A recent email from 1978 alumnus Mack Womack included the sad news of the recent passing of his father, Elmer Womack (’41) and a remarkable photograph with which to remember him. Mack’s father is pictured running at A.B. Morris Stadium on the cinder track that encircled a football field prior to the construction of Elmer Gray Stadium in 1956. The facility was located about where the Mabee Business Building sits today.

Womack was a 1941 graduate who attended ACU, thanks to a track and field scholarship. He was born May 12, 1914, in Ratcliff, Texas, and died April 30, 2012, at age 97. After graduation, he married Ardis Sprott and was stationed in the Philippines with other Abilene Christian alumni after being drafted into the Army Air Corps (a forerunner of the Air Force). After World War II he returned to Central Texas, where he taught school and coached for many years at Killeen High School and served as an elder at Killeen’s 2nd Street Church of Christ. Among survivors are his son, Mack, and two daughters: Bennie (Womack ’64) Manis and Rebecca “Becky” (Womack ’67) Wilks.

Bennie Manis is the widow of former ACU biology professor Dr. Archie Manis (’61). Their two daughters are Leigh Ann (Manis ’84) Craig and Julie (Manis ’88) Cunningham. Craig is a former director of news and information at ACU. Becky Wilks is married to Ed Wilks (’65) and their children are David Wilks (’90) and Sarah (Wilks ’93) Taggart.

Images of the ACU campus, students, faculty and staff prior to 1950 are hard to come by, so it is rewarding to find them, especially when they are shared by thoughtful alumni. If you discover quality images of the university and its people among the keepsakes of your family, contact us. We are happy to scan and return those in which we are interested, and provide a high-resolution image of each you can share with family and friends. We also welcome contributions of historical images to our archive for safe-keeping.

Dr. Jack Reese (’71)

As it has for several years, ACU held ceremonies at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. during its May event – the largest of three held each year – to accommodate the family and friends of graduates. Seven hundred and twenty-five new alumni were recognized yesterday in Moody Coliseum.

Reese has served three terms as dean of the College of Biblical Studies since 1997 but announced in late February that he would not seek a fourth. He will return to full-time teaching after completion of a research project for the university.

His message yesterday was titled “Making Humans”:

Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. This is the four-word description and subtitle of Eric Metaxas’ remarkable book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer is one of the most compelling figures of the 20th century. He was born in 1906, the same year this university was birthed. He is one of the most well-loved and extensively read Christian authors in the history of Christianity.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who, in the 1930s and ’40s, defiantly opposed Adolf Hitler. He ultimately became a part of a plot to assassinate Hitler, surely the hardest and most controversial decision of his life. The plot failed. Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned for more than two years. He was executed just days before the Americans liberated the prison camp.

Perhaps the most important single experience that shaped Bonhoeffer’s ethics and discipleship took place on American soil, in the 1930-31 academic year. He had completed his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin three years earlier, at the age of 21. Now at 24, having completed post-doctoral studies, this brilliant scholar and gifted minister came to America to study at a seminary in New York. He was horrified at what he discovered: intellectual sloppiness combined with cheap discipleship.

These theology faculty and students, in their opposition to certain individuals on the other side of the religious divide, “had jettisoned serious scholarship altogether,” Metaxas writes. “They seemed to know what the answer was supposed to be and weren’t much concerned with how to get there.” On top of that, they didn’t seem to take their Christianity very seriously.

The turning point in Bonhoeffer’s American experience came when one Sunday morning he accompanied one of the seminary students, Frank Fisher, an African American who had grown up in Alabama, to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The preacher was Adam Clayton Powell Sr., who was the son of slaves and who had been born only three weeks after the end of the Civil War. At this 14,000-member church in Harlem, Bonhoeffer found a deep intellectual commitment that he had not seen at the seminary, a robust intellectual life combined with passionate discipleship that grew directly out of their experience as outcasts in American society. It was, in fact, their marginalization and pain that so markedly shaped their discipleship. He was immediately caught up in it. He attended the church week after week, taught classes for children, and became immersed in the singing and preaching. His life and future were transformed.

Here is what Bonhoeffer discovered: “the only real power and piety that he had seen in the American church were in those churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering.” He could not possibly have imagined in 1931 how these experiences would have shaped him before the end of the decade to address the persecution and slaughter of European Jews or the suffering experienced by confessing Christians in his own country. One can hear the echo of the experiences of those African-American Christians in Bonhoeffer’s most famous line from his book, The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Bonhoeffer’s conclusion may have more to do with your education here than you may know.

