Union - What’s your legacy?
Dr.Dick and son Arthur Dick C.1970s | PC: Union College Heritage Room
How did you arrive at Union College? I don’t mean how you physically got here, but rather who lead you to make the decision to be here, or opened doors that allowed you to be here? Did you have parents who were Union Alumni, and maybe siblings too, so this was your logical next step? Had you never heard of Union until a recruiter showed up at your academy or church and told you about it?
Well, what would you say if I told you I bet Dr. Everett Dick had something to do with it?
Before I came to Union, I attended and graduated from Campion Academy (Go Cougars!) and before I went to Campion I was homeschooled. To be admitted to Campion I either had to present transcripts, which I obviously wouldn’t have had, or take one of the many national standardized tests like the Iowa Tests of Educational Development, ITEDs for short. My mother went to our local church school in Lubbock, Texas and asked if the church school teacher could protector the exams and she said “Certainly!”.
This school teacher, is a Union Alumni, whose family came to adventism via Dr. Everett Dick. He ministered to the patriarchs in her family, which lead to her and her siblings being educated at Union College, which eventually put her in a church school in a city in Texas almost no one outside of college football has ever heard of.
I did well on my ITEDs, entered Campion, completed my education there with a respectable GPA and had a job interview at the Union Library secured via a close friend from Campion. I interviewed, was hired and placed in the Heritage Room, where I got to learn a lot about Dr. Dick, and meet a lot of alumni who, in almost everyone of their visits would tell me a story about how Dr. Dick did something for them that got them to, or kept them at Union.
Dr. Everett Dick has written 2 books on the history of Union College, the last one was published in 1967 and I could only begin to imagine at the thousands of Unionites who were influenced by him. Dr. Dick called and requested money from his many dear students when the need for a new administration building became a pressing issue.
It’s possible,that if you’re a legacy student then your grandparents knew Dr. Dick and have their own stories about him. You might be here because of a scholarship funded by his family, or started by someone who was influenced or inspired by him. Dr. Dick’s Legacy to Union College is one of service, and of providing for Union because it provided something for you. We do not write our legacies, those who remember us do. So, as this school year ends and graduation approaches, what has your legacy been?
Bry Galloway is a junior studying history.