question: with Trump in the 2024 presidential race, why would the MAGA base vote for DeSantis? If he really wishes to sweep away that voting bloc he should run in 2028 as Trump’s heir.
In other words, Trump walked so DeSantis could toddle.
The MAGA base is the framework of the Republican party; no one is a serious candidate if he or she has not been endorsed by Trump or worked in the Trump administration. Other possible contenders for the presidential nomination, such as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, would not be politically relevant today if they did
not have connections to Trump. Yet neither Pence or Haley offer fresh solutions to the current political climate. According to an NBC News piece by Allan Smith, Haley called for America to stop its “self-loathing” in regards to the issue of race, in addition to voter ID for citizens. These views are mainstream, insofar as they are baseline attitude and policy proposals, but they are not groundbreaking and they do not address the main concerns which most Republican voters have about the fu-
hates him so much, it is a testament to his effectiveness as a leader in the Republican party, rather than something Republicans should fear.
Even the headlines reflect this phenomenon: the only notable candidate at the Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC, was Trump. The Wall Street Journal published an article with this sub-headline: “The former president still commands loyalty at the Conservative Political Action Conference.”
Anecdotally, this remains to be true. Most
By Joshua MistryLegendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry once said that you must streak into the playoffs — postseason success is built on regular season momentum. Right now, there is no political figure riding a streak of wins like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Last year’s elections were a stark letdown for conservatives who expected to sweep many swing state seats left vulnerable by the unpopular Biden administration. In 2024, the Republican Party hopes to keep the House of Representa-
conservative leadership from the gubernatorial seat. DeSantis first rose to national prominence through his public policy disagreements with the federal health agencies over their unscientific pandemic policy in the summer of 2020.
He has demonstrated an ability to pass legislation on many social and cultural issues from LGBTQ and critical race theory indoctrination in public schools, to pro-life legislation before and after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Rather than resigning any responsibility for the
demonstrated his aptness for choosing competent and conservative leaders to run his state’s health services and education department.
In contrast, the overreaching guidances, mask mandates and stay at home orders, of his health agencies clouded the final year of the Trump administration. Instead of draining the swamp as he promised, the president restocked it full of career bureaucrats.
Eventually the Trump administration ended in inglorious fashion with his supporters entering the Capitol building holding onto the words of the president who alleged but never proved that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Trump complains while DeSantis takes action. There were opportunities abounding before the election for Trump to clean up a messy election process. He simply did not.
Conversely, DeSantis created an election police force and created safer and stronger elections in Florida. His policies don’t simply appeal to the MAGA voter –they appeal to the suburban voter who voted for Biden over Trump. They even appeal across the aisle.
ture of the country.
Other candidates aside, DeSantis himself is not a compelling one if he runs in the general elections as “not Trump.” The Republican party cannot run on what, or who, it is not.
The elites – both on the right and the left – fear Trump’s run so much that they want to arrest a former president, something which has never happened before in history. What other president has ever experienced such vitriol, such hatred coming from the establishment? If the establishment
Republican and conservative voters don’t use DeSantis as the frame of reference when considering other candidates. They use Trump.
If Trump commands the loyalty of the party, then he should be the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
Let Trump walk in 2024, so DeSantis can run in 2028.
Elizabeth Crawford is a junior studying politics and journalism.
tives, take back the Senate, and win the presidency, especially after a disappointing midterm showing.
One lesson from those results is that candidates who centered their campaign on an endorsement from former President Donald Trump lost elections in key states. Candidates who won identified issues affecting voters, enacted effective policy, and explained these policies to voters. That’s what DeSantis has done since he was first elected in 2018. He’s on a legislative winning spree, demonstrating effective
culture of his state, DeSantis used the government to fight back against the environmental, social, and governance and diversity, equity, and inclusion agendas infiltrating the state’s investment portfolio and college campuses.
Under Trump’s leadership our economy expanded and our entrenched bureaucracy shrunk. Many say Trump also has the experience fighting for Americans on a national stage.
But DeSantis has an even more impressive resume, having expanded the Florida economy, and
The Palm Beach County Commissioner for the Democratic Party, Dave Kerner, said he voted for DeSantis in this past gubernatorial election because he’s doing a “great job.” These “DeSantis Democrats” harken back to the “Reagan Democrats” who helped propel a former Republican governor to a national landslide. Nearly 40 years later, the “DeSantis Democrats” helped the Florida governor win re-election in a commanding victory, carrying the state by almost 20 points and winning nearly every Florida county, even Miami-Dade.
The time for DeSantis is now. His current gubernatorial term ends in 2026, and he cannot let his momentum slow by waiting for 2028 or 2032. He must capitalize on the momentum he has built and ride straight into eight years in the White House.
The Pioneer, Ohio plant would draw more than 5 million gallons from a major Hillsdale water source per day
By Michael Bachmann Assistant EditorMichigan officials are waiting to receive AquaBounty’s monitoring plans to draw water from the Michindoh Aquifer, which provides water to Hillsdale County. The aquaculture company broke ground last year on a salmon farm in Pioneer, Ohio.
AquaBounty, a biotechnology company based in Massachusetts, grows and distributes genetically modified fish. In 2015, AquaBounty salmon became the first such animal approved for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.
At Hillsdale Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, county residents heard an update on AquaBounty’s water-level monitoring plan from Supervisor James Milne of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s water use assessment unit.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources requires the plan as part of the conditional water withdrawal permit it granted to the company last September.
“AquaBounty is required by the permit to submit a monitoring plan to the Ohio DNR,” Milne said. “Once they submit it to the Ohio DNR, they will share it with EGLE for our comments.”
According to Milne, EGLE has limited power over AquaBounty’s proposed wellfield beyond submitting its review to the Ohio DNR.
“Because the AquaBounty wellfield is in the state of Ohio, EGLE does not have direct regular authority,” Milne said.
According to Milne, AquaBounty must submit its monitoring plans to the Ohio DNR six months before it begins pumping. If the company’s monitoring plan
is approved, the plant could draw 5.25 million gallons of water from the aquifer daily.
The Michindoh Aquifer, which lies beneath Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, is the source of drinking water for citizens in nine counties spread between the three states. It provides water to both public and private wells.
While AquaBounty estimated the Pioneer plant will bring 100 new jobs to the area, the project has faced opposition from Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana residents.
Sherry Fleming, Chairman of the Williams County Alliance in Ohio, said her grassroots nonprofit is concerned about the possible environmental impact of the plant, which will discharge 5 million gallons of water into the St. Joseph River daily. “As a matter of conservation, it seems like
a wasteful use of freshwater when water is becoming such a critical resource worldwide,” Fleming said. “If we don’t use this water wisely, what are we going to leave the generations that come after us?”
Fleming said citizens are also concerned about AquaBounty’s business ethics.
The company currently operates a plant in Albany, Indiana, which has received several letters of noncompliance from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The IDEM reported that the plant’s discharge water had ammonia levels over the legal limit from 2019 to 2021.
AquaBounty also operated a facility in Panama from 2008 to 2019. In 2014, the Panama government fined AquaBounty for violating national environmental laws in its
research and development of genetically engineered salmon in the country.
While AquaBounty has not yet submitted its water withdrawal and discharge monitoring plan, it proposed to install three sets of vertical monitoring wells, according to Milne. These wells will offer groundwater level data that AquaBounty will share with the DNR and EGLE.
“EGLE is going to be working with Ohio DNR to develop a complaint response plan if we receive reports of public or private irrigation wells being impacted by the withdrawal or if there are reports of impacts to streams or lakes,” Milne said.
The EGLE also has a joint funding agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to map the aquifer, which will help monitor AquaBounty’s water withdrawal.
“Part of that work is going
to have the U.S. Geological Survey install additional monitoring wells inside the state of Michigan in addition to the wells that AquaBounty is going to propose,” Milne said.
Hillsdale Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Wiley said the USGS first began mapping the aquifer five years ago after Pioneer Mayor Edward Kidston attempted to sell water from the aquifer to the Toledo area.
“That's really what kickstarted it,” Wiley said. “We’ve continued to work, and probably have been a little more interested in the recharge and the withdrawal mapping since AquaBounty.”
Wiley said he is concerned that environmental agencies will not be able to make informed decisions about the AquaBounty plant, since the wells may not provide accurate data about recharge
and withdrawal for several years. “This whole project is 20 years behind the curve,” Wiley said. “But once you've got data, the Ohio EPA or DNR can use it wisely as far as whether or not a project should be permitted.”
According to Milne, both EGLE and AquaBounty’s monitoring plans will alert them if the plant’s withdrawal is affecting wells that draw from the aquifer.
“They’ll monitor the extent of the impact from pumping, but they will also hopefully provide early warning before we have any adverse effect on other wells,” Milne said.
In addition to permit holdups, AquaBounty’s plant is being delayed by local governments. The company recently announced it is pushing its operation start date back from 2023 to 2025, according to Fleming.
Williams County Commissioners blocked Pioneer's request for water lines running from the wellfields to the plant, according to Fleming.
“When they made those requests our county engineer turned the request over to the legal counsel for their opinion whether it was for public or private use,” Fleming said. “The legal opinion has come back that it is for private use, so they don’t have a route to get the water or discharge the water.”
AquaBounty needs to build a substation in Pioneer to power the plant, but Fleming said its lines will cross citizens’ properties, and they are preparing to fight it.
“Everyone thought this would be a done deal,” Fleming said. “For everything that was done in advance, things have not lined up the way they thought they would.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen
Whitmer signed two bills Friday repealing the state’s “right-to-work” law and restoring prevailing wage rates, reversing two major Republican labor policies passed since 2012.
The “right-to-work” repeal under HB 4004 and SB 34 means employees may be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment. HB 4007 and SB 6 reinstate the prevailing wage law, repealed in 2018, which requires governments to pay union-level wages on state-funded projects.
State Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, and state Sen. Joseph Bellino, R-Monroe, voted against both bills.
“Making choices to make Michigan less competitive is a foolish way to operate in a shrinking state,” Fink said.
City Engineer Kristin Bauer said she is unsure how the new law might affect city projects, but a $2.9 million federal grant for water and sewer projects already falls under the national prevailing wage law.
