Welcome
“Everyone has a story.” I’ve been in the writing and publishing business long enough to have seen this truth repeated over and over—from manuscripts filled with amazing stories never published to published best-sellers. So it follows that everyone who claimed Houghton College as home for a few years has a story about Houghton and its impact on their lives.
These stories need to be told. The common ground shared by over 20,000 alumni is a brief span of time in the hills of western New York. Houghton inspired us, changed us, watched us grow, and then sent us off into our various vocations scattered around the globe. As I began the process of gathering and enjoying these stories, it became clear that Houghton College has never wavered from year by year influencing students to ask questions, to find answers, and to seek the Savior—whether by way of chapel or Spiritual Emphasis Week, an overseas trip, the example of a beloved professor or coach, a difficult struggle or tragedy, or just in a quiet conversation in the dorm with a friend.
These stories represent alumni from 1942 though 2012. I found it fascinating that the world changes but the young woman who arrived by train with one suitcase in the early 1940s had many of the same feelings as the student who drove up to campus in the early 2000s with laptop computer and cell phone in hand. We’ve arranged the book to take you back to the summer before the school year begins, arrival on campus, and then following through the seasons. I hope it brings back wonderful memories of a very special time in your life.
Houghton College has touched us all. These are our stories.
—Linda Chaffee Taylor, Class of 1980