It may not be a bad thing for you to ask, what was all this for, all these courses, papers, tests? And it’s certainly important for faculty and administrators to be asking, what are we doing here? What are we making here?

A few years ago, the great American poet and essayist Wendell Berry wrote, “The thing being made in a university is humanity … What universities are mandated to make … is human beings, … not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture.”

In other words, education is more than the accumulation of bits of knowledge and the acquisition of certain skills. If that’s all you received here – some knowledge and some skills – then we have failed you.

The universe if filled with pieces of knowledge. You have more access to information than any generation in human history. You have it all at your fingertips – or at your thumb tips. Yesterday, I Googled “Bonhoeffer,” and more than 5 million entries were available to me in .13 seconds, some of the information good, some not, but all of it accessible.

The purpose of university education is not merely to dispense information. Nor is it to focus or funnel that knowledge to make it more user-friendly. There is a trend in higher education in America, growing out of a more contemporary sort of intellectual sloppiness, to let others out there manufacture the primary educational material, where most of the technological resources in a course is produced by professors at schools like Harvard or Stanford, and where the local professor or facilitator just wraps around it a little bit of context or application. As if education is primarily about making knowledge available. As if education were a commodity and faculty merely day traders. As if the purpose of a university were to make the acquisition of knowledge more efficient.

A university is in the business of making human beings, of equipping you to be responsible contributors to human culture. And that requires more than providing you pieces of information or equipping you with certain skills. For that reason, any university education that’s worth its salt is both subversive and formative. It challenges and upsets; it cuts and shapes. It is by nature painful and liberating.

What is true for all universities must be particularly true for Christian universities, because our goal is larger. We are not only helping make humans, we are helping make humans live like Jesus. Nicholas Wolterstorff – the longtime professor of philosophy and theology at Yale, who was a product of a Christian college and is a professing Christian – has said, “the goal of Christian education is to equip and energize our students for a certain way of being in the world, not just for a way of thinking, … a Christian way, not one of your standard American ways of being.” “I submit,” he says, “that the curriculum of a Christian college must open itself up to humanity’s wounds,” it must prepare students to see and respond to “the cries and tears of human suffering.”

Whatever your major, we have wanted the curriculum to do that. We want to prepare accounting majors who not only can do numbers and understand accounting principles but who grasp that accounting is about justice and mercy, about protecting the innocent from fraud, about stewardship and social order. We want to prepare chemists, physicists, biologists, and mathematicians who can see the building blocks of the universe, who partner with God in caring for the world God has made and serving the lives of the creatures made in God’s image. We want to nurture the arts because we want you to participate fully in God’s inherent urge to create. We want nurses and social workers, teachers and journalists, therapists and dieticians who are willing to fight for God’s creatures and care for the wounded, the disadvantaged, and the hungry. We want you to engage in research because we want you to be thirsty for knowledge, because God made us that way, because it opens our eyes to God’s larger kingdom. We want you to speak and write well, because we want you to think clearly, because we want you to be persuasive about things that matter, because we want to inoculate you from simply buying without thought what popular culture or a political cause might be selling.

And mostly, we want you to grasp that learning requires pain – the pain of hard work, the pain of changing your mind, the pain of having to say you’re wrong, the pain of knowing that you do not know – and that true knowledge, knowledge into which God has breathed, pushes us to ask and seek and knock, it drives us to see and share humanity’s wounds. And offer peace. And offer Christ. And offer your life.

That’s what we have wanted for you. That’s what we want you to walk away with today.

Like the church in Harlem where Dietrich Bonhoeffer found both robust intellectual life and costly discipleship, may this university embody within you the present reality of suffering, that you may be human as God intended, that you may contribute substantially to human culture, and that you may be open to the world’s wounds.

You have come here and learned. Now, go and live, go and serve, go and die.

Last week, students heard different perspectives on the school year from the Senior Speakers who presented in Chapel: Noemi Palomares, Kyle Ferrell, Keri Gray and Matt Anderson. This Saturday’s Commencement speaker will be outgoing College of Biblical Studies dean Dr. Jack Reese (’73).

