'Faith of Our Fathers'
The Case for Hesston College
by George Neavoll, Editor of the Editorial Page
When I was growing up, half a continent away, the name of Hesston College was as familiar to me as was that of nearby Oregon State University, or the University of Oregon, where I went to school. Far more of my young friends went off to the former than to eigher of the latter, in fact.
"Going to Hesston" was very much a part of life's experience for those Mennonite young people wanting to pursue an education beyond high school.
And for those who came back and reported on the experience, Hesston came pretty close to being an educational and spiritual Nirvana, to hear them tell it.
So when I came to Kansas many years later, the one facet of Kansas life with which I already was somewhat intimately acquainted was Hesston College.
When I first set foot on campus, I almost felt I had come home.
FOR THE PAST several days, beginning on Thanksgiving Day, Hesston College has been celebrating its 75th anniversary.
The headline of this column is taken from a booklet outlining the school's anniversary goals, which include a five-year plan to "carry the institution through the '80s and prepare it to meet the challenges of a new century."
Among the two-year school's goals is an increase in enrollment to 650 full-time-equivalency students and the raising of $12 million in endowment fund support.
This morning, in a worship celebration at the Yost Center on campus, a responsive reading will include the passage:
As a young tree planted on the prairie Hesston College withstood
Wind and drought
The theological currents of frontier religion
The storms of economic depression
And the militarism of world wars.
The passage encapsulated the suffering and the persecution that those molded from the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition endured as they sought the freedom of worship and thought that had been denied them in the old country.
THE MENNONITES and the Amish-Mennonites who founded Hesston College had left their homes in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana to settle in Kansas near Newton, Canton, Hutchinson and Harper.
The idea for Hesston was born, says a college history, when Mrs. S.B. King suggested the church "establish a school somewhere in the West" for study of the Bible and the liberal arts.
A.L. Hess, founder of the city of Hesston, offered 80 acres and $7,000 if the institution were to locate there, and thus overcame bids by five other communities.
On Sept. 22, 1909, the Hesston Academy and Bible School opened its doors. Its students enrolled in two- and three-year courses in preparation for careers in teaching, health sciences and many fields of church service.
College-level classes were added six years later, and the school - renamed the Hesston College and Bible School - offered four-year courses from 1918 to 1927.
WHEN THE Great Depression hit, Hesston was driven to its knees - figuratively speaking for the college, literally speaking for the Mennonite people.
That's when Milo Kauffman arrived back on the scene.
A 1926 Hesston graduate, Mr. Kauffman had spent two years teaching there and three years attending seminary in Chicago before being asked to assume the presidency of Hesston in 1932. Against the advice of friends, he took it.
"Hesston College is the Lord's work," he said simply, exhibiting a faith that has been the college's strong point since its beginning. "I am not only willing to identify myself with it, but I'm willing to attempt to lead it out of difficulty."
And lead it he did, for 19 remarkable years that are described to this day as "visionary" in scope. From three buildings, five faculty members and 60 students, the college grew to 12 buildings, 25 faculty members and 300 students.
Today, with President Kirk Alliman at the helm, Hesston has 14 buildings, 55 faculty members and 520 students, and the words of the old Protestant hymn, "Faith of Our Fathers," have assumed a new meaning.
MILO KAUFFMAN will be a participant in this morning's celebration, along with Dr. Alliman. Former presidents Roy D. Roth and Laban Peachy [sic] were a part of early activities on this anniversary weekend.
All can share in the pride that emanates from Hesston College these days, as this "young tree planted on the prairie" has grown and prospered beyond its founders' fondest dreams.
Its success is the success of us all, and helps make Kansas the place of educational opportunity it is today.