“If federal dollars are attached to the project, you have to pay Davis-Bacon wages,” Bauer said.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Davis-Bacon Act requires contractors working on federal projects to pay their employees the prevailing wage of the region. The law does not apply to statefunded projects.
Bob Griffis, Hillsdale County Road Commission manager, said road maintenance will be unaffected because the commission already pays prevailing wage.
“Prevailing wage is an existing thing we do,” Griffis said. “We won’t be affected by the new law.”
Rep. Brenda Carter, D-Pontiac, who sponsored the bill, said in a press release that the decision will benefit workers and improve public infrastructure.
“We are showing the nation that Michigan is a worker-friendly state, where workers can be sure they will receive a fair wage for their hard work,” Carter said. “By ensuring fair, competitive wages, we will ensure that we attract and retain a highly-trained workforce because we do not want to see critical infrastructure projects built by contractors that cut corners.”
According to the bill’s text, a new rule will allow
third parties who allege a violation to file a complaint with the state government, which may investigate the employer.
Jimmy Greene, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan, said this new, anonymous complaint channel invites abuse.
economically is fewer bidders. This is supply and demand. You have higher costs associated with that prevailing wage job already, which will drive costs even further upward because you have less competition.”
Hillsdale College Associate Professor of Economics Christopher
“Prevailing wage laws artificially increase the cost of public projects by inflating labor costs beyond market rates, meaning taxpayer dollars don't go as far as they otherwise would in a truly competitive bidding process,” Nelsen said. “By adopting prevailing wage laws, the government forces itself to pay more for public works projects than it needs to because it wants those jobs to be awarded to higher cost union labor for political reasons.”
they’re free to do so. If they wish to not be a part of the union, they have that option. As long as they know, I don’t think we need to have any more freedoms taken away from us in Michigan.”
State Rep. Jimmie Wilson, D-Ypsilanti, said in a press statement that workers’ rights are a top priority for Michigan Democrats.
“If I accuse you of something, I immediately bring the wrath of this commissioner upon you and I never have to reveal my name,” Greene said. “You’re asking me to believe that nobody would ever use that for economic gain or to literally kick a non-union contractor off a job. I’m not going to believe that.”
The new rule could raise construction costs, according to Greene.
“This new prevailing wage dissuades anybody who is not union from bidding on this kind of work,” Greene said. “What this means
Martin also said the new law will raise the cost of public construction.
“I think both theory and empirical evidence point towards the new rules raising the cost of public projects,” Martin said. “Some workers will benefit from receiving higher wages. Taxpayers as a whole, as well as workers who might have been hired without the policy, will lose.”
Max Nelsen, director of labor policy at the conservative nonprofit Freedom Foundation, said the new law will do more harm than good.
The “right-to-work” law, passed in 2012, prevented unions from compelling employees to pay dues to work. Union membership in Michigan dropped to 14% in 2022, down from 16.6% in 2012 when the law was passed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Michigan is the first state in 58 years to repeal a “rightto-work” law.
Susan Smith, executive director of the Hillsdale County Economic Development Partnership, said she sees no point in repealing the “right-towork” laws.
“You’re limiting people's freedom of choice,” Smith said. “I don’t think that’s a democratic thing to do. If people wish to join a union,
“With the repeal of socalled ‘right-to-work’ laws, or as I like to call them ‘right-to-freeload’ laws, we have shown the rest of the country what it means to be a union state,” Wilson said.
“I am proud that Michigan is once again a place where my four sons have the same union rights I did.”
Fink pointed to a 2022 study from the Mackinac Center, a conservative Michigan think tank, which found that counties in “right-to-work” states had higher employment levels compared to bordering counties in states without such laws.
“Because of our unusual peninsular geography, relatively few communities in Michigan border another ‘right-to-work’ state,” Fink said, “leaving us to bear the brunt of such a policy change.”
“This new prevailing wage dissuades anyone who is not union from bidding on this kind of work.”Residents attending a Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday to discuss AquaBounty. Olivia Hajicek | Collegian
State Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, tried to block funding for a Chinese-owned electric vehicle battery company that plans to build a factory near Big Rapids, Michigan. The company faces local scrutiny due to its board members' ties to the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party.
Gotion Inc., a subsidiary of China-based EV battery manufacturer Gotion HighTech Co. Ltd., plans to begin work on a 408-acre factory in Green Charter Township this summer. The company was planning to build on another 115 acres in Big Rapids Township, but postponed the project after the township’s board of trustees voted in February to seek a federal review of the company.
The plan, called Project Elephant, is set to receive $715 million from Michigan’s government in subsidies and tax breaks, according to the Grand Rapids Business Journal. The state House Appropriations Committee voted March 15 to approve a $585 million package of subsidies to three battery manufacturing projects, including $175 million for Project Elephant.
Fink, a member of the committee, voted against the subsidies.
“There are a lot of red flags here, and it’s certainly cause for more oversight from a security standpoint,” Fink said. “Let’s forget about the fact that this project funding was rushed through the legislative process and is costing Michigan taxpayers far more than the governor initially promised. From a sheer security standpoint, this is concerning.”
Big Rapids Supervisor Bill Stanek said he hopes the company will continue construction in his township after the federal government’s review.
“I think the company would like to have a federal review,” Stanek said. “It gives them an extra document showing that they are not related to the Chinese government.”
Iraq War Veteran and Big Rapids resident Matthew Maczynski said at a township meeting that he opposes the company’s plans due to its Chinese ties.
“The Chinese-owned company is a communist company,” he said, according to Fox News. “China is moving in here and there's nothing we can do about it.”
Company board members have connections to the CCP, according to shareholder communications compiled by Big Rapids Township. Gotion High Tech CEO Li Zhen was a delegate to the Municipal People’s Congress and to the Provincial Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body for the CCP.
Gotion High Tech Co. rewrote its articles of association in July to reference the party.
“The Company shall set up a Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” reads Article 9 of the document.
Mike Johnston, vice president of governmental affairs for the Michigan Manufacturers Association, said he favors financial incentives to draw investment to Michigan.
“It's a global economy and if we don't take advantage of the cutting edge technology that happens to be Chinese, then we're making a serious error and crippling the future of Michigan for some philosophical reason,” Johnston said. “Everyone has something Chinese in their list of products, most particularly cell phones. They carry around Chinese-made cell phones, and then complain about Chinese investment here in Michigan.”
Fink said he has opposed the subsidies since the idea was first voiced.
“We haven’t done any vetting to ensure this partnership is a wise choice for our state and our nation,” Fink said. “Yet we’re jumping into bed with the CCP.”
By Aubrey Gulick Senior ReporterWhen the lights went out, Penny Wingate and her twin sisters were watching “The Wonderful World of Disney.” She remembers their dad ushering them into a small well pit in the bathroom and closing the cover. It was Palm Sunday, 1965, and Wingate was sixyears-old.
The Category EF4 tornadoes cut a wide swath of destruction across Southern Michigan on April 11, 1965. Local historian and author Dan Cherry decided to release his expanded account of the tragedy this year. “It’s an event that a lot of people in this area experienced, but no one ever talked about it because to talk about it was, for some, to relive nightmares,” Cherry said.
More than 15 years after its first release in 2004, Cherry re-released “Night of the Wind.” Cherry’s work, almost double the size of the original book, takes an in-depth look at the Palm Sunday Tornado through the eyes of its survivors.
According to the National Weather Service, the tornado was the fourth deadliest in U.S. history and is estimated to have killed 271 people while injuring 1,500 others across Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.
Born and raised in Addison, Cherry grew up without hearing many stories about the tornado. The original book grew from a conversation with a friend after church in 1999.
“It was always a topic you didn’t broach,” he said. “I said, ‘It’s been almost 36 years since the tornado. Do you think it’s okay to put together some sort of project on it?’”
Cherry planned for the original work to only span 30 pages, but it quickly grew to a 230-page book after members of the community were willing to share their stories. While Cherry initially
hesitated to publish the work commercially, he said family members of the survivors reached out to persuade him to publish it on a wider scale. Cherry eventually sold more than 3,000 copies of his original book.
When a printer lost the work's digital copy in 2017, Cherry decided it was a good time to expand the project with information and interviews he had collected since 2004.
Wingate, who initially heard about Cherry’s project on Facebook, decided to reach out and contribute her story after he interviewed her on WCSR.
“When Dan said he was going to be doing a second book and was looking for photos and stories, I reached out and sent him
some photos plus some of my memories of the event,” Wingate said. For several years, Cherry worked on the book slowly, choosing to focus on his marriage and family more than his project. But in 2020, the book began to take up much more of his time.
“During COVID-19, everybody was home. I was working from home, so I didn’t have my commute time,” Cherry said. “I took that commute time that I would have been spending and started working on the book.”
In February, Cherry finally stopped accepting interviews and photos. The books arrived in March.
“It was 2004 all over. I got 10 requests daily for a copy of the book leading up to the
date they became available,” Cherry said. “I showed up to my first book signing on March 11 in Hudson, and the line was out the door — and it was out the door for over two hours.”
While many survivors find it difficult to talk about the tornado, Cherry said he believes sharing their story has offered them closure.
“The book has been healing for a lot of the survivors because they held it in for so many years,” Cherry said. “Once they sat down and talked about it, it was therapeutic for them.”
According to Cherry, research was emotionally taxing, but he said that he is grateful for its impact on his life.
“It has enabled me to meet many unique people and people who have gone through horrible times,” he said. “It has given me a deeper appreciation for life.”
For Wingate, she found her experience as a child meant she was not afraid of storms while growing up.
“I enjoy a good spring storm and raised my children to respect the weather,” she said.
The Sultana Historical Preservation Society is campaigning to open a museum in Marion, Arkansas and dedicate a commemorative coin to the 1865 Sultana shipwreck. It was the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history and killed nearly 1,200 people, including 67 Civil War soldiers from Hillsdale County.
The explosion of the Sultana affected Hillsdale so deeply that the city commemorated the event with a plaque downtown in 2001.
“We honor all who were on the Sultana for their courage and their service to their country,” the plaque reads.
A congressional bill to mint a commemorative coin to the Sultana disaster currently has 59 co-sponsors.