While recently looking through some of the earliest editions of the Prickly Pear yearbook, I found Jesse P. Sewell’s “Message from the President” concluding the 1922-23 school year and thought it to be a pretty applicable overview of 2012-13 as well. Some of the word usage is a bit archaic, given that it was written 90 years ago, but the sentiment travels well:

Another year in the life of Abilene Christian College has drawn to its close. As I look back over it I see both joys and sorrows intermingled – the joys of seeing so many of you, our boys and girls, enjoying the blessings of Christian education and appropriating to yourselves the highest culture and education attainable: the regrets of realizing that our efforts have not been altogether successful and that our hopes have not been completely realized.

In this final message to you I have but one thing to say. I have endeavored to impress it upon you in the pulpit, in the chapel hall, and everywhere else. The splendid corps of teachers whose association and instruction you have received have emphasized it in the classroom, in the campus and on the field of athletic conquest. It is the one thing for which your college – your alma mater – exists. If this ever departs from the ideal and the purposes of ‘Dear Old A.C.C.’ it were better that the walls of her buildings crumble into dust, its grounds become the dwelling place of wild beasts, and Abilene Christian College exist only in the memories of those who knew her former years.

It is a simple message but vastly more important than any other I could possibly give you. If you heed it, you will be both happy and successful; and all that you can desire will be yours, both in this life and the life to come. If you fail to heed it no mater what you achieve or become, all will be ‘vanity and vexation of spirit.’

Here it is: There is but one thing in life worthwhile; attain it and and you have attained all; miss it and you have missed all. It is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to Him in all things.

Sincerely and fraternally,

J.P. SEWELL

Sewell was president from 1912-24, when Abilene Christian’s campus was located on North First Street. (It moved to its current location in 1929.) ACU’s auditorium, which later became a theatre until the Williams Performing Arts Center was built in 2003, was named after Jesse and his wife, Daisy.

Is there advice you remember most from the Commencement address presented at your graduation?

Daryl Richardson

Richardson, a running back, was selected in the seventh round by the Rams and Whiteside, who was a dominator at defensive end in college but could play one of four positions as a pro, agreed to a free agent deal with the Cowboys at the conclusion of the 2012 Draft. Richardson is ACU’s fifth-leading career rusher, scored the second most touchdowns in school history, and has been timed at 4.45 in the 40-yard dash. Whiteside was named to every major all-America team after his senior season in 2011.

Fifteen NFL teams sent scouts to Abilene to watch seven Wildcats work out during Pro Day on April 3. As of late Saturday night, two more of them had been invited by NFL rival teams to their respective three-day free-agent minicamps this weekend. Offensive tackle Neal Tivis will work out for the Dallas Cowboys at Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, and tight end Ben Gibbs will participate in the Washington Redskins’ event in Ashburn, Va.

When NFL training camps open this summer the Wildcats will have another eight players competing for jobs. Others include Danieal Manning (Houston Texans), Johnny Knox (Chicago Bears), Bernard Scott (Cincinnati Bengals), Clyde Gates (Miami Dolphins),  Trevis Turner (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Raymond Radway (Dallas Cowboys). Richardson, Whiteside, Gates and Scott are all related, with deep family connections in the north central Texas town of Vernon.

A ninth former ACU star, Tony Washington, will begin his second season with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.

Farron Salley, senior broadcast journalism major from Fort Worth, is among the many ACU students whose lives have been transformed by the generosity of others.

These days, it seems everyone is looking for a winner.

An estimated 100 million people bought Mega Millions tickets in March, hoping against extremely long odds to change their lives in an instant.

But this spring, a pair of anonymous ACU donors have offered a better opportunity – a 100-percent-guaranteed chance to change someone else’s life.

With an initial $100,000 challenge, one donor offered to match every gift made to the Exceptional Fund through May 31. That goal was met with more than a month to spare, inspiring a second donor to extend the challenge by offering a $40,000 match.

Every gift, no matter the size, is a guaranteed winner for the students who will receive its doubled effects – and for the donors who can rest assured knowing their money is benefiting something more worthwhile than the coffers of a lottery commission.

Those interested in investing in the young men and women of ACU are encouraged to visit the online giving page.

“This is an incredible opportunity for ACU’s friends and alumni to make a tremendous mark on the lives of our students,” said Phil Boone, vice president for Advancement. “We are so grateful for the generosity of this anonymous donor – and for the generosity of the many donors who will step up and meet this challenge.”

Along with doubling the imprint of their gifts, first-time donors also help boost ACU’s alumni-participation rate, which is one of the criteria used by U.S. News & World Report when it releases its annual college rankings.

