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Author's Preface
Dancing with
the Kobzar
This book is a centennial history of
Bluffton College and a product of this larger community
of learning and faith. Many have aided the project in
ways both explicit and less tangible. They have read and
critiqued chapters, they have steered me to archival
sources, they have given generously of their time in oral
interviews, and they have offered off-the-cuff
suggestions in informal conversations that have turned
out to be quite valuable. Whether or not all those to
whom I’m indebted are explicitly named below, I hope
they recognize their influence in these pages.
I have written this book with two
primary audiences in mind: the college’s many
friends and alumni, on the one hand, and scholars of
Mennonite history and peoplehood, on the other. I have
tried to maintain a delicate balance between addressing a
community of scholars interested in key historical
questions, and college friends and alumni who in addition
to scholarly agenda may be interested in the story of an
institution they remember and love. Although the book
will serve as Bluffton’s centennial history, I also
intend it as a work of historical analysis in its own
right. Even as I have learned much from the Bluffton
academic community, this book offers a particular
historical interpretation that ultimately is mine alone.
For nearly a hundred years Bluffton
College (BC) has carefully guarded a motto proclaiming
that “the truth makes free.” Bluffton has
prized tolerance, diversity, and freedom of thought. In
researching and writing this book, I have benefited
immeasurably from the freedom this inheritance has
provided. Never did the college president, trustees,
dean, or anyone connected with the college close sources,
censor my words, or try overtly to shape the development
of my analysis. I have taken some of the many suggestions
that my friends and colleagues have offered and have
rejected or modified others. Any errors of fact or
interpretation remaining here are my responsibility.
Nonetheless, in the course of this
project I have accrued many debts and want at least to
work at settling accounts here. I must begin by thanking
the many in the college administration who have been so
central to the project. President Lee Snyder and Academic
Dean John Kampen offered release time from my teaching
responsibilities, provided funding for the vast reservoir
of student research help, and kept up with the project
through periodic lunch meetings. More important, they
never allowed me to forget their personal warmth and
support, even when the project seemed overwhelming.
In like manner, I received much help
from BC’s fine director of communications, Cheryl
Zehr Walker, and of publicity, Lois Wetherill. Art Shelly
and Steve Rodabaugh helped with computer troubles. Joanne
Niswander, a college volunteer par excellence, took a
huge load off my shoulders by assembling the superb
photographs that illustrate the text.
For eighteen months of intense work on
this project, I leaned heavily on BC library and archival
resources. My thanks to Dr. Joanne Passet and the staff
of Musselman Library, and especially to archivist Paul
Weaver and Ann Hilty of the Mennonite Historical Library.
I owe a special debt to Howard
Krehbiel, who became much more to me than a retired math
professor turned part-time archivist. Howard enjoyed
history and loved Bluffton College. For months on end, as
I poured through boxes of papers in the office adjacent
to his, he became a confidante and fellow conspirator in
my research. He delighted in this project and recharged
me with his infectious enthusiasm, all while struggling
valiantly with cancer. I so wish he had lived long enough
for me to put a copy of this book in his hands and to
once again warm to his immense grin.
Several colleagues read and offered
valuable comments on parts of the manuscript: Delbert
Gratz, Robert Kreider, Loren L. Johns. Ron Lora, Von
Hardesty, J. Denny Weaver, and Gerald Biesecker-Mast read
all or nearly all of it. In so doing they became
insightful conversation partners who deeply enriched the
development of this analysis. Michael A. King of Pandora
Press U.S. and Theron Schlabach of Goshen College
furnished patient and invaluable editorial oversight of
the text. Denise Siemens of Mennonite Press helped much
with book design and printing issues.
From the beginning of research to
completion of the finished manuscript, this project took
about eighteen months. This compressed production
schedule would have been impossible without the tireless
help of a small army of student research assistants, who
spent long hours at the photocopy machine, produced
hundreds of pages of notes based on obscure documents,
and scurried off determinedly after additional sources. I
thank Lacie Buckenmeyer, Rachael Chapman, Bob Daugherty,
Kallen DeOliveira, Tamara Foster, Crystal Havens, Sarah
Langhals, Lesa Lewis, Kylee Pacholski, Lenore Shumate,
and Marla Thompson.
Finally, I need to express something of
my own heartfelt appreciation to four individuals who
contributed little on a scholarly level to this project
but whose assistance proved perhaps even more
instrumental in its completion. This book is dedicated to
Kerry, Jackson, and Cassidy Bush. They knew something of
the load of their dad’s book—and through all
their charm and awesome energies did their level best to
lift it. As always, Elysia Caldwell Bush bore the burden
with me, in ways only she can fully measure or know.
Dancing with the Kobzar is
also dedicated to the memory of a close and cherished
friend who fought his own heroic battle with cancer
during the past year. Jack Caldwell was not an alumnus
nor a close neighbor of Bluffton College. He spent his
adult life in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He
might never have heard of this place had I not, years
ago, fallen in love with and married his daughter and
then, much later, been fortunate enough to secure a
teaching position here. But he had a special grace, an
immense personal warmth, and enough of a sparkling sense
of humor that Coach Burcky surely would have anointed him
an honorary Beaver anyway. We were always going to watch
the Cal Bears in the Rose Bowl together, or hook a big
bass. This book will somehow have to suffice instead of
those times and many others.
—Perry Bush, Bluffton, Ohio
Dancing with the Kobzar
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