“Congress has the authority to mint two commemorative coins a year,” said John Fogleman, the president of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society. “It requires a supermajority, and thus far no coins have been approved. The bill will authorize the minting of a coin to commemorate this disaster. The surplus money would
come to our museum.”
The commemorative coin would depict the Sultana itself, and the proceeds from the coin would go to the Sultana Historical Preservation Society.
“It’s like an action movie version of the Titanic,” Assistant Professor of History Miles Smith said. “As many people died at the Sultana as did on the Titanic.”
There were 2,200 people total on the Sultana when three of the steamship’s four boilers exploded in 1865, according to
the Sultana Historical Preservation Society. About 1,195 passengers on the Sultana died, the American Battlefield Trust said.
“It was a huge deal at the time, but it got overshadowed,” Smith said.
“It happened on April 27, but on April 9 the Army of North Virginia surrendered at Appomattox, and on April 14, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. There’s all of this macro-political stuff going on.”
The Sultana itself was packed with people, and the
explosions and subsequent fire caused most deaths.
“It was a steamship that was used to transport Union soldiers, and in the spring of 1865, it was overloaded,” Smith said. “The ship was designed to carry about 375 people, and it was carrying about 2,100 people. Some of the guys are in pretty rough physical shape because of the Army. There are women on board, too. Even if everything had gone perfectly well, it wasn’t a safe, healthy conveyance.” According to Jennings,
more than 258 soldiers from Michigan were on the Sultana, including Edwin Ford, a Hillsdale College student who served in Company D of Michigan’s 18th Volunteer Infantry.
“Ford joined in 1862, when Lincoln called for another 300,000 more volunteers,” Associate Professor of Management Peter Jennings said. “He attended Hillsdale College in 1856, the first year that Hillsdale College classes were taught in Hillsdale rather than Spring Arbor.”
Ford was taken prisoner on his way to Athens, Georgia, during Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s campaign and held at the Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp for about six months.
“He was finally rescued and thought the war was over and he would make it home,” Jennings said. “He got onto the Sultana, and he died.”
Sultana Historical Preservation Society members hope to establish a new museum in Marion, Arkansas, to better tell the story of the disaster.
“The Sultana deserves a real museum, worthy of the significance of the event,” Fogleman said. “Our goal is to educate the American public about this disaster and to let them know what happened.”
The first Sultana exhibit was in 2015 at Arkansas State University. According to Fogleman, the exhibit was successful and went to Marion, Arkansas, the closest city to the disaster.
“Marion is only five miles from the remains of the Sultana,” Fogleman said. “A lot of the rescuers’ descendants still live there.”
The original museum has attracted visitors from all 50 states and 14 foreign countries.
“Right now, the museum is in an old building with about 1,000 square feet,” Fogleman said. “We display what we can there, but it’s totally inadequate to display the artifacts that we have and also to tell the story of the Sultana — the bribery, the corruption, the political influence that led to the disaster. We also want to tell the story of the rescuers from Tennessee and Arkansas.”
The society hopes to raise $10 million to fund the museum. The campaign began in 2020, and the society broke ground on the museum’s site last fall, according to the society’s website.
“We’ve now raised $8.1 million of the $10 million,” Fogleman said. “If we reach $9 million by May 31, FedEx will donate that final million.”
“The book has been healing for a lot of the survivors because they held it in for so many years.”Dan Cherry holding his book in Rough Draft. Aubrey Gulick | Collegian The Sultana, loaded down with excess passengers. Courtesy | Facebook
The Charger men’s track team traveled to Cedarville, Ohio, last weekend to compete in the Cedarville University Yellow Jacket Collegiate Open, and finished fourth overall with 63 total points.
Ahead of the Chargers was the Marian University Knights, who finished in first place with 155 total points, as well as G-MAC rivals Cedarville and Findlay University, who finished second and third, respectively, with 97.5 and 92 points.
Two event victories supported the Chargers fourthplace finish — a first-place finish by junior Alex Mitchell in the 3000m steeplechase at 9:42.01 and a second place finish in the same event by Richie Johnston at 9:44.37. Also competing in the steeplechase was senior Isaac Waffle, who finished at the 10:19.40 mark, which earned him seventh in the event.
“Cedarville was really fun
and it was some good experience,” Johnston said. “It was really nice to be in a competitive environment again and though it is the beginning of the season, it’s always great to get a feel before the sea son starts to ramp up.”
Hillsdale also had three athletes compete in the 1500m run.
Senior Sean Hoeft finished first of three at the 4:23.33 mark, which earned him 15th place overall. Freshman Seth Jankowski and senior Dylan Palmer finished 34th and 68th, respectively, at 4:32.47 and 4:48.31.
In the 400m dash, senior Benu Meinjtes earned the Chargers 5 points with a
fourth-place finish at 50.95 seconds. In addition to Meinjtes, seniors Joseph Ritzer and Ian Calvert finished in 11th and 27th place overall. Other distance competitors included sophomore Donny McArdle, who finished at the 33:44.96 mark in the 10000m run, which earned him third place overall.
McArdle was followed by senior Caleb Oser, who finished in eighth place at 38:25.35.
Senior Charlie Andrews and sophomore Alfonso Garcia represented the jumps squad for the Chargers during the meet. “It was a meet dictated by
conditions, all of which were bad enough that the vast majority of people dropped,” Andrews said. “I along with five other brave souls jumped despite the win, and took enough to win.” Andrews took first in the high jump, clearing 1.85m, while Garcia finished 30th overall in the long jump event at 5.22m.
“The meet was very windy and on the men’s side we put together some very nice jumps that were technically sound,” Garcia said. “In those conditions we struggled to get some power into them. It’s a nice place to start the season and we hope to bring more explosiveness into the next few meets.”
The Chargers will travel to High Point University in North Carolina to compete in the HPU VertKlasse Meeting March 31-April 1, and will head to the University of Illinois the following weekend to compete in the Fighting Illini Challenge.
The women’s track and field team began competing in outdoor events at the Yellow Jacket Collegiate Outdoor Open March 24-25. As a team, Hillsdale placed fourth with 73 points.
Winds reached up to 50 mph during portions of the competition, adding an obstacle to the first outdoor meet of the season.
“I always love a challenge and I think that outdoor track is full of unpredictable weather that really shows your true colors,” junior Louisa Klaserner said. “Being able to compete and overcome those kinds of weather challenges that everyone is facing and come out on top is a great feeling of accomplishment.”
Klaserner took second in the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:10.23 minutes, and third in the 100m hurdles with a time of 15.09 seconds.
“I competed in an event I’d never done before and gave it my all, which I was satisfied with,” Klaserner said. “I was happy with my performance, especially considering the conditions.”
The women’s weight throwers had a successful first outdoor meet following several weeks in the number one spot during the indoor
season. In the javelin throw, junior Eden Little took first place, throwing 39.32 meters. Senior Nikita Maines took home another first place for the women’s weight throwers, throwing 13.09 meters in the shot put. Finally, sophomore Averi Parker secured third place in the hammer throw after throwing 51.56 meters.
“I would say I gave it my all but I was a little too excited for my first outdoor meet in the javelin this year and I ended up not throwing as well as I hoped because I forgot all of my training leading up to it,” Little said. “But as for hammer, I did very well, throwing a PR even in 50 mph winds.”
Little said she had to alter her strategy to combat the high winds.
“I had to wait between throws to try to throw between the gusts of wind,” Little said. “It didn’t help that I had the jitters so I was not throwing amazingly anyway.”
In the triple jump, sophomore Grace Chen took third with a jump of 9.78 meters.
In the 100 meter dash, freshman Lucy Minning placed fourth, finishing her race in 12.65 seconds. Minning also took sixth in the 200 meter dash with a time of 26.16 seconds.
“My performance this weekend was not too bad,”
Minning said. “I did not run too far off my personal best and my form was good, so I am confident I will improve these upcoming weeks. The best moments of my races were probably my starts.”
Sophomore Nicole Marshall took second place in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:25 minutes.
“Nicole Marshall had a very good day,” Minning said. “She ran her race very smart considering the conditions.”
The athletes have several goals for the rest of the outdoor meets. Both Klaserner and Little said they want to make the most of the time they have left in their events.
“I have some big goals for outdoor, such as breaking the school record and competing at nationals with the hope for an all-American,” Little said. “Javelin is my favorite event to compete in and I don’t want to waste a second.”
Minning’s goals are more centered on the specific times she wants to achieve.
“My goals for the rest of the season are to run under 12 seconds in the 100 and beat my indoor personal best in the 200,” Minning said.
The team will compete this weekend at the VertKlasse Meeting at High Point University in North Carolina on March 31 and April 1.
season G-MAC Tournament.
By Isabella Helms Collegian ReporterThe Hillsdale women’s tennis team secured two wins against Ursuline and Walsh over the weekend, breaking a four-match losing streak as senior Sarah Hackman earned Women’s Tennis Player of the Week.
After traveling to Ursuline College, the Chargers walked away with a 7-0 victory. Two days later, the Chargers earned a 4-3 win over Walsh at home.
The Chargers won all nine matches against Ursuline in straight sets, dropping only one game in the entire match. Hillsdale secured the doubles point led by senior Sarah Hackman and junior Melanie Zampardo’s 6-1 performance at No. 1 doubles.
Freshman Megan Hackman and senior Canela Luna took a 6-0 win at No. 2 doubles, and freshman Isabella Spinazze and junior Helana Formentin secured the victory at No. 3 doubles as well.
“Everyone showed up right off the bat and it showed with us winning all three doubles matches,” Sarah said. “It provided a really great team energy leading into singles. Everyone fought hard, and watching Melanie fight for every point on the court next to me just keeps me accountable to do the same.”
All six singles players won 6-0, 6-0 matches.
“We played well. This is not usually a super tough team, but we kept good energy and did not play down to their level,” Luna said.
In the match on Sunday, the Chargers secured the doubles point in all three matches, led by Sarah and
Zampardo, who won 6-1 at No. 1 doubles.
Sophomore Libby McGivern and senior Ellie Chawner followed with a 6-3 victory at No. 2 doubles, and Megan and Luna took the last doubles points with a 6-2 win at No. 3 doubles.