More and more alumni are discovering the value of investing in ACU students – with a month to go in the fiscal year, the participation rate already has surpassed last year’s.

“Alumni participation is an important piece of how ACU is perceived,” said Craig Fisher, director of alumni relations and annual projects, “and we’re excited about the potential this challenge has to help us in that area.”

Read more information about the matching challenge or see how the generosity of strangers changes the lives of ACU students.

Dee Nutt (’50)

A standout player for the Wildcats, he led his team in scoring three straight years (1947-48, 1948-49 and 1949-50), and to the Texas Conference championship each of the four years he played. He was named NAIA first team all-America in 1949-50.

He had the daunting task of following A.B. Morris’ 28-season run as Abilene Christian men’s basketball coach (1924-55), but Nutt was successful on the court and influential in the lives of his players.

Nutt took ACU’s men’s team to its first NCAA regional at the end of the 1958-59 season (with a 20-7 record), followed by five other regional tournament appearances and a trip to the national tournament in 1965-66. Wildcat teams he coached from 1955-69 and 1988-90 won four Texas Conference and three Southland Conference titles.

He coached Mexico’s national team in the 1971 Pan Am Games and the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Later, he was superintendent and coach at Abilene Christian High School and Westbury Christian School in Houston.

Nutt, who earned his M.Ed. degree in 1965, was inducted into the 1987-88 class of the ACU Sports Hall of Fame.

A funeral service is scheduled for Saturday, April 21 at Stewart Funeral Home in Tyler. Family visitation will begin at 10 a.m. and the service at 11 a.m. A memorial service for friends in Abilene will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 22 in Bennett Gym on the ACU campus.

Dr. David Dillman (’70)

He has 38 to his credit, including 10 Boston Marathons. However, this third Monday in April – Patriot’s Day, when the 116th Boston Marathon will be run – he and his wife, Dr. Jennifer Dillman, are in Leipzig, Germany, where they are the resident directors of ACU’s Study Abroad program this semester.

A little before noon today, ACU’s Dr. Kevin Kehl and Dr. Libby McCurley will compete with 26,000 other runners in the famous Boston race.

When did you begin long-distance running and why?

I ran track (mostly what we called the three-mile run, now 5000 meters) and cross country for ACU in the late 1960s. At that time, doing mega mileage was seen as the best training approach and so many of our distance runners were easily getting in more than 100 miles per week (two workouts per day) in the off season and building up to the racing season. I remember running 120 or more miles per week. I wanted to run a marathon in college but never had the opportunity. After graduation, I ran my first marathon in 1971: the inaugural Dallas White Rock Marathon.

Did you run marathon-like distances to prepare for one?

I don’t have my running log with me here in Germany, but I think I ran a little over three hours at that time, and enjoyed the distance and the challenge. I had moved to Austin where the training was wonderful compared to Abilene, with hills and trails (even then) and trees and a river. Sometime after college, I started doing just one workout per day, so my mileage dropped to 50-70 miles per week. When I was building up to a marathon, the training runs  would be longer. I would usually build up to a few 20- to 22-mile runs. A couple times before a marathon, I would run 28 miles to prepare.

What was it like to run long distances in New England weather?

Before moving to New Hampshire in 1974, I ran another marathon or two and many shorter races. In New Hampshire, running was a delight and each season of the year brought its challenges. I remember a training run with a friend, Ken, on a 20-degrees-below-zero morning and in the spring, fighting the black flies. But most of the time, running in the snow was not a problem and in the fall, running among the colorful trees and over rolling terrain was sheer joy. Of course, I was pretty fit and running sometimes almost felt effortless. In the spring, running along a river listening to the ice begin to break up or in the summer, running through the forest were motivations enough to run. Sometimes I would run alone but mostly I would run with Ken, who remains a close friend more than 30 years later.

What appealed to you about the 26.2-mile distance of a marathon?

While the joy of running and the challenge of the marathon was motivation to run it, it was not my favorite racing distance. I think I enjoyed the 10k through 10-mile races more and felt I had better times over those distances. By the time I left New Hampshire in 1984, I had run maybe two Boston marathons as well as one in England and one or two New York City marathons and a couple in New Hampshire.

When I returned to Abilene in 1984, I determined I would continue to train for Boston, so between 1984 and 2002, I ran six to eight Bostons (a total of 10) as well as other marathons: Dallas, New York City, Austin, Fort Worth, and one in Abilene, for a total of 38. Returning to Boston was a good chance to see my friends, see a beautiful part of the country, and run in a historic race.

