Sometimes it’s what you don’t see that changes everything. In 1962, Glenn E. Grube ’57 was disappointed at the sparse turnout of classmates at their first reunion. Five years later, the 10th-year reunion “was a near disaster, with only a dozen classmates in attendance,” he says.
When the chair of the 15th-year reunion resigned a few months before the event, Grube stepped in. “I received an emergency call from the college alumni office pleading with me to take over as the reunion chair,” he recalls.
With little time left, he arranged a co-reunion with another class, got some baseball caps with “1957” on the front, and sent out a letter. Just 19 classmates attended, but Grube promised to chair the 20th-year reunion and serve as class correspondent for the next five years.
“Our twentieth was a great success,” he says.
For the next major anniversary, Grube took things to a higher level.
“Our twenty-fifth was the greatest reunion ever held by a class at Lafayette,” he says. “We won all of the most important awards given to a reunion class, and our themed reunions ever since have been well attended, award-winning, and memorable.”
Last fall, Grube received his second Wilson E. Hughes Award, which honors an effective writer who exercises class leadership through the Class Notes column, unifying classmates in support of the College.
“The first (in 1995) was wonderful; this one is magnificent!” he says. “The greatest rewards came from my classmates,” who have showered him with accolades.
For 34 years now, Grube has served as class correspondent, and since 1982 he and Bob Mueller ’57 have been reunion co-chairs.
“We are already way ahead in our planning for our fiftieth in 2007,” he says. “When we graduated in 1957, our class was a rather disparate — not ‘desperate’ — group that has become one of the most united, involved, and supportive classes in the history of the College.”
For Grube, serving Lafayette borders on a religious experience, and like a shepherd, he has gathered classmates back into the fold.
“I received a wonderful education, much of which was realized after graduation,” he says. “The College gave me the tools to think, create ideas, and solve problems.”
After graduation, the biology major from neighboring Philipsburg, N.J., worked as an educator, moving up through the ranks before retiring as a superintendent in 1997.
“I never had the income or resources to set up an endowment or donate the dollars to have a building named in my honor, but the dozens of recognition awards over the years have given me a great sense of satisfaction,” he says. “My volunteerism has been my means of returning to Lafayette some of what Lafayette gave to me.”