In the spring of my senior year of high school on a preview weekend, I first developed my admiration and respect for LeTourneau University.  I longed to pursue a technical degree in a Christian environment, and LeTourneau was one of few colleges that combined both.  In my following years at LeTourneau, I met my future husband, Dan “Verl” Rose,’90 EE.  After we graduated, I worked to put him through grad school, then I took a twenty-year sabbatical to invest in my family, and now I am back amidst a fabulously updated campus.  It’s not the capital improvements that drew us back, but the people and the legacy Pop and Mom LeTourneau began nearly 75 years ago.

My mom is the one who piqued my interest in considering LETU because she was one of seven co-eds in the fall of 1962. Actually, her impetus to attend LeTourneau stemmed from my great grandma Susie who attended a “revival and heard  R.G.LeTourneau speak.”  Afterwards my mom remarked, “All she wanted for me was to consider LeTourneau.”  When my mom was too homesick to remain on campus, another student gave up his seat so she could fly home to Indiana on an airplane --- the A26 bomber converted for private use --- with Pop.  Pop allowed my mom to fly on his plane “to a town near my hometown so I could see my family for eight hours.  He tried to help me overcome my pain of being away from my family.”  LeTourneau’s caring and upstanding community of leaders and students shaped my mom’s experience, and therefore mine as well.

For me, the influence of professors like Mr. Roger Erickstad profoundly impacted my experience at LeTourneau.  Not only did he provide superb classroom instruction, but he attended sporting events, mentored us spiritually, and guided us professionally  -- all of this flavored with a good deal of humor. The Erickstads had us in their home and have faithfully kept in touch with us over the course of thirty years!   I long to be available to students and co-workers the way the Erickstads have been and continue to be to my husband and me.

Now that we are back in Longview, it has been delightful to reconnect with old classmates and it is especially fun to get to know the next generation of LeTourneau students.  I always love hearing how God sovereignly works to bring people to the campus of LeTourneau University.  Recently on a phone call with an alumnus, he referred to our 162-acre campus as “sacred ground.”  My prayer as I walk the outskirts of campus is that it will indeed remain “sacred ground” and serve as an Ebenezer of sorts in each student’s spiritual life.  That LeTourneau legacy -- the top-notch education paired with an intimate Christian environment -- it still exists today.  LeTourneau emphasizes both aspects of shaping an individual --- which is why it is the Christian Polytechnic University.