What did you eat and drink in the 24 hours before such a long race?

I did the carbohydrate depletion and reloading only twice and I was not convinced it made much or any difference to my performance. For my other marathons, I would eat normally during training and then have a big meal of pasta the night before the race, taking in a little more water than usual. During the race, I would alternate taking water and a Gatorade-type drink. Boston doesn’t start until noon, so I would eat a light breakfast of toast and tea and a banana.

What was the pre-race scene like?

The Boston Marathon ends – but doesn’t start – in Boston. A little before noon, most runners arrive at the high school in the town of Hopkinton, Mass., and head to the town square on Main Street.

Marathon runners have to be well-hydrated on race day, and that creates some logistical challenges you might not think about if you are not into long-distance running. While hundreds of portable toilets are provided, there are just not enough for the number of runners (27,000 last year) who don’t have time to stand in long lines when a 26-mile race is about to begin. So, on the way to the starting line in Boston, many of them – men and women – sometimes feel they have no choice but to relieve themselves in the available woods and even people’s yards, even though race officials and law enforcement personnel remind everyone that public urination is illegal. This bizarre scene is no match, however, for the start of the New York City Marathon (with more than 45,000 runners), which used to set up a 290-foot-long open trough at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, but has in recent years replaced it with more than 2,000 portable toilets.

Main Street is about the width of Campus Court here in Abilene, with runners lined up in roped-off corrals according to qualifying times. A few seconds before the starter’s gun goes off, the ropes are dropped and the runners move forward. If one is near the front, he or she can start running when the gun sounds. Those further back have to walk – maybe to the starting line or beyond – before they can begin running. Because each runner carries a timing tag (a chip utilizing RFID technology, or Radio Frequency Identification) on the back of their I.D. bib, their actual time does not begin until they cross the starting line.

I had to learn to take it easy at the start of the Boston Marathon, because the first mile is a slight downhill and it feels good to run after resting for the race. It’s a good feeling to get started, but for mere mortals who are not elite runners, one has to be careful to not get tangled with another runner. It is a lot of fun watching other runners, particularly those who are decked out in costumes.

The race proceeds through the communities of Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton Lower Falls, Brookline, and finishes in Boston, about five miles southwest of Logan International Airport, on Boylston Street.

Did you see famous competitors at the Boston Marathon?

At the start in 1987, I remember seeing Toshikiko Seko from Japan, the eventual winner, as we were both stretching and loosening up behind the old Congregational Church on the square. He also won in 1981. Another year, I saw Johnny Kelley, a two-time American Olympian and two-time winner (1935 and 1945) of the Boston Marathon who finished in the top five 15 times. He ran his 61st –  and last – Boston at age 84. One year I saw Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father (Dick) who pushes his son (Rick, who has cerebral palsy) in a wheelchair. They participated in their 29th Boston last year. Now, that is amazing!

Were large crowds a distraction or benefit, and why?

The spectators in Boston (and New York City) are tremendous, enthusiastic and helpful. If you are struggling near the end of the race, many people encourage you to keep running. The crowds (up to 500,000 in Boston) help pass the time with their signs or songs or by calling out your name or city, which might be visible on your shirt. There is great diversity among the crowds in Boston and New York City. I have the sense that people in those cities see their marathons as part of their identity.

I always enjoyed passing Wellsley College in Boston, where the screams of the mostly women students are almost deafening. Another favorite part of the course for me was passing Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play each Patriot’s Day, as well. It also is about three miles from the finish. Overall, Boston loses elevation from start to finish but there are hills in between, most famously a series of hills culminating in Heartbreak Hill at about mile 21.

I have always considered Boston to be a difficult course compared to more flat terrain in Dallas and elsewhere. My fastest time – 2:47 – came in Dallas. I’ve run Boston when it was snowing at the start, when it rained, and when it was hot. I’ve had some good races and some disappointing ones in Boston, but I was always glad I went.

What did you think about to keep your mind busy while running for several hours straight?

Having something to think about during the race is not a problem. Besides the crowds and the other runners, my main focus was on maintaining a predetermined pace. And if one feels good, the time seems to go by quickly. But on bad days in the marathon, each mile feels like an eternity. In those times, determination and pride (and maybe the price of the plane ticket) keep you putting one step in front of the other. The best race times and most enjoyable races at Boston were running with my New Hampshire friend, Ken, throughout the race. We could point out antics of the spectators to each other and just get into the rhythm we wanted.

