By Lisa Asher

When the phone on my desk rings at 8:30 in the morning, I know who it’s going to be. I’m not sure why, but this is the time of day that he seems to have the most questions. “What’s the pope’s hat called?” says the voice on the other end of the line.

“Um, a miter, I think,” I reply, pulling that information from some recess of my brain I didn’t know I had. “Okay, thanks girl.” Click.

It’s not that Jeff Kilgore, the alumni association’s executive director, doesn’t have a dictionary. Or access to Google. Or a Catholic background, for that matter. But with a staff the size of ours, things are pretty informal, and we all help each other out in our own areas of expertise.

For instance, when I’m thinking of buying a car–a task I hate more than root canal work–I get advice from Jeff, whose in-laws own a car lot. When I need to know a bit of Baylor trivia, there is no one more knowledgeable than Judy Prather, our communications coordinator and senior staff member. (Sorry for outing you, Judy!)

“One for all, and all for one” has become a cliché, but it’s also how we live our lives around here. It’s how we got through some dark days in 2002 when our staff was cut from twenty to five–me, Judy, Todd Copeland, Meg Cullar, and Bob Anne Senter. That was the year we learned how to plan a banquet, organize a three-day event for five hundred people, and continue writing and publishing a quarterly magazine.

Pulling together is how we enjoy good times, too. We celebrate together when our membership numbers go up, when a generous someone gives to our Sesquicentennial Campaign, or when Coach Kim and Coach Drew lead our basketball teams to victory.

Yes, we have our office squabbles, the same as any staff does. We will argue for an hour about who’s supposed to clean the coffee mugs, what blew up in the microwave, or why we never have good snacks anymore. Some days, it’s like stepping into a scene from The Office.

But when it comes down to it, we all know where our loyalties lie–with Baylor, with the alumni association, and with each other.

So if that means I have to answer some “phone a friend” questions first thing in the morning, then so be it. Besides, it’s been an education for me, too. I now know that “noogie” is spelled with two O’s–and, of course, the proper name for holy headgear!

By Shari Downing, Development and Awards Coordinator

I’s not easy to surprise me. I have two teenage daughters and a very precocious seven-year-old, so that means I’m usually ready for anything. But I was caught completely off guard at the Alumni By Choice brunch sponsored by the Baylor Alumni Association on Saturday, February 14.

I’ve worked for the association about two years, and one of the hats I wear is awards coordinator. In that role, I’ve had the pleasure of working with the committees who select recipients and the exciting opportunity of meeting those who are being honored. I was looking forward to the ABC brunch–not only for the food!–but for the chance to meet some of the sixty-six recipients being inducted into the Baylor family.

I had been collecting the nominations, and I had been moved as I read many of them. Some were from Baylor alums who wanted to acknowledge a hardworking parent who was unable to attend Baylor, but found a way to send their child here. Others were from spouses who wanted to honor a loved one who had supported them as they went to Baylor, and who grew to love her without ever getting to attend themselves. Many ABC recipients have attended games, gone to Pigskin, paid tuition, cried at graduation, and sang “That Good Ole Baylor Line”–all with great pride.

Reading some of the nominations made me think of myself. I wasn’t fortunate enough to go to Baylor, but I’ve lived in Waco all my life and have grown to love Baylor and think of her as my school, too. As I greeted the people that walked in the building that morning, I was so touched by all the smiling and proud faces, as many told me how special it was to finally become an official part of the Baylor family.

Our speaker, Merrie Beckham, was the first ABC recipient in 1986 and has spoken at every ABC event since. Her stories of being an outsider who married a Bear and grew to love Baylor herself were as hilarious as they were true. She addressed a capacity crowd of about 135 people, and the laughter was so loud that I am sure they heard us across the street. Each recipient was brought up to receive an ABC “diploma” from Baylor’s interim president, Dr. David Garland, as Jeff Kilgore, our EVP, read from the nomination. I personally had read and re-read them all in preparation for the event, but it felt new and more meaningful when I had a face to put with the names.

Our last two certificates had been held aside because we had the honor of presenting David and Diana Garland their certificates this year. I was listening for their names when I heard some comments that I knew were not in the official script. Jeff was supposed to be presenting certificates to the Garlands, but instead he was saying MY name!

Our staff had nominated me without my knowledge and actually kept it a secret until that moment. I would like to have checked my teeth and reapplied my lip gloss, but I walked up to receive my very own certificate and pose for my picture with Dr. Garland anyway. In that moment, I felt like a true Bear. And later, as I looked back over the list of recipients, I thought that not many Baylor alumni can say that Baylor’s interim president, dean of our School of Social Work, and head football coach were all in their class. But I can!

An Insider’s Look at Sing

By Charis Boylan
Senior professional writing major from Tyler

I was fourteen when I fell in love with Sing. My sister was dressed in a giant green-sequined suit when I first saw her perform in Tri Delt’s Sing act, Ease on Down the Road. I remember how ecstatic I felt as girls dressed as lions and tin men and “oompa loompas” pranced across the stage. Six years later, after joining a sorority myself, I was elected as one of four Sing chairs and spent a year and a half developing Chi Omega’s act Trespassin’.

The transition from an audience member to a performer was mind-boggling, and only those who participate understand all that Sing requires. The following is my attempt to shed light on the process that surrounds creating, practicing, and performing a Sing act:

Around New Year’s Day, a group of starry-eyed students known to their particular organizations as Sing chairs trek back into Waco. During the next week, billowing canvases are pinned to the cement floor in random parking garages and warehouses around campus. Someone kneels in the middle of the giant white space marking out a grid, and someone else follows behind meticulously painting in the squares until the canvas is full of color and life. The backdrop is done. The work of almost eight months planning is starting to come to fruition.