In singles play, the Chargers won three of the six matches needed to defeat Walsh. Sarah began with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win at No. 1 singles, followed by McGivern’s 6-4, 6-4 victory at No. 4 singles. Chawner clinched the match with a three-set victory of 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 at No. 6 singles.
“Having one match on the road and then playing a home match two days later doesn’t happen too often,” Sarah said, “but the team adjusted well and we were all very happy with the results.”
“We came out with a lot of energy and were super loud,” Luna said. “We fought hard and it seemed to finally click into place for a lot of players. I’m excited for the rest of the season.”
Hillsdale’s current record of 5-7 overall and 2-1 in G-MAC play places the Chargers in a four-way tie for third place in the conference, trailing closely behind Tiffin and Findlay.
“I thought this weekend was a really great showing from the team,” Sarah said. The Chargers are within reach of a top four seed in the G-MAC tournament at the end of the season, but will need to deliver strong performances in the remaining matches scheduled for April.
The Chargers will travel to Kentucky Wesleyan April 1 for their next match.
After a hole-in-one from senior Darragh Monaghan and freshman Max Burns’ personal best four-under 68, the Hillsdale men’s golf team tied for ninth place with two other teams at the Findlay Spring Invite this week.
“In one day, we saw the ceiling for this team and what we’re capable of,” Thompson said. “Then we saw the other side of what happens when we lose focus. When we’re focused and confident and determined, we can play really, really well and compete against anybody.”
By Emily Schutte Collegian ReporterThe Hillsdale men’s tennis team broke a three-match losing streak at home last weekend with a 6-1 win against Walsh University.
The Chargers pulled out the victory over a G-MAC rival and fellow perennial title contender, improving their win-loss record to 9-5 on Sunday.
“We played Walsh University in conference match — a super important match for us,” senior Tyler Conrad said. “It determines some of the seating at the conference tournament. We won it 6-1 which was a huge win because they’re a pretty good level team.”
The doubles point went to Hillsdale with two match
wins from the No. 1 and the No. 3 players. No. 1 junior Brennan Cimpeanu and senior Brian Hackman won 6-3, and No. 3 junior Daniel Gilbert and freshman Aiden Pack won 6-1.
“I played well this past weekend — ended up winning doubles 6-3 with Brian Hackman and singles 6-1, 6-2,” Cimpeanu said. “We only played one dual match this weekend and the team did well. We won 6-1 which is a super strong score against a team like Walsh who is a top ranked team in our conference.”
Conrad and junior Sean Barstow lost their doubles match 4-6.
“At two doubles we had a hard time,” Conrad said. “The other team played pretty well, but it didn’t really matter. The
point was clinched before we even finished.”
The Chargers came out on top in singles as well, suffering only one loss at the No. 2 position with Pack losing 10-12, 3-6.
“The guy they have at No. 2 is a good player,” Conrad said. “He played No. 1 for most of the season for them, so it’s just a tough spot.”
No. 1 singles Cimpeanu took his point 6-1, 6-2, No. 3 Conrad 6-1, 6-4, No. 4 Hackman 6-1, 6-3, No. 5 Barstow 6-3, 6-1, and No. 6 Gilbert 6-2, 6-4.
“I played very well,” Conrad said. “It’s nice getting a win. I’m coming back from a sprained wrist, so it was nice to get that under my belt.”
This win placed Hillsdale in a good position for making it into the top four in the end of
The Chargers are back on the road next week to play Kentucky Wesleyan April 1 and Wayne St. April 4.
“This weekend should be an easy victory since we are playing Kentucky Wesleyan,” Cimpeanu said. “Our goal is to stay focused and win without putting our guard down.”
The Chargers have kept themselves even with Ashland and Cedarville in the rankings as they prepare to play them both in coming weeks.
“We just need to keep up the same focus going on our last regular season road trip,” Gilbert said. “In conference play, we can’t afford to let up even for one match or practice.”
Monaghan shot a holein-one on the eighth hole of his first round. Unlike most tournaments, the five players all played on the same hole at the same time, instead of being scattered around the 18 holes.
Thompson said it was Monaghan’s first hole-in-one of his life.
“We were all together on the tee box,” Thompson said. “We were all watching it in the air thinking that it looked pretty good. It landed about a foot short of the hole and just took one hop and disappeared. We all started to cheer and went a little crazy.”
Burns carded his best 18 holes of collegiate golf in the final round of the tournament. He said a stoic attitude helped him control his emotions and stay focused on his
next shot.
“My mentality going into that last round was just ‘if something goes wrong, don’t try to blame anything. Just accept it, deal with it, and just stay in the moment,’” Burns said. “That’s what I did the entire time. It worked out pretty well.”
Most of the Chargers in the lineup carded their worst score in the second round, with as much as a 12-point swing between their best and worst rounds. Sophomore Filippo Reale shot a 69 in his first round, but cold and windy conditions helped bring his second-round score to a 78.
Reale said the score wasn’t entirely due to the conditions.
“I think we made the course harder than it was on that second round,” Reale said. “I think if you looked at the conditions, our second rounds were probably going to be worse, but they didn’t have to be that much worse.”
The team was ranked 14th in the midwest region heading into the tournament in Lexington, Kentucky, Monday and Tuesday. Head coach Matt Thompson said the team is likely to stay in the same spot this week.
“We’re looking to just leave it all out there and try to get a win in the next couple of weeks,” Thompson said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we’ll focus our attention on the G-MAC conference championships.”
Since sixth grade, Grace Touchette knew she wanted to play collegiate basketball.
“I started playing in fifth grade, and then by sixth grade I was like, ‘I want to play in college or play in the WNBA and go all the way,’” Touchette said. “Slowly that dream adjusted but I still wanted to play.”
The Hillsdale softball team began conference play this weekend by going 4-0 in games against the Ashland Eagles and the Tiffin Dragons.
Due to her noteworthy performance, junior midfielder Hailey Holtman was named G-MAC Softball Player of the Week for the first time in her career.
“The team really exploded this weekend for the beginning of conference play,” junior midfielder Hailey Holtman said. “We performed at the level we’ve been aiming for the entire season.”
On Saturday, Hillsdale beat the Eagles 6-2 in the first game and 12-4 in the second game. On Sunday, the Chargers beat the Dragons 9-1 and 5-2, bringing the team’s record to 17-12 overall on the season.
“We had a decent preseason, but every week it felt like there was an aspect we needed to improve,” sophomore catcher Hannah Hoverman said. “This weekend we really showed what we’re capable of offensively and we produced lots of runs.”
Holtman started the first game off for the Chargers with a home run and added a two-run double later on as well. In the second game, Hoverman recorded two home runs and a double
with five RBIs, going 3-for-4 at the plate.
In the first game on Sunday, junior catcher McKenna Eichholz hit a grand slam in the third inning, and sophomore infielder Ashley Strick hit a home run later in the inning. In the second game, junior pitcher Erin Kapteyn struck out four batters, walked one, and gave up five hits and two runs after pitching the full game for her sixth season win.
“We definitely surprised Tiffin and Ashland with our bats, but we’ve always believed we could do what we did this weekend,” Hoverman said.
Head coach Kyle Gross said the team did a lot of mental preparation this week for the opening conference games.
“The team found ways to play more confidently and be more comfortable with the plate,” Gross said. “A lot of the players had lost some confidence through the start of the season, so we found ways to get back to that and not be attached to the results of their at bats, but still put in good at bats.”
Due to inclement weather, the upcoming doubleheader against the Cedarville Yellow Jackets has been rescheduled to March 30. The Chargers will play the Walsh Cavaliers April 2 and the Davenport Panthers April 4.
gram began to take shape.
At the close of her final season, fifth-year senior guard Touchette has marked the Hillsdale women’s basketball program, helping bring the team back to the G-MAC tournament for the first time in four years.
Touchette earned first-team All-G-MAC honors for the second straight year and is fifth in Hillsdale history in career points, with 1,666 points. She is the all-time leader in games played and ranks in the top 10 all-time for the Chargers in multiple categories.
What has culminated in remarkable awards and achievements began years ago in her driveway.
“Most of my earliest memories are in my driveway shooting around, just me and my dad and sometimes my younger brother,” Touchette said. “I would play one-on-one with my brother and I was always begging my parents to come rebound for me or help me out.”
Touchette began looking at schools outside of her hometown in Minnesota and discovered Hillsdale through one of her program directors.
“My program director knew the coach at the time that was here,” Touchette said. “I took a visit out here and I loved it, the team and the people. Almost every one of my classmates went to school within probably two hours of home. I wanted to try something different.”
From her first moments with the team, Touchette loved the dynamic and energy, she said.
“My first memories and most distinct ones are from my first day of classes,” Touchette said. “We had a morning lift and we got out 15 minutes before my 8 a.m. class. I had to run and rush and get to class. It was late August so it was still warm out. I just remember sweating so bad all throughout my first
Chargers, however, it has become the norm.
class and not being able to focus.”
Since her freshman year, Touchette has seen the program change and develop for the better.
“The culture has definitely changed. I think we are more deliberate about coming together as a team from the freshmen to the seniors,” Touchette said. “I think that was definitely a point that we wanted to change. We wanted to hang out as a team outside of basketball and get to know everyone and get that trusting and tight environment.”
Not only did Touchette want to see the team dynamic grow, she also wanted to be challenged more than ever before on the court, she said.
“On the court, we’re getting pushed a lot harder. We’re getting pushed to our fullest potential instead of worrying about if we’re hurting, which is a good thing,” Touchette said. “If we want to do better, we need to obviously put in a lot more work and get pushed harder.”
Senior Sydney Mills emphasized Touchette’s dedication to encouraging the team and competing.
“What stands out about Grace is that her competitive nature is like no other,” Mills said. “She had goals from her first day here to turn Hillsdale into a team that competes and is ready to play anyone. Throughout her time here she has done just that.”
Touchette said she wanted to increase her own competitive spark.
“I just wanted to feel like I was succeeding,” Touchette said. “One of the goals, especially when Coach A took over, was just getting that feeling for competitive basketball back. That was one of the goals I had was to just try to help this program come back from such a low.”
Head basketball coach Charlie Averkamp said Grace is one of the fiercest competitors he has ever coached.