The bigger issue for keeping the mind busy is during long training runs on days when you are tired and by yourself and wondering why you are doing this. On those days, I’ve thought about what I wanted to say in my dissertation or later, something I was writing or just about life in general. When running with good friends, it’s relatively easy to keep the mind off the discomfort, and I’ve had great discussions about politics, religion and philosophy on easy five-mile runs and longer 20-mile runs. They can be wonderful times to think or to have the listening ear of someone who more or less has no choice but to listen.

What kind of running do you do now?

These days I am only running about five miles three or four days per week, mainly just to keep some level of fitness. Rather than the treadmill or elliptical machine, I enjoy getting out on the roads – or if in Austin or Dallas, a trail – which still gives me a sense of freedom and accomplishment, though I am now running at a snail’s pace.

But it will have a hard time coming close to one of its showings – albeit a partial one – in 1989.

In October of that year, Charlton Heston and his wife, Lydia Clarke Heston, were on the Abilene Christian University campus to participate in Homecoming activities, including one of the most unique events ever hosted in the now 112-year-old Paramount.

Charlton and Lydia, an accomplished photographer, co-presented “Growing Up With the Epic Film: A Family Adventure” as the final event of a busy Homecoming Saturday. Hundreds of people paid $10 each to attend at a late hour – 10:45 p.m. – for a fascinating look inside the Hestons’ life. After a brief opening act, the show began at 11 p.m.

Oct. 21 was one of the longest days in ACU Homecoming event history, with the Hestons at the center of much of it. They spoke briefly at Chapel at 9:30 a.m. in Moody Coliseum, then participated in the ribbon-cutting and dedication of the James and Betty Muns Center for Marriage and Family Studies in the then-new Onstead-Packer Biblical Studies Building. Afterward, Lydia signed copies of her new book, The Light of the World, published by ACU Press. At 6 p.m, the Hestons were special guests at a fundraising dinner for the Department of Theatre and then attended “The King and I” musical in the Abilene Civic Center at 8 p.m., with the couple going backstage to greet members of the cast and crew.

Heston (left) received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from ACU president Dr. William J. Teague in 1991.

“Growing Up With the Epic Film” was a tour of Charlton’s Hollywood film résumé, through his wife’s Leica camera lens.

Lydia first began shooting photographs backstage and on the set of The Greatest Show on Earth, the first of two films on which Charlton worked with legendary director/producer Cecil B. DeMille. The Ten Commandments was the second, now a staple of Easter-season movie experiences. Heston won the Academy Award for Best Actor in Ben-Hur, one of the record 11 Oscars the epic film received.

Seated with her husband behind a small table on the Paramount stage, Lydia narrated a slide show of 160 memorable photographs of their family, including an image of their son, Fraser, lying in a basket floating in water on a movie set. Few knew he played the baby Moses in The Ten Commandments.

Then it was Charlton’s turn.

He told stories about the preparations for Ben-Hur, a film that redefined the word epic in its complexity and cost, and required 50,000 extras for the chariot scene alone. His descriptions about details in the chariot race were fascinating, and then the crowd was treated to a 10-minute clip of it from the movie.

The crowd sang “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” to the Hestons before the final curtain closed on a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The couple established the Heston Family ACU Theatre Endowment and the Lydia Clarke Heston Photojournalism Scholarship at Abilene Christian, and made several trips to campus to attend university events and visit longtime friends Dr. William J. Teague (’52) and his wife, Margaret (Newlen ’56) “Peggy” Teague.

Charlton died in 2008; he and Lydia were married 64 years.

Ben-Hur has played in the Paramount Theatre four times since 1989. You can catch it again at 7:30 p.m. tonight and at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in its remastered Blu-ray form. For tickets, call 325-676-9620 or purchase them online.

Dr. Kevin Kehl, executive director of the Center for International Education, and Dr. Libby McCurley, assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition, will be two of the anticipated 26,000 runners to navigate Boston’s streets in hopes of finishing the 26.2-mile course, and fulfilling their own personal fitness goals.

Kehl’s qualifying time is 3:26:00 and McCurley’s is 3:29:22. Both are members of the Abilene Runner’s Club, and train three days a week with the group.

