Baylor Proud

It’s not unusual for Baylor administrators to receive requests from parents. It is unusual when that request is for a Baylor item that the parent — in this case, Col. Charles Hobaugh, commander of space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-129 mission — can take into space.

Hobaugh (pictured) is the father of Baylor junior Stephanie Hobaugh, who naturally missed classes yesterday to watch the shuttle’s launch from Cape Canaveral. Hobaugh’s wife contacted Baylor in August on her husband’s behalf to see if he could take anything into space to represent his daughter’s school. The University naturally provided a Baylor flag that will be returned after the mission and likely displayed in Baylor’s visitor’s center.

This isn’t the first time Baylor has been represented in space, either. Last fall, the shuttle crew awoke one morning to the song “You Are Here” by Dutton, a band comprised largely of Baylor alumni.

Sic ’em, space shuttle astronauts!

In February, the Dallas Morning News profiled high school senior Cody Novak as his basketball team prepared for the state semifinals. Novak, however, was sidelined in the midst of fighting a rare, aggressive form of cancer that developed into a grapefruit-sized tumor on his thigh and threatened to take not only his basketball career, but his life.

Nine months later, Cody — now a freshman business major at Baylor — is, amazingly, cancer-free. Multiple rounds of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation, coupled with the Novak family’s faith and sense of humor, helped Cody regain his health in time to join his sisters (senior Casey and sophomore Courtney) at Baylor this fall.

Cody’s mother Kristi, BS ‘81, says the goal of following his sisters to Baylor was an incentive for Cody throughout the nasty treatments. Now he’s got bigger plans: “When I first got diagnosed, I got this huge realm of peace. I realized there’s a reason for this, and you need to use this as a platform. My dad always told me a smile could make a difference in someone’s day.”

Sic ’em, Cody and the Novak family!

French is often referred to as “the language of love,” but for Baylor graduates Philipp Rossbach and Kimberly Loyd, it was a German class at Baylor that sparked their romance.

As students, Philipp (BBA ‘05, MAc ‘05) and Kimberly (BS ‘06) met in the German lounge on the second floor of Old Main in September 2002. Kimberly was taking German classes and needed a tutor; Philipp, a native speaker, fit the bill.

Fast forward to September 2009… During a campus visit, the couple stopped by that same room where their relationship began seven years earlier; a few minutes later, Philipp proposed to Kimberly just outside Old Main. Happily, she said yes! The couple, now living in Dallas, will be married next July.

Sic ’em, Philipp and Kimberly!

Samuel Palmer Brooks was president of Baylor in 1909, when Baylor held the first collegiate Homecoming. Twenty-two years later, he finished writing his Message to the Class of 1931 but passed away before he could share it at graduation. Now known as the Immortal Message, the same man who asked alumni 100 years ago to “lay aside for a few days the usual cares of life, come back to your alma mater, renew former associations and friendships, and catch that Baylor spirit again” urged the graduating seniors:

“Because of what Baylor has meant to you in the past, because of what she will mean to you in the future, oh, my students, have a care for her. Build upon the foundations here the great school of which I have dreamed, so that she may touch and mold the lives of future generations and help to fit them for life here and hereafter.”

One of the goals of Baylor Line Camp is to pass on to incoming freshmen Baylor’s traditions and heritage; this summer, the class of 2013 learned about part of that history — Brooks’ message — through this video, created by Line Camp’s student leaders.

During Homecoming, past alumni get to see how the torch they passed on in previous years continues to be carried by today’s students. Hope you can make it to Waco this weekend for Baylor’s 100th anniversary Homecoming!

Sic ’em, Bears!