“She is a winner and I think that’s how she will always be remembered here, as someone who cared more about winning than anything else,” Averkamp said. “We have a very similar personality, so once we got on the same page I think we saw
Grace have two of the best seasons individually that Hillsdale women’s basketball has seen in a decade.”
When Touchette broke the 1500-point mark against Trevecca Nazarene, she had no idea it happened until back in the locker room, she said.
“It was wild because I remember not scoring the whole first half and just being pretty frustrated with myself. I got two fouls and was just a mess,” Touchette said. “Then I scored the first basket on the second possession in the second half. All my teammates were cheering really loudly and I was so confused, like ‘Was I really playing that bad before?’ Then after the game they had a sign for me and everything and I still had no idea until the locker room.”
Among her personal records, Touchette also helped bring the team back to the G-MAC for the first time since 2019. The team lost by one point in the last two minutes of overtime against Kentucky Wesleyan.
“Before the game, I didn’t think we were gonna lose,” Touchette said. “It was in my head that we were winning, it let me relax a little bit. Then as the game was going on, I didn’t let misses affect me as much. I knew that if I did I would regret that.”
In overtime, the game started to slip away from the team, Touchette said.
“I thought this might be it,” Touchette said. “After the game I was still in shock, it didn’t hit me until people were saying ‘Great career’ and ‘Great job.’ Everything has to come to an end, even good things.”
Mills said that Touchette has given so much to the team and the program and has changed
it for the better.
“She is just one of those players that gives so much to the team that other players also feel like they have to give their all or they aren’t doing enough,” Mills said. “Through her dedication she has shown all the younger players what it truly means to be a Charger basketball player.”
Mills, who will return for a fifth year, said she is grateful for Touchette and that she will have lasting effects on the program. “She’s someone who comes in everyday ready to compete, constantly holds others to their highest standard, and is willing to do anything for a teammate in a heartbeat,” Mills said. “This mentality that she started is something that took our team to the next level this year and will continue to drive us in the future.”
Averkamp said that he will miss coaching Touchette, but that he is excited for what is to come.
“She has made me a better coach and I hope that I have helped her become a better player,” Averkamp said. “I will miss coaching her of course but more so will miss joking around with her on a daily basis. I know she will accomplish big things in her next chapter.”
Touchette said she cannot wait to keep up with the team, live-streaming games and coming back to watch in person whenever she can.
“I’m grateful to have been here and thankful for my teammates, especially for making my last year really good,” Touchette said. “ Coach Averkamp, Coach Brennan, and Coach Bailey, they’re amazing people and I really couldn’t have done any of the things I did without them.”
With a losing conference record in four of its previous five seasons, however, the program Tharp took over had been treading water. Hillsdale had yet to find any consistent success since joining the NCAA in 1990, with only three tournament appearances and no tournament wins in the program’s history.
“When I interviewed here, I came back for the second interview and I had my wife in the car,” Tharp said. “We’re driving and it was late at night. We’re pulling in and she’s like ‘where are we?’ and I said ‘honey, I’m not quite sure to be honest with you.’”
The little-known DII school in rural Michigan was recognized far more for its academics than for its athletics.
“He was interviewing at Hillsdale and he was told that a different candidate that now coaches a different team pretty much told [College President] Dr. Arnn that you can’t win with smart players,” Lowry said. “And I think Tharp took that very personally.”
To make matters worse, only four players from the previous year stayed with the program once Tharp took over. Tharp still remembers each of their names.
“Those four guys I owe a great deal to,” Tharp said. “We put together just a great collection of people and we went to battle. We went .500 our first year, went eighth seed in the GLIAC tournament and lost to Grand Valley.”
It was after that year that Tharp’s vision for the pro-
“The next year was the revolution,” Tharp said. “The revolution was we needed to just claw our way to the top of the GLIAC. My first year Grand Valley beat Michigan State and Findlay beat Ohio State in exhibition basketball and I walked in like ‘what the heck did I just get myself into?’ So we started the revolution.”
Now, 15 years later, Tharp has revolutionized Hillsdale ball. During his time the team has appeared in five NCAA Tournaments, produced four all-Americans, and won the conference three times.
In an age of college athletics characterized by NIL deals, the transfer portal, and social media, Tharp has built a basketball powerhouse on tradition.
“He recruits these guys that understand that tradition, that understand the reason they’re playing for,” Larson said. “Our team’s had a lot of success but we learned that success from previous teams we played on and from previous players. Even the players that didn’t have as much success on those teams, we learned all of that from them.
I think when you put on a Hillsdale jersey, you’re not just representing the school, you’re representing previous players — either teammates or not — that put on that jersey.”
Slow, methodical pace of play offensively, and a gritand-grind, physical approach defensively are usually descriptions reserved for the old-school basketball teams of the ’80s and ’90s. For the
“I would say it’s a traditional, beautiful way of playing basketball, the best way of playing basketball,” fifth-year senior Peter Kalthoff said.
The team emphasizes hard work and selfless play on both ends of the floor, with a rallying cry of “one fist” underscoring the Chargers’ goal of winning.
The team’s traditions and togetherness show off the court as well, as the team claims to be the greatest basketball family in the world.
“I think that’s true,” former two-time all-American Charger Patrick Cartier said. “Obviously it results in wins on the court, but it’s a very process oriented way of looking at things. Come in every day, love each other, work hard, and be there for one-another on and off the court.”
For Cartier, that culture of family was clear to him before he was even on the team, and it’s what he says convinced him to join the program.
“Once I came on my visit, it was literally while I was driving home I was like ‘that’s it, that’s where I’m going,’” Cartier said. “I was hanging out with the team and I remember I was laughing my butt off the whole time. I was like ‘wow, this is so cool, the whole team all went out to dinner, every single guy. It wasn’t just little cliques, the whole team came out, and those are the type of guys I want to be around, the type of culture I want to be a part of.’”
This was not an experience
unique to Cartier. According to Larson, he knew he was going to be a Hillsdale Charger as soon as he stepped on campus.
“The people on campus and around the team, they speak for themselves,” Larson said.
“I remember the first day when I went on my visit, I was hanging out with Dylan Lowry and Nate Neveau and I was like ‘these guys could easily be my best friends.’”
Tharp is the fountainhead of this culture, according to Kalthoff, and it trickles down to the staff and players. For Tharp, these relationships with and between the other members of the program are intentional parts of his vision for the team.
“This program is a family, this is a lifetime commitment that you’re giving and in return you’re gonna get a lifetime of friendships,” Tharp
said.
Recently, however, the transfer portal’s rise to prominence in college sports has challenged the program.
The team lost Cartier to Colorado State as a graduate transfer following last year’s Elite Eight run. According to Tharp, more than 1,800 basketball players are currently in the transfer portal between DI and DII.
At a four-year institution with Hillsdale’s academic standards and only two graduate degrees as options, the Chargers stand in contrast to many other NCAA programs.
Every player currently on the roster was recruited by Tharp in high school.
“What I’m most concerned about is developing guys and losing them,” Tharps said.
“We’ve had some success with redshirting some guys here and having them their fifth
year, which has been our way of neutralizing some of the transfer portal or maybe not being quite as athletic; having a fifth-year, experienced man on the roster.”
This strategy has proved consistently successful for the team, with 10 of the 16 all-conference appearances by a Charger over the last five years being by a fourth- or fifth-year player.
Throughout this run, Tharp has always kept his former players, the original revolutionaries, on his mind.
“It’s been a reflection of the start of the four guys that were here,” Tharp said. “It’s a reflection of the players over the years, it’s been a reflection of the assistant coaches that we’ve had over the years. We’ve set a precedent for us, and we’ve got to keep on honoring those guys and try to keep playing at that level.”
An evening of ten 10-minute plays, the Sauk Shorts showcases local acting talent and the work of four playwrights from across the state as well as five additional shows chosen from hundreds of national submissions.
Spurned lovers crashed a wedding party in “Put Asunder,” Chuck the exterminator battled a cockroach in human form in “Thanksgiving with the Exterminator,” and Sprinkles the elf took the witness stand in “You’d Better Be Good” as the Sauk Theatre presented their 10th annual Sauk Shorts this weekend.
“It’s sort of like a theatrical episode of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Executive Director Trinity Bird said. “It’s a bunch of little short plays that all tell their own stories.”
Each year, Jonesville’s theater pulls from a vibrant community of local artists to bring the Shorts to life on stage. Playwright and director Josh Lightner from
Springport, Michigan first got involved with the Sauk Theatre through Sauk Shorts as an actor in 2019. Lightner has since returned to participate in the Shorts at all levels of the artistic process as an actor, director, and playwright.
“The fun of watching something you wrote happen is you get to see all of the actors put their different spins on the characters,” Lightner said. “When you’re writing something, you’ve got the voices in your head as you’re writing, and you’re like, ‘This is how this person will say the line.’ But you don’t say that to the other person, and so they just do what they think it sounds like.”
This year, Lightner wrote “Plain Salad,” a short comedy about a guy who goes to a diner with his friends because he has a crush on the waitress. Unbeknownst to him, his friends have secretly set him up on a double date with a different girl.
“The entire play is him trying to ask this waitress out, and they’re trying to get him to just stay on this date with this one girl, and
shenanigans ensue.” Lightner said.
Lightner said he was inspired by the TV show “Hello Ladies” and a variety of his own awkward social interactions.
In her third year of playwriting for Sauk Shorts, Sarah Gray from Jonesville, Michigan, wrote two of the evening’s 10 plays, “You’d Better be Good” and “A Tale of Two Oversharers.”
In “You’d Better Be Good,” two elf attorneys took the stage to argue cases in front of Santa (Anne Conners) and keep kids on or off of the naughty list. Jangles the elf (Jacob Isiminger) tried his first case out of Sugarplum Law School, and Sprinkles the Elf-on-the-Shelf (Travis Blatchley) testified.
“I just thought, what if the naughty and nice list isn’t always so clear?” Gray said.
In “A Tale of Two Oversharers,” Karen and Lisa (Jennifer Yokell and Denise McCosh) made friends in a dressing room while dress shopping with their teenage daughters.
“That may or may not
Olivia Kroh is a senior studying theatre, music, and German. She has been a part of the Tower Dancers for the last four years.
What was the first play you ever performed in?