Distance runners of all experience levels are in each year’s field, although they have to meet qualifying times pre-determined for their age group and gender. This year, Boston’s top group includes 30 elite international runners – some with Olympic Games experience – headlined by 2011 men’s champion Geoffrey Mutai (2:03:02, a course and world record) and women’s champion Caroline Kilel (2:22:36), both Kenyans. Mutai is the fastest marathoner in history, and the only man to ever set course records in the Boston and New York City marathons in the same year. In Boston, Kenyans have won 18 of the past 21 men’s races, and eight of the past 12 women’s marathons, and most of them are from the Kalenjin tribe.

There also is competition in Boston for athletes in wheelchairs; winners typically finish more than an hour ahead of their fastest competitors on foot.

Among ACU faculty/staff who previously competed in Boston are Dr. David Dillman (’70), professor of political science and director of the Jack Pope Fellows Program, Dr. Curt Dickson (’66), professor emeritus of exercise science and health, and Mike Cope, adjunct faculty in Bible, missions and ministry. Dillman, who is teaching in ACU’s Study Abroad program this spring in Leipzig, Germany, is a veteran of 38 such distance races, including at least eight Boston Marathons.

Dickson ran his fifth and final career marathon in 1981 in Boston, and memories of the emotional experience are etched in his mind.

“My time was 3:22.47. You never forget those numbers,” Dickson said, recalling that at one point, former student James “Kregg” Pierson (’76), burst from the crowd lining the street, calling Dickson’s name. “You can imagine just what a boost that was to my energy level.”

Born March 23, 1937, in Fayetteville, Ark., she graduated from McMurry University with a B.S.Ed. degree in 1972, earned M.Ed. degrees from ACU in 1977 and 1981, and graduated from Texas Tech University in 1984 with an Ed.D. degree. She was the first woman to be appointed an academic dean at ACU.

Her 22-year academic career at ACU began in 1985 as director of reading programs and assistant professor of education. She went on to serve as coordinator of elementary and secondary certification programs, dean of the College of Professional Studies, director of University Seminar, chair of the Department of Education and the Division of Education, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She retired in 2007 as professor emerita of education.

“She served with distinction in several respects throughout her career at ACU,” said Dr. Royce Money (’64), chancellor. “First and foremost, she was a professor – a teacher of teachers. She also was a department chair, a dean and after retirement, a trustee of the university. Quite an unparalleled career. In each of these roles, Colleen was the epitome of competence, fair-minded, thoroughly prepared for every occasion, and always pleasant, whether she agreed with you or not. That blend of friendliness, conviction and professionalism is uncommon, and she will be missed.”

Durrington will be remembered by many as one of the most beloved deans in ACU history.

“She was a giant as leaders go. She was the kind of leader who called others into leadership,” said Dr. Malesa Breeding (’80), executive director of the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning, and former dean of the College of Education and Human Services. “Most of the people currently serving in deans’ roles at ACU were mentored at one time or another by Colleen. She was fair, honest, insightful, visionary and faithful. She was faithful to those of us who worked for her and with her, and faithful to the cause of Christian higher education.”

“She was, for me personally, a true mentor,” said Dr. Dana Kennamer Pemberton (’81), professor and chair of teacher education. “Colleen had a way of leading with grace that is rare. Her commitment to the mission of ACU was never in doubt. Everything she did as faculty, a chair or as a dean was because she believed in the power of Christian higher education. It is hard to believe that she is no longer a phone call away. She will be terribly missed.”

Durrington’s reputation as an expert educator was first formed as a public school teacher and consultant, and as principal of two Abilene schools (Valley View Elementary and Bonham Elementary) who had a heart for reading teachers and their work. She served on several statewide education commissions, including the Texas Commission on Standards for the Teaching Profession, the Texas Board of Educators, and the Texas Association of School Boards. She was a trustee of the Abilene Independent School District from 1990-96, and made presentations at reading conferences across the nation. Durrington authored numerous professional papers as well as a book, Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Women in Public School Administration.

She served on a state panel to select full-time Texas teachers to receive Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Awards, in honor of the New Hampshire schoolteacher who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

At the time of her death, she was serving on the Board of Directors for the 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum, the Central Appraisal District of Taylor County, and the Christian Service Center.

Family visitation is April 13 from 6-8 p.m. at Piersall-Benton Funeral Home (733 Butternut St., Abilene, TX 79602). A memorial service will be held April 14 at 1 p.m. at Abilene’s Southern Hills Church of Christ.