Volume 85, Issue 5 Web Edition
SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
September 18, 2019
Senior Pinning
BCs Family Weekend begins with annual tradition
By Carmen Boone
Copy Editor
A senior pinning ceremony was hosted by
Brevard College on Friday, Sept. 13 at 5:30
p.m. in the Francis Pavilion of the Porter
Center.
Seniors were invited to attend the ceremony
for a nice dinner, inspiring words from two
speakers, and to be pinned by someone close
to them.
First was the introduction to the ceremony
given by Brevard College President David C.
Joyce. Following, campus minister Sharad
Creasman blessed the event. Dinner was
served after that, provided by Brevard College
Catering.
The Vice President for Academic Affairs and
Dean for Faculty Scott Sheffield very fondly
introduced the evening's speaker. Professor
of Philosophy and Religious Studies and
Coordinator of the Integrated Studies Major
Mary Louise Bringle. Her speech was titled
“A Barking Pig and a Politician.”
Bringle began by talking about the lessons
we learn in kindergarten, and then transitioned
into telling a story by Robert Fulgham about
the barking pig. It is about a girl named Sheila
who was kind of an outsider in her class but
eventually became the star of the play at her
school by inventing the role of the barking pig
in “Cinderella.”
Throughout the narrative, the lines, “Well,
there is now", "this one does" [and] “there
is now,” were all spoken to defend Sheila’s
invention of the role of the barking pig in her
school play.
Bringle then transitioned again. “But perhaps
a barking pig is too unsophisticated, too
“kindergarten-ish” an image for you here in the
culminating year of your college education. So
let me introduce another figure—not a barking
pig, but a politician—and test your analytical
abilities to see if you can figure out what the
two have in common,” Bringle said.
After explaining the politician to the group,
she said, “Abraham Lincoln and Sheila the
Barking Pig seem to me to share an important
character trait: the resilience to remain unfazed
by repeated failures or by nay-sayers eager to
tell them that what they wanted to be or to do
just couldn’t be done.
“Why do 1 choose this barking pig and this
politician as mascots for the evening of your
senior pinning? Two reasons,” Bringle said.
“First, because once you leave this campus
and head out into what is so often, and so
ominously, referred to as “the real world,” you
will at times be tempted to think that the plot
of whatever story you are involved with has
already been written, and that it doesn’t end
‘happily ever after.’”
She continued, “You will be tempted to give
up. At that point, I hope perhaps you will be
able to hear in your mind’s ear some distant
echo of this evening’s celebration, some clip
clopping of the hooves of the barking pig off
in the wings, getting ready to stride onto center
stage, goofily proclaiming by her very being
that unpredictable things do happen.
“I hope you’ll remember that beleaguered
politician who kept losing and losing, virtually
every race he ran... until he won the presidency
of the United States. I hope you’ll remember
that the real measure of success for any of us
is what we manage to keep on doing when the
rest of the world thinks we’re done for.”
After explaining these points to us, she went
through how intellectual resilience, humility
and empathy all play a role in how we will live
our lives even beyond Brevard College.
She then went back to a previous point.
“If you were listening carefully, you may
remember that I few minutes ago I said that I
had two reasons for selecting the paired barking
See 'Pinning,' page 4
Photo by BC Communications
Kouri Peoples receives a pin from art professor Kyle Lusk.