The first play I ever performed in was a musical called “Band Geeks.” I was in the ensemble with my friends and I couldn’t tell you a single plot point. All we did was mess around backstage.
How did you get involved in theater?
I started music at a really young age. I was always interested in movies, musicals, and things like that. So when my high school musical rolled around, I was like, “Why don’t I give this a chance?”
When did you decide to study theater at Hillsdale?
I chose the school more than the department. I did get to come and tour and I met James Brandon. He had offered me a scholarship at that point, and that was even before I was accepted. I knew that if I would go here, I would get at least a little bit of scholarship money. But it was mostly Hillsdale that I chose, and I just ended up also really loving that department.
What is your favorite role you’ve played here?
The one I’m playing right now, we haven’t performed it yet, but I think it’s gonna end up being my favorite role, is
Athena in “Helen.” But my favorite one that I have actually performed in is probably Polly Peachum in “The Threepenny Opera.”
What was the hardest role you’ve ever played?
I think Mrs. Webb from “Our Town.” That was last year and it was the first motherly role that I had ever really taken on. It was challenging for a while.
but I’m hoping to weasel my way into primarily directing, assistant directing, or directing productions if they let me. I kind of want to shift more into the directing side of things if I can.
What are lessons you have learned from being a theater major?
I feel like especially when you focus on acting, you really learn a lot about perspectives, and how to put yourself in other people’s perspectives. I think that that is a really invaluable kind of life skill. I also know a lot of stories.
What is the most amount of lines you’ve had to memorize?
Elvira in “Blithe Spirit,” I had to memorize 250 lines. I think she takes the cake.
What’s been your favorite costume?
Elvira, definitely. It was a floor length silver sequin gown and it was fabulous. It looked like a disco ball, and on stage when the lights hit it it was very reflective.
What is your dream production that you’d want to perform in? Dream role?
I want to be Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde the Musical.” That is my all-time dream role.
What are your post-grad plans? How will you stay involved in theater?
I’m hoping to go to grad school and get my master’s and even Ph.D. in theater. If I do the master’s program, I’ll be studying most of my day,
have been based on something that may or may not have happened to me or my children may or may not have experienced,” Gray said.
In his 10th consecutive year writing for Sauk Shorts, G.M. “Bud” Thompson from Grand Rapids wrote “The Envelope,” in which a man named Mort (Michael Krebill) received a birthday present from his friend Timothy (Jacob Weldon): an envelope containing his entire future.
“‘The Envelope’ was simply to pose a question. It’s 10 minutes of getting you to talk about it when you go home: would you open the envelope?” Thompson said. “You have to make a decision as to whether you think the future is changeable, and based on where you stand with that, discuss the question of ‘would you open the envelope?’”
Meaghan Bryant from North Adams, Michigan made her debut as a playwright with “The Challenge,” in which a mother proposes a new healthy eating challenge to her family. Bryant said she wrote
the play based on a real experience with her family and worked on it over the summer during the Sauk’s Plays-in-Development Workshop.
“I’d written blogs, and I’d written academically, but I’d never written a play,” Bryant said. “So one of the hardest parts for me was dialogue– how do we make this actually sound like people talking?”
The other five plays, “Thanksgiving with the Exterminator,” “Put Asunder,” “Press Pray,” “Hero Day,” and “Angels and Pastrami,” were selected from about 700 national submissions, which Bird narrowed down to 50 before presenting to his play selection committee to pick only five to produce.
Putting together an evening of ten separate shows is not without its challenges, Bird said. With ten shows in rehearsal at the same time, it’s difficult to find rehearsal space.
“We’ve had people rehearse in churches, in people’s living rooms, a couple of restaurants,” Bird said. “But when we need something, the community pulls
Despite the difficulties, the Sauk has found the support they need and continued to present the Shorts every year. Bird credits Joella Hendrickson, who has stage managed the production every year, and the community of actors, donors, and production team members with the continued success of Sauk Shorts.
According to Bird, Sauk Shorts has become an integral part of their season and a means for new people to discover all that the Sauk Theatre has to offer.
“A lot of people come, and they’ll go, ‘I only have the time to do Sauk Shorts,’” Bird said. “But then they’ll get the bug, and they’ll come back. Somehow, suddenly their schedules clear, and they have time for theater.”
When you think about religious films, you probably don’t think about rock opera. I, however, cannot help but think about a particular rock opera whenever movies about the Bible come up — “Jesus Christ Superstar.” My family saw the film in theaters when it first came out in 1973.
“It was a big deal that Ma and Dad were taking all of us to the movies,” my mother told me. “I remember we had to sit in one of the first rows of the movie theater because it was so packed.” She was only 8 years old then, but she still remembers how much she loved the songs and dance sequences. “I remember trying to sing Mary Magdalene’s parts in the shower weeks later,” she said.The next day, my grandfather bought the soundtrack so the kids could play it when they got home from school. Since then, they’ve played that album every year at Easter.
Would you ever write your own work?
I definitely have considered, but never actually tried. But I think maybe one day I would, given the right space. Do you prefer plays or musicals?
I love musicals so much, that’s where I started my love of theater. That will always be my go to comfort.
A little over 10 years ago, my mother found the DVD version of the musical. Since then the family has watched it religiously every year during Lent and you should too. Today, the film is woefully underappreciated. Its revolutionary portrayals of Christ and his companions, its anachronistic imagery, and its unforgettable music should have lodged it into the short list of great biblical cinema.
In its day, the film won much acclaim. The three lead singers — Yvonne Elliman,
Carl Anderson, and Ted Neeley — playing Mary, Judas, and Jesus respectively, each won Golden Globes for their performances. “Jesus Christ Superstar” was the highest grossing musical in the US and Canada the year of its release, bringing in $24.5 million. Much of the film’s success was owed to its brilliant director — Norman Jewison. In “Superstars: the Documentary,” Jewison recalled that he had been presented with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s play script while he was directing “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“Since there was no dialogue,” he said, “I wanted to place real emphasis on the visual images we used.”
Jewison’s anachronistic imagery makes for some of the most compelling visuals. Filmed in Israel shortly after the Six Days War and amidst America’s campaign in Vietnam, Jewison heavily utilized anti-war imagery throughout the film. The Roman soldiers are armed with machine guns, and Judas’ vision of the Romans invading Jerusalem features five Israeli Centurion tanks and two fighter jets.
“Even here in Jerusalem, in this time of war, it is clear that the principles of Christ have been abandoned,” Jewison stated in a 1973 interview.
The style of all of Jewison’s characters (except Jesus) scream ‘70s. Herod dons a pair of stylish circular shades at Christ’s trial, the angels wear white, fringed, leather jumpsuits, and most of the disciples sport suede bell-bottoms and freshly permed afros at the Last Supper.
“Silly as it may seem now,” my grandmother told me, “that was what was cool back then. They were appealing to the hippies and young people.” Jewison’s revolutionary artistic and marketing strategy were matched only by his storytelling ability. Because of the dance sequences and over-the-top style, some may worry that
“Jesus Christ Superstar” lacks some of the gravity which is owed to a story about Christ’s passion. Despite its edginess, however, the film still encourages the audience to tackle profound issues about their relationship to Jesus. Pilate’s question to the mob — “Who is this Jesus? Why is he different?” — could just as easily be asked of us. Mary and Judas’ struggle with Jesus, conveyed through their shared line, “I don’t know how to love him,” depicts the struggle shared by every modern Christian.
Despite its moments of levity, “Jesus Christ Superstar” communicates the same timeless messages that any Easter sermon might but in an entertaining and memorable way. I’m not the only one who thinks so. In 2015, Neeley said in an interview that soon after the film’s release, Jewison had the chance to show it to Pope Pius VI.
“Not only do I appreciate your beautiful rock opera film, I believe it will bring more people around the world to Christianity than anything has before,” the pope told Jewison.
So when you get the chance, run by Mossey library, check out the DVD, and discover what the buzz is all about.
Children, parents, and students filled the Heritage Room on Thursday, March 23 to watch a shadow puppet show put on by Assistant Professor of Spanish Jared White.
Todd Mack, associate professor of Spanish, assisted White in the performance.
The show on Thursday, geared toward a younger audience, included performances of plays “The Unlucky Fisherman” and “Cafe Dynamite.”
White used a Teatrino, or theater, painted with various symbols from Spanish culture in the performance.
The theme of misfortune prevailed in both plays.
First, White and Mack performed “The Unlucky Fisherman,” in which two fishermen mutely vie with one another to see who can catch the most fish. However, one fisherman cannot catch any fish, and once the fisherman finally, frustratedly reels one in, a hawk swoops down and takes it away.
In “Cafe Dynamite,” an oblivious waiter repeatedly brings his customers grotesque versions of their orders including a spider, eyeball ice cream, and finally a stick of dynamite which exploded, destroying Cafe Dynamite.
King Menelaus enters the Quilhot Black Box Theatre stage via elevator to visit Helen of Troy in her bright purple, blue, and yellow Egyptian hotel room detailed with a stuffed Trojan horse, the weather channel, and a collection of pesky flies.
is judging your character so much is simultaneously terrifying yet also super satisfying.”
During these visits, the characters discuss womanhood, the performance of femininity, perfection, war, and humanity, among other broad topics. Rather than celebrating womanhood, it questions what womanhood has become.
explored.
The only point of dramatic action throughout the show was the ending scene between Helen and Menelaus, played by junior Kenton Baer. If the concept of the play is not enough to convince you to go, go for the scene between these two. It was emotional, honest, and, in the truest sense of the word, riveting.
relief and a woman humbled by years spent as a cow. Kroh brings intensity and conviction to the show as a callous but intelligent god. Kearney often says what the audience wants to be said to Helen, both in terms of challenging and consoling her, balancing the role of a friend and a voice of reason.
White also invited a few younger audience members to practice using the shadow puppets in between both plays.
The shadow puppets’ exaggerated voices and comical personalities evoked laughter from children and adults alike.
A younger audience member, Sadie, said that her favorite play was “The Unlucky Fisherman.”
“It was extremely funny. I loved how there were no words, and the actions were exaggerated” Sadie said.
White said that while his puppet shows are primarily geared toward children, they aren’t just for kids.
