Why I chose Southern Utah University

I thought I would have more minutes to "wander" as our "fab five have grown older, but actually I have less.  However, every so often, I steal a few moments for myself.  Such was the case a few weeks ago.  I happened to be waiting for our son's basketball game to start at the basketball camp at SUU when  I seized my "moment" and decided to walk across the campus of my alma mater.  As I passed the sign"South Hall," I was struck with a memory that I had long since forgotten.

My Grandfather, Max Dickson Weaver was a professor of art at CSU (SUU) many years before I was born and right where the South Hall sign stands was where his art studio once was. At the art studio, he threw pots and painted and shared his love of art with many students.  The  building standing there today is most impressive, but I found myself missing that charming art studio that was "home" to my grandfather.  

I am sure that memory with my grandfather was my first memory of Southern Utah University, but over the years many more memories have been made. Along with my grandfather teaching art here, my parents, grandmother Weaver and my six siblings and their spouses all attended and graduated from SUU. My father in law studied music her, and his fahter  ran the college farm here for decades. To say I have roots here would be an understatement.   

My Roots and the roots that this community shares with SUU are what I like best about this university.  
The settlers of Cedar City were in the early stages of settlement when they sacrificed all they had to "look forward" and erect the first building, "Old Main" on this campus.  In 1897, Neil Bladen and a horse named "Old Sorrel" were joined by Cedar City and went "back up the mountain."

Southern Utah University, Scott L. Wyatt had this to say in his address to the students at SUU, "The men climbed into their bedrolls high up on the mountain, hungry, exhausted, wet, very cold, utterly discouraged and a long way from home. They were in over their heads. And now they had spun out two weeks of their eight months and had nothing to show for it. Most of them wanted to give up. They put off talking about what to do until the next morning.

The next morning came. It was time for the moment of truth. The town’s branch campus hung on the outcome of what these 15 men would decide. Most of them wanted to quit and head for home. To continue the endeavor meant they would have to return time and time and time again to the top of this mountain to bring the lumber down. They had barely survived the previous day and were not interested in tempting Mother Nature any further. As the conversation heated up, the men taking sides, Neil Bladen, who had been pushing the others to continue, jumped up on a wagon and standing above the rest, full of spit and resolve, cried, “Well go home all you damn tenderfeet; we’ll get along without you. We'll get the lumber out ourselves!” Most did head for home, hoping to never see the top of that mountain in winter again.

Bladen and four others stayed on. Over the next days these five men returned to their wagons, buried deep in snow on the mountain, and with great difficulty brought down the first load of lumber.

While I didn't hear these words until recently, I have been moved by the spirit of these words as I have come to this campus over the years.  There is just something about this place.

  However, it was at the Braithwaite Liberal Arts center that I found my home.  One of the great blessings of my life was to study English under the tutelage of David Lee.  Moments in his classroom were magical- teaching for him was not something he learned, it was something with which he was born.He was an artist both in the classroom and while writing his own poetry.  

I changed my major from Journalism to English while taking his Children's Literature class. I wish I could go back to those days in the Braithwaite and hear the words of Milton's Paradise Lost, Homer's Odyssey, and Dylan Thomas's Fern Hill fall from his tongue.  Moments in that class with the trees' leaves brushing against those old windows while Professor Lee taught us, read to us, and inspired us, are some of the most cherished of  my life.

 I graduated from neighboring Cedar High in the spring of 1992- 6th in my class.  I had scholarships to Utah State and BYU Idaho, but I chose to stay home... not because it was the closest, or the easiest, but because  SUU  spoke to me.

I like that the spirit of Nellie Unthank whispers in the shadows,  I like the melody the Utah Shakespearean Festival hums across campus, and I like the "learning" intimacy that this institution provides.  For me it is home.

 

I am so proud and grateful for my adventures at SUU- Summa Cumm graduate, class of 1996