On a Sunday afternoon that lived up to its name, 1972 graduate Lon Helton gave the main address to the 142 members of Monmouth College’s Class of 2025 at his alma mater’s 168th annual Commencement Exercises, which was held on the Wallace Hall Plaza in beautiful 65-degree weather.
It was President Patricia Draves’s first graduation ceremony in her new Monmouth role, and she took the time to single out legacy graduates, as well as first-generation students, congratulating the “pioneers” and “trailblazers” for their “remarkable journey.”
Helton, the longtime host of Westwood One’s Country Music Countdown, quipped that his appearance on Monmouth’s stage was “this month’s second miracle from the south side of Chicago.” He thought about having AI generate his speech – and he did provide examples he gathered from ChatGPT. But in the end, he settled for quoting several of the country music artists he’s championed for most of his career.
“Life is about the journey – not the destination,” said Helton, who had two siblings attend Monmouth and has been married for more than 50 years to Anne Buckhouse Helton ’73. “It’s the stories from the journey that you share with family and friends as life goes on. Be confident that your Monmouth College liberal arts education has prepared you for what will no doubt be a journey over a very broken road.”
Helton, who once worked for 11 stations in a 10-year span, said he spoke from experience with that sentiment. “To say my road was bumpy is an understatement,” he said. “I had one job three days, one three months. I got fired four times. In my defense, I only deserved it once.”
But the road isn’t always bumpy, and Helton said there will be joy and good times, too.
“Life is a participatory sport. Be present. Take part. Engage. Being present in the journey allows you to take advantage of opportunities in front of you – opportunities in your wildest dreams you couldn’t see coming.”
Helping others
Those opportunities have allowed Helton to not only serve as a national award-winning disc jockey, but to establish relationships with scores of country music artists. With one of them, Alabama front man Randy Owen, he’s helped raise more than $1 billion for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
Right around the same time that organization started in 1989, Kathy Mattea had a hit country song that included the lyrics “It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work.” Helton also quoted a 2000 Lee Ann Womack song, telling the graduates, “I hope you dance,” adding on a phrase from Mattea’s song
commonly attributed to Mark Twain: “And be sure you dance like nobody’s watching.”
Helton included advice to graduates that their “journey must include helping those who might be having trouble on theirs. Along with a diploma, at your age you have the most precious gift of all – time. Some of that time needs to go to making the world a better place. Anybody can write a check to a great cause. Giving your time is the greatest gift of all.”
Monmouth’s chaplain, the Rev. Dr. John Huxtable, shared that sentiment the day before in his Baccalaureate sermon, which focused, in part, on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
“You may say, ‘Rev, the problems out there are too big. I’m just one person,'” he said to the Class of 2025. “But hear me: every movement that ever mattered in the world started with just one person who chose compassion over comfort … caring deeply for something greater than themselves. You were lifted by families, mentors, faculty, staff and friends who believed in you even when you doubted yourself. And now, the world waits for you to be that kind of person for someone else.”
The lieutenant and the laureate
The day before Baccalaureate, Huxtable was part of another graduation event, the commissioning ceremony for Kelsey Holtgrave ’25 of Hillsboro, Illinois, who completed the Reserve Officers Training Corps program Monmouth offers through Western Illinois University. For her first salute, Holtgrave chose Huxtable. A mathematics major at Monmouth, the field artillery officer is now a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
Holtgrave played on the Fighting Scots soccer team, and one of her teammates, Lea Selquist of Peru, Illinois, also spoke at Commencement by virtue of her selection as Monmouth’s recipient of the Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award, thereby becoming a Student Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois.
“In my second week on campus, I realized Monmouth was really places and people. And I want to thank them all,” she said. “Each of us found that one place … where troubles fell away, where we could lock in and be academic weapons, where friends laughed, where relationships were formed, where we figured out how to be the people we wanted to be.”
Selquist also mentioned the journey that she and her classmates have experienced at Monmouth, saying “Thank you also for the initial overwhelming feelings of confusion in every single class I’ve ever taken, and the subsequent understanding and confidence come semester’s end,” a microcosm – repeated time and again – of the Class of 2025’s larger journey from “overwhelmed” freshmen to accomplished seniors.
“We have places to be and dreams to fulfill,” said Selquist. “As we find those places, and fulfill those dreams, we know Monmouth – your places, your people, the memories we have here – don’t leave with us.”
Selquist was one of Monmouth’s 16 summa cum laude graduates. The others were Carlos Alcala, Jackson Bergren, Paige Bergschneider, Anna Brunner, Megan Dailey, Sawyer Day, Kiersten Fuhr, Kailyn Gore, Ganon Greenman, Elizabeth Guenther, William Plumley, Camille Prentiss, Ilese Rodeffer, Karli Strom and Cody Szelc.
After posing for a photo with each of the graduates, President Draves took a selfie with the class. She encouraged the graduates to mark the moment by taking “a mental picture that will last in your mind forever.”
Faculty promotions were announced during the ceremony and included Lori Walters to full professor in communication studies. Her department colleague, Shweta Srivastava, was promoted to associate professor, as were Todd Quick in theatre and Janet Ugolino in biology. All three were granted tenure.