“It’s very amazing to see how much dedication he put into this,” said Kathryn Whales, an audience member and drama teacher at Hillsdale Academy. “His need to share stories in unique ways left an impression on me.”
White, joined the Dragoncillo puppet troupe in 2018 with three other professors he met at a Spanish conference. Their love for puppet shows inspired White to become a puppeteer, as well.
The name Dragoncillo, meaning “little dragon,” was adopted from a play of the same name written by Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
Any good Hillsdale student should recognize the names, but some cognitive dissonance ought to form when coupled with this specific setting and details. That tension calls on the audience to think, to question, and to engage with this Greek, but simultaneously universal, tragedy.
The Tower Players are performing a striking adaptation of Euripides’ “Helen” by Ellen McLaughlin from March 29 through April 1 at 7:30 p.m., and on April 2 at 2 p.m. Tickets are free, but must be reserved.
“I think this one is more about individual stories, and the importance of telling stories,” director Michael Beyer said. “The story of Helen itself is one that’s been told multiple ways. In this version of the story, there’s a copy of Helen that the war is being fought over and our Helen is the real Helen.”
The play watches Helen of Troy, played by senior Brooklyn Little, in her hotel room after a 17-year stretch of isolation from the outside world. After the gods replace her with a copy of herself for the world to see, she spends her days talking to her servant, watching the weather channel, and killing flies. Throughout the show, she talks to her servant and three visitors.
“Something that has been difficult for me as an actor is playing a character that is so real, yet so unlikable,” Little said. “She’s not a villain, she’s just really self-absorbed and not particularly likable. Knowing that the audience
for a little less than two hours.”
“When I initially got the role, I was kind of nervous about the prospects of playing such an iconic woman,” Little said. “What if I wasn’t what the audience had in mind? What if they were disappointed when they saw my portrayal of Helen of Troy? But that’s the whole point of the show: we build women up to be these flawless, pristine creatures, and in doing so, we forget that they’re just people.” The show itself is heavily monologue-driven, with the narrative performed in 5-10 minute stretches of one character talking. While the dialogue has the potential to be striking, an audience member has to choose to tune in and listen.
The play itself does not necessarily follow any dramatic action, so if an audience member does lose focus, it is easy to jump back in and absorb the themes and ideas being
The cast features an intimate group of five: Little, senior Olivia Kroh, sophomore Kenda Showalter, junior Mary Kate Kearney, and Baer.
“This show only has five cast members, and on top of that, no more than two of us are in a given scene,” Showalter said. “What keeps it from feeling like a fragmentary showcase of one-on-one scenes is the continuous perspective of Helen; the audience sits with Helen while she waits, learning information as she learns it.”
Every actor puts on an impressive and well-researched performance. At first, Little seems disengaged during other monologues, almost distracted, until Kroh explains the role that Helen is expected and meant to play: a woman unaffected, unfeeling, disengaged.
Showalter provides the show’s single likable female character as the comedic
The costumes convey a sense of timelessness. With ancient Greek dresses, a Vietnam-War style uniform, and modern day references, the source material is clear while making its message universal. Sometimes the bangles were louder than the dialogue, but maybe that’s a struggle that comes with ancient Greece.
On the technical side, the show takes place in an undisclosed, stagnant setting– a “posh Egyptian hotel room,” according to the script. This direction manifests in a borderline psychedelic bright purple, blue, and yellow room that is interesting and eye-catching enough to make up for the lack of changing scenery. The lighting is excellent, transforming the space tremendously and directing the audience to notice shifts in dialogue and ideas.
The cast is concentrated with talent, it is a beautiful experience technically, and the ideas are worth discussing if the audience members will choose to listen and engage for a little less than two hours. This is not the typical theater experience, but it’s one everyone should make time for.
“I like shaking things up a bit, and I like challenging topics and challenging stories,” Beyer said. “It’s important that this campus community be challenged out of their comfort zone a little bit. We can tell the same stories in multiple ways, and they can still have resonance. If we step out of our comfort zones and think about things a little differently, it can help us understand what we do understand.”
The group is dedicated to bilingual, family- friendly storytelling for a range of audiences from children to adults.
The key architect of the puppet troupe, Yancey, who teaches Spanish at Grand Valley State University, designs the puppets and translates traditionally Spanish plays for an English audience.
Many of the shows the troupe organizes include English renditions of popular plays from the Spanish Golden Age.
White has performed at many schools in the area, including at the Mary Randall Preschool and Hillsdale Academy.
White has also used puppet shows as a (method) of teaching Spanish to his students in the classroom. Student performers will act out a Spanish play with puppets.
At the end of the performance, White expressed his passion for theatrical performance.
“This has been one of the highlights of my career,” White said.
Following the release of three eclectic hit singles, Lana Del Rey dropped her ninth studio album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” this past Friday to universal acclaim. While the raunchy, hip-hop sound of the second hit single, “A&W,” indicated a new, experimental vibe for the anticipated album, the hype distracted from what is otherwise a classic, deep dive into the world of American trauma and nostalgia that Rey embodies in her late career.
Rey has never shied away from brutal honesty. This newest offering extends that honesty to a point of rawness rarely heard before. In the ninth track on the album, “Fingertips,” the serene queen croons out a stream of family trauma that leaves
almost no time for breathing. At one point she softly asks her sister Caroline Grant, “what kind of mother was she to say I’d end up in institutions?”
Rey traverses the hills and the ditches of growing in age while celebrating the bitterness, love, fear, and silliness of it all. In “A&W,” she proudly asks the listener: “Did you know a singer could still be looking like a side piece at 33?”
Importantly, death and its imminence come up more in this album than in the past. Rey handles her fear of this imminence with the grace one would expect from the poet. In the opening track, “The Grants,” she imagines the beauty of taking her memories of “her sister’s firstborn child” and her “grandmother’s last smile” with her.
Following an 11-year discography that struggles to be
caged in one genre, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” continues to flex Rey’s ability to inhabit a constantly changing but unmistakable sound. Rey herself best explains her genre-bending in the 11th track, claiming, “I’m folk, I’m jazz, I’m blue, I’m green.”
In “Peppers,” featured singer Tommy Genesis brags “hands on my knees, I’m Angelina Jolie” over a trap beat that is almost indecent alongside the light, trickling piano of “Paris, Texas” (feat. SYML). This unique contrast is comparable to “Lust For Life,” Rey’s fifth studio album, which included rappers A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti.
One cannot fully appreciate the newest album without understanding the deep friendship between Rey and the renowned producer Jack Antonoff, who offers his voice and keys to multiple
songs. As a special tribute, Rey blesses Antonoff’s engagement to actress Margaret Qualley on “Margaret” (feat. Bleachers). The sweet song gives a much needed respite to the heavier tones that persist throughout other tracks.
The album arrives four years after her wildly successful and formative sixth studio album, “Norman F***ing Rockwell!” Fans will be pleased to hear samples of “NFR!” throughout the newest album. Most notably, Lana reprises “Venice B****,” one of the most popular singles from “NFR!,” over a dark, trap beat in “Taco Truck x VB.” The repeated sampling of her own tracks demonstrates Lana’s confidence in her craft. “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” joins an elite roster of albums with the same confidence.
“The cast is concentrated with talent, it is a beautiful experience technically, and the ideas are worth discussing if the audience members will choose to listen and engageJared White shares his passion for shadow puppets with the students at Hillsdale Academy. Courtesy | Jared White Hillsdale Academy students pose with White’s puppets. Courtesy | Jared White White performs a scene with his shadow puppets. Courtesy | Jared White
In this quick hits interview, Assistant Professor of Education Catherine Kuiper talks Bruce Lee, baptismal cake, and the NFL.
What is an especially strong or beloved childhood memory?
Growing up in rural Washington, we had an inexplicably large digging hole in our backyard and my brother and I would excavate for hours, working as if our livelihood depended on it. We even worked in the rain, which did at one time result in a mud hole swallowing my legs. My brother tried — surreptitiously, to avoid our parents’ attention — unleashing a garden hose into the mud in the hopes of loosening me, but in the end we had to summon an adult to pull me out.
Favorite film?
“Enter the Dragon,” starring Bruce Lee. Just look at the title sequence on YouTube.
What were some of the most formative classes you took during your time at Hillsdale?
Smith on Shakespeare and Dante; Jackson’s Anglo-Saxon; Birzer on the Civil War; Whalen on Newman.
How did you meet your husband, Andrew?
We attended Hillsdale together, but the relationship was precipitated by casting him as Lysander in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — I was directing Shakespeare in the Arb — and then a fivehour argument about “Pan’s Labyrinth” that drove everyone else at our Saga table to leave and made him forget he was hosting a birthday party.
What is one of the craziest or most adventurous things you’ve done?
My husband and I walked the Camino de Santiago for our honeymoon without preparing in the slightest.
Funniest thing one of your kids has said or done?
When Stephen was 3, he snuck enormous handfuls of Anna’s baptismal cake out of the fridge and climbed a flight of stairs to feed it to his
16-month-old brother Daniel in his crib, while the relevant parental units slept soundly through it all.
Whom do you admire and look up to the most?
At the moment, Nicholas of Cusa. And my husband — he doesn’t read the Collegian, so he doesn’t need to know.
What’s something you’ve learned from your students?
Sometimes you have to remind people that internet search engines exist. But also that their particularity is essential and life-giving.
If you weren’t a professor, what would you be?
A sideline reporter for the NFL.
What’s something you’d tell your younger self now?
It’s not at all what you would imagine.
While many Hillsdale students are struggling to learn a new language as part of the core curriculum, some of the town’s youngest residents are already fluent in two.
Several professors are raising their children to speak more than one language. Some chose to do so because their native language is not English, others to give their children exposure to foreign languages and cultures.
Anna Vincenzi, assistant professor of history, explained some of her experience raising her three kids in an Italian-speaking home.
think it gives them a lot of confidence. I think it makes them more open to the world.”
He said his children’s fluency has aided them in comprehending vocabulary and fostering a love for language itself.
“I think they pick languages up pretty easily, so I think that’s another benefit,” Mack said. “They think it’s cool to speak in other languages.”
Sherri Rose, associate professor of French, said she taught her two daughters French so that they could experience the world in a different way. She found it to be a bridge between her role as teacher and mother.
