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THE
Sept. 15, 2023 Vol. 99, No. 02
Online at TheLink.Harding.edu
Searcy, Ark., 72149
Students, faculty pack 100,000 meals MAGGIE SAMPLES news editor
Harding joined the 9/11 Foundation to host a memorial event Sept. 12. This event involved partnering with The Pack Shack to host a Feed the Funnel party in the RhodesReaves Field House, where volunteers worked in assembly lines to pack meals for people in need. The University was the only college in Arkansas to participate. Through two Feed the Funnel sessions, volunteers packed 100,000 meals for the White County nonprofit 100 Families. Assistant to the Provost Dr. Andrea Morris said the goal of 100,000 packed meals was an effort to honor those who lost their lives Sept. 11, 2001. “We’re going to be feeding White County for a long time,” Morris said. “Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of families will be impacted by this, and we are humbled and grateful to be a part of this.” Morris said she wants Harding to be known as a place of service in the community around the University. “A place who not only says that we are Christ-focused and Christ-centered, but that we live it,” Morris said. “And what better way to do that than to put our hands and our feet to work on behalf of others?” Morris said the event also included members of the Searcy community who are unaffiliated with Harding. “Harding is hosting, but this is for the community, and we are part of an incredible community, so we wanted to make it big,” Morris said. During her time at Harding, Morris has also been working on the Table, a response to food insecurity in the Harding community. “While it’s not directly connected, there absolutely is this spiritual connection of it,” Morris said. “And then having the hands that are going to be serving [at Feed the Funnel], also serving in Table in some capacity as well, so we’re doing it together and in various forms.” Morris said it is important to recognize that our neighbors include not just other
Photo by CALEB CHUNN
Health sciences and graduate studies librarian John Boone packs meals with students at the Rhodes-Reaves Field House on Sept. 12. Participants packed 100,000 meals in memoriam of those who lost their lives Sept. 11, 2001. students, but also the members of the Searcy community. “We’re laboring on behalf of our neighbors,” Morris said. “Our neighbors are not only those who live next door to us in our dormitories or those that we sit next to in our classrooms, but it is those that we live next to, those of us who don’t live on campus, and it is those that we pass in the grocery store.” Morris said she considered this event to be an opportunity to serve God in community for the community. “God has given us an incredible gift to be his voice and his hands and his feet, and
when he does that, we dare not miss that opportunity,” Morris said. “We dare not look away from it or say it’s too big. … And again, together, we can do this.” Senior Isaac Raymond participated in the event this year and said the event is unique because it aims to serve the community on a large scale. “The people who need us most are often right next door,” Raymond said. “Beyond that, the party itself is a super fun way to connect with friends while doing something meaningful.”
Senior Bailey Coffman said it was important for students to participate in this event because of their calling as Christians. “As Christians we are called to serve, and being in a constant state of servanthood directs our hearts to the ultimate servant who paid the ultimate price – Jesus,” Coffman said. “For Harding students to get to work so closely in connection with bettering and providing for the needs of our community puts us in a really cool place to be able to minister and share the love of Christ to our neighbors – the community of Searcy.”
Founders Day marks start of Centennial celebration
Photos by MACY COX
(Left) former University President and Chancellor David Burks prays next to President Mike Williams on Sept. 7. (Right) Two alumni join the Founders Day lunch on the Front Lawn. The University celebrated Founders Day to begin an upcoming year of Centennial celebrations. ELI DEAN community editor Harding University celebrated Founders Day, part of the many Centennial celebrations, Sept. 7. The day commemorates the 99th anniversary of the school’s first day of classes. Executive Vice President Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson said he was excited to begin the Centennial celebration with Founders Day this year. “It is an opportunity to really celebrate when this University started,” Thompson said. “When we say ‘Founders Day,’ we are appreciating all of those men and women who made it possible to even establish Harding. It also pulls different generations of people together as a community.”
Softball award, 1B
Founders Day started with chapel followed by a Centennial prayer walk led by Mike and Lisa Williams. The prayer walk started at the Harding College arch and concluded at the David B. Burks American Heritage Building. After the prayer walk, Chartwells offered a free barbecue lunch on the front lawn. Thompson’s emphasis for the day was the legacy students will build for themselves while at the University. “For them, the legacy and relationships that are developed over time, everything all the students experience now — that’s [the result of ] hard sweat, time and work that all came before us,” Thompson said. “So we get to acknowledge that, celebrate and thank God for it, but we also get to be good stewards of it.”
Code Black, 1B
Several Harding students are building their own legacies within their families. Freshman Vivi Edwards is a first-generation college student who said she is hoping to start a new generation of Harding students in the future within her family. “Being a first-generation college student, I believe Harding is the perfect place to start a generational tradition of creating hardworking Harding students,” Edwards said. “Harding has been so good to me, and I hope one day I can give back to such a wonderful place.” While hoping to build her own legacy on campus, Edwards said she has appreciated her decision to attend Harding as a Searcy resident. “The first couple of weeks at Harding have been nothing but the best, and I don’t think I
In this issue:
Pickleball courts, 2B
would have gotten this same experience from any other college or university,” Edwards said. “The love and care that I feel on this campus is more than I have felt anywhere else besides with my loving parents.” Some students on campus are building the legacy they want for themselves in hopes of making positive changes while on campus. Freshman class representative Fletcher Stobaugh said he wants his legacy to be about love and kindness to those around him. “I love being the voice of the freshman class,” Stobaugh said. “I want my legacy at Harding to be joyful and [about] building people up. I love Harding so far. It’s been everything I hoped it would be.”
Charity concert, 4B