Sing practice starts only a week later. Someone stands in front of nearly 120 girls, saying eight counts out loud, manipulating her body in rigid, sharp dance moves, which everyone mimics as best they can. Girls are placed in rows and commanded to remain in their “window.” Someone proposes that everyone ought to look at the crown molding on the ceiling and pretend to make eye contact with the judges. Someone else starts yelling, “Lines!” and bodies align as best they can.

Two weeks later, the mass of girls sets out in winter chill, the tip tap of their character shoes on the sidewalk echoing behind as they shuffle excitedly through busy traffic toward Waco Hall. There the stage is dark except for a few dimly lit lights, and someone plugs in a speaker system, attaches an iPod, and begins to yell out counts. Eventually, everyone is in place, and the vacated seats in the auditorium seem filled with phantom-like images of the girls’ parents and grandparents, students and friends.

During the course of two different technical stage practices, girls learn how to unroll and hang the backdrop, and someone in a box far away from the stage is flicking on bright spotlights. Arm and legs flail as girls learn how to maneuver props into precise positions. While technicians rehearse lighting, girls lie on the stage whispering, read out of textbooks, or practice their choreography. After multiple dress rehearsals and practices, the girls can dance their parts even in their sleep. Campus is bubbling with rumored themes of the other groups, and every girl starts hoping hers will take first place.

Nothing is comparable to the absolute excitement that is Club Night. Everybody has jitters, aware they might make a fool of themselves on stage. One final performance in Roxy Grove, the stage adjacent to Waco Hall, leaves the girls a little more confident. After the songs finish, they circle up and join gloved hands, and the chaplain of the group is elected to pray. Once she says “Amen,” a girl with a boombox plays a pump-up song, and the girls carelessly dance out their nerves.

It’s tradition to tap the ceiling before entering the hallway to the stage, and when the metal door slides open, a mess of scrambling bodies and runaway props fall into place before a gently rising backdrop: kneeling, standing, mid-walk, mid-talk, staged to perfection. Even the most non-theatrical student suddenly turns diva, and a peculiar sort of hush falls over the stage. The large green curtain lifts slowly, and spotlights shine on singers and dancers alike. The man at the piano bench waves his hands at the band, and music and magic explode on stage.

Seven minutes pass until the curtain drops heavily again, this time shutting in a group of panting, sweating girls. The applause is drowned out once the curtain hits the ground, and everyone on stage leaps up from their finale positions and runs around again, shooing props off stage, ripping the backdrop off, stomping it flat and rolling it tight.

Ten days and eight shows later, the girls huddle outside of Roxy Grove. Bodies are crammed in every corner, and the air teems with excitement. After announcing the eight Pigskin finalists, whose groups are exuberant and cheering for one another, a man announces the third place winner. A group in one area ignites in screams and collapses on each other with hugs and laughter. He says the second place winner, and another area of costumed students erupts. And when the first place winner is announced, everyone explodes, and the group of obnoxiously ecstatic students scrambles to the front of the room and starts jumping and screaming. Once the excitement lessens, the students jammed into the music hall start to disperse, some excited, others dejected by loss, but all aware of the exhausting and magnificent effort that is All University Sing.

By Todd Copeland, Editor of The Baylor Line

Yesterday was the first day of the signing period for NCAA sports. Across the nation, student-athletes signed National Letters of Intent that opened the doors of achievement for them and gave collegiate sports programs hope for the future.

As usual, at Baylor and elsewhere, football drew most of the attention. But Baylor also had signees in soccer, golf, volleyball, and track. And as I read in the newspaper about the young men and women who will be coming to Baylor next year to lend their talents to our teams, I was reminded of the special role that athletics plays in a university’s life—and the role that it has played in my involvement with Baylor.

My first knowledge of Baylor came by way of Baylor football, when I was a kid and my father would take me and my brother to games. We would sit in the end zone and try to catch the extra-point kicks. A few years later, I sold soft drinks at Baylor games, traveling up and down the stands yelling out “Cold drinks” and earning some pocket money.

Flash forward to the end of my high school days, and I was weighing Baylor against other universities in Texas as to where I’d go to college. A big part of my decision was based on athletics. I was a modestly successful distance runner—not good enough to be offered a scholarship (no signing day excitement for me), but good enough to be invited to walk on and give running a shot.

I had met Baylor’s head track coach, Clyde Hart, and he was encouraging. I had also gotten to know Baylor distance running alumni Bill Adams and Todd Harbour (now Baylor’s head track coach), and their friendship was a strong Baylor influence. In the end, I chose Baylor, and I can say without a doubt that having the opportunity to walk on to the cross country team was what led me to that decision. Once again, sports was a central connection between Baylor and me.

While I was at Baylor, sports continued to be a big part of my life as a student. My participation as a member of the cross country and track teams during my freshman year (a knee problem stopped my running after that) was a fundamental part of my Baylor experience. (That’s me, to the right, after the SWC Cross Country Championship in Waco in 1986). So too were the many football and basketball games I attended with my roommates and friends. To me, Baylor’s athletics program greatly enhanced the overall student life experience. I am sure that continues today. In fact, I know it does, because I usually sit with my sons in the student section at football games, and I can see the same engagement in students’ faces as I had so many years ago.

Speaking of my sons, another role that a college’s sports teams play is to link up generations of families into a long chain of support and fellowship. Just as I once went to games with my father and grandfather — both of them Baylor fans, even though they weren’t Baylor grads — now I take my three sons to football, baseball, and basketball games and, of course, to cross country and track meets. Like me, their earliest memories of Baylor involve cheering for the Green and Gold.  And, like me, maybe one day they will have the wonderful opportunity of getting a Baylor education.