Dorm rivalries melted away as the men of Hillsdale made the most of the snow before spring break, competing in Thatcherball before uniting to shovel snow for sororities and building an igloo on the quad.
The adventures began with Thatcherball at 10 p.m. Friday night.
According to senior Luke Turnbow, Thatcherball has been a tradition on campus for upwards of 40 years.
“Margaret Thatcher knew about it when she was alive and approved,” Turnbow said.
The premise is simple. One team plays offense and one team plays defense for 10 minutes, and then they switch. The offense tries to push through the defensive line and throw or touch the ball to Margaret Thatcher’s statue. Each time someone successfully lands the ball on Thatcher, he earns a certain number of points for his team minus however many articles of clothing he’s wearing.
“Generally, the people who are on offense second win,”
said Turnbow, who chose to referee this time around.
Dorm rivalries have taken a backseat in the past few years of Thatcherball, Turnbow said.
“I think it’s probably one of the most unifying things that the guys dorms do on campus,” Turnbow said. “We do a draft team, so everyone splits up regardless of what dorm they’re in.”
As Thatcherball wound down, sophomore Max Kinnney led the men of Galloway and Simpson on a mission to shovel the sidewalks of the girls’ dorms and sororities.
“I walked some ladies home, and I walked past Kappa and they were shoveling their own sidewalks,” said Kinney. “And I was like, ‘well, that’s not really how it should be.’”
Kinney ran back to Thatcherball as the game was finishing up and recruited a troop of Simpson and Galloway men. They grabbed shovels from the Few Good Men shed and got to work for the next hour clearing residences from Mac down to Broadlawn.
According to Kinney, the girls were grateful. Olds offered them hot chocolate,
Mauk girls came out and thanked them, and one girl even offered them money.
Penny Arnn herself came out of Broadlawn to thank the boys and gave them all protein bars.
“I don’t think any of the guys really expected anything like that,” Kinney said. “We were all having fun.”
Turnbow, who joined the snow shoveling crew, hopes that this act of service will become a post-Thatcherball tradition.
“It was a spur of the moment thing,” Turnbow said. “But I think it’s something that we’re going to try to make traditional. If there’s a big snow, then it’s a Thatcherball kind of night. And if it’s a Thatcherball kind of night, then that probably means that everyone else is snowed in.”
In the same spirit of spontaneity, freshmen Christian Hinrichs and Josh Lee recruited Simpson guys to build an igloo on the quad Saturday night.
“We had about 15 or 20 people working, everyone on different stages,” Hinrichs said. “It was really fun seeing everyone come together and have the same goal. I think
it was one of the first times we’ve had a bunch of football guys from Simpson and then non-athletes from Simpson come together and do something.”
According to Hinrichs, they worked from around 6 p.m. until 2 a.m., filling bins with cubes of snow, stacking the cubes, and packing them in.
“We really wanted to finish it because of Galloway’s igloo,” Hinrichs said. “We wanted to make it way bigger than theirs.”
Sophomore Paul Sri joined the crew around 11 p.m.
“It kind of came out of nowhere,” Sri said. “Just a bunch of guys out on the quad late at night, blasting music, doing work with our hands and working as a team. Very welcome at the end of a long day.”
Just as they were trying to finish up, the entire roof caved in. At that point, the group decided to call it a night but not before a 2 a.m. Taco Bell trip.
“It was definitely still a success,” Hinrichs said, “I just wish it had stayed colder longer.”
“My husband and I are both Italian, so we only speak Italian among ourselves and we only speak Italian to our kids,” Vincenzi said. “I don’t know if you would count it as a bilingual house because it doesn’t even come naturally to me or my husband to speak English at home.”
“Kids’ brains are like little sponges when it comes to learning language,” Rose said. “I wanted to expose my daughters to a second language from birth at the point in their lives when it
is easiest to pick up since all sounds and words are new.”
Rose said she only spoke French to her daughters and that they learned English outside of the home.
Vincenzi said that she must be intentional about raising her kids to speak Italian, especially now that her oldest is school-aged and learning more English at school every day.
“My kids speak and understand Italian very well, but among themselves they speak English because, when they go to school, English becomes the language they speak with other kids,” she said.
Still, her children usually address her in Italian.
“If you as a parent start speaking to them in English and they get used to speaking to you in English and then you automatically answer to them in English, then their Italian is gone,” she said.
Associate Professor of Spanish and Department Chair Todd Mack and his wife, Betty Mack, both speak Spanish and have raised their five children speaking Spanish and English. Mack said there are many benefits to learning two languages. When traveling in a Spanish-speaking country, for instance, his family has no language barrier.
“It’s cool to be able to take my family and not have to worry about ‘Oh, will they understand what’s going on?’” Mack said. “I
“It is fun to watch them play with sounds and compare words in French and English. I like seeing which French words they insert into English sentences because that word has a stronger association for them in French,” Rose said.
Rose admitted that it is difficult finding French content for her daughters to consume.
“It is challenging to expose them to a variety of French speakers and authentic texts living in the rural Midwest but streaming Disney Plus in French and ordering French books on Amazon make it easier,” Rose said.
Although Rose is not a native speaker herself, she and her family travel to France frequently, which Rose said improved the quality of her children’s spoken French.
“Obviously, English is their dominant language living in Hillsdale,” Rose said. “However, I know from past experiences that even just a few months of immersion during a summer in France is enough time for the languages to flip and for French to be their choice of expression. It’s fascinating to watch that happen.”
“Kids’Catherine Kuiper and her husband Andrew met at Hillsdale and began dating after a five-hour argument about “Pan’s Labyrinth.” COURTESY | CATHERINE KUIPER
For some, breakfast on the Appalachian Trail is just a spoonful of SPAM and a Snickers bar.
During spring break, a group of eight students and three staff members hiked nearly 50 miles of the Appalachian trail in Tennessee over four days, averaging 12 miles per day. Joe Kellam, associate director of security and emergency management, led the trip through the inaugural Leadership: Hiking Appalachia course. They plan to offer the class again each semester.
Juniors Josi Cuddeback, Christine Madigan, Brett Schaller, Caleb Green, and Luke Hollister reunited round an AJ’s Cafe table to tell the story of the Appalachian Trail.
Before the weeklong hike, the students attended a one-credit leadership training course at Hayden Park for the first half of the semester. They learned how to build a fire, tie knots, set up a campsite, and safely hike in dangerous conditions.
“At the last minute, you realize all the things that you probably should have been thinking about,” Schaller said. “There’s a million things that occur to you that you actually need when you’re on the trail.”
Schaller realized the day before leaving that he would need a pair of gloves in the frosty conditions.
“I found one set of gloves in the entire store,” Schaller said. “They were white. I thought the gloves were a little bit fruity. Overall, I would characterize the last couple of days before as a bit frantic.”
Cuddeback said she packed more than she needed to. On the trail, you only need a pair of paints and two shirts to rotate and, surprisingly, you don’t need deodorant, she said.
“You literally cannot smell yourself when you’re on the trail. You just go nose-blind and you can’t smell anything bad, which is honestly a blessing,” Madigan said.
Green, on the other hand, said he accidentally under-packed.
“I ended up bringing less than I should have,” Green said. “I only brought a few layers and, in hindsight, should have brought warmer clothes. I ended up being really lucky that I had brought a sweatshirt for the drive home that I was going to keep dry.”
The crew was hit by a cold snap during the trip, Cuddeback said; the air cooled and the atmosphere got hit by a spell of cold weather unexpectedly. Hollister remembered looking ahead at green, lush trees and shrubbery, and turning around to see snow falling behind him.
On Thursday evening, after a full day of hiking, the group set up camp and prepared to wind down for the night with dinner. But Kellam discovered that 50 mph winds were forecasted for the night, and the campsite was surrounded by widowmakers — dead trees that had the potential to fall onto them in the winds.
“We decided to hike out the remaining three-and-ahalf miles in the dark with headlamps on back to our van,” Schaller said. “It was kind of an adventure all day. It was like a race against Mother Nature.”
Cuddeback said she felt a rush of adrenaline on the hike
“Keep in mind we hadn’t been inside four walls for days at this point,” Cuddeback said. “It was this
exciting feeling of, ‘Okay, we were expecting to still be in the wilderness for at least another whole day, but we’re about to get the van and hightail it home overnight.’”
The group stopped at Waffle House close to midnight and devoured dozens of eggs, waffles, pancakes, bacon, and sausage in a matter of minutes.
“To put it in perspective, on one of our more difficult days where we climbed out 5,000 feet of elevation in height, about 13 miles total, the calorie burn on Christine’s watch was 5,200. We were averaging about 50,000 steps per day,” Cuddeback said.
One consistently reliable snack, according to Hollister, was
bers trail names. John Wilm er, a security officer and training coordinator who came with the group, was deemed “Skin Walker;” Rachel Marinko, director of student programming, the mom of the group; and Kellam, “Joe Mama.”
“Joe was like this scary mom who would take care of us; you know he would kill for you,” Cuddeback said.
hiking the trail together.
G.O.R.P. — Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts. The term G.O.R.P. became an all-encompassing word for the crew, and the students would often joke around with phrases such as, “G.O.R.P. out!”
“It’s like ‘I Am Groot,’” Green said. “It could mean anything.”
The students assigned themselves and the staff mem-
One morning, Kellam cracked open a can of frozen SPAM, skewered some, and roasted it over a fire. That, including a Snickers bar, summed up his breakfast, Hollister said.
“Everyone was going so hard, just like athletes, but we were also pushing everyone else’s buttons,’ Cuddeback said. “It was kind of unparalleled. We were just screaming and laughing the entire time for 13 hours a day.”
The students agreed that a certain bond was formed between the entire group after
“Everyone on the trail became very close, like really good friends,” Green said. “We all had a lot of fun hanging out with each other. That led to a lot of fun inside jokes and trail shenanigans that went on. I still have trailbrain.”
They each said they would hike the trail again in a heartbeat.
“When I go out and try to do something fun, I always try to find the biggest grand giant experience ever,” Green said. “I really learned on the trail that you can take something really simple, like hiking every day, and find joy in the little things. Just having a hot cup of water and good people around you was incredible.”