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| :Located in Gambier, Ohio |
Young guy in Buzzy’s Country Store Saturday morning was wearing a Kenyon College shirt so I asked him who was their most famous alum. He immediately replied “Paul Newman.”
And here I had thought that I was going to surprise and impress him by saying Laura Hillenbrand whom I knew something of her background from having read her books Seabiscuit and Unbroken. But when my Buzzy visitor threw out the Paul Newman name, there went my useless little bit of knowledge of Kenyon College alum and plus I learned something. (I thought of Larry King’s great quote about interviewing people “I never learned anything while I was talking.”)
Turns out that in addition to Paul and Laura, Kenyon College has had many notable alum thru the years. Their impressive list includes such famous folks as our 19th President Rutherford B. Hayes, comedian Jonathan Winters, novelist E.L. Doctorow, actress Allison Janney, and a couple of Bills as in MLB’s Bill Veeck and Bill Watterson who created and published the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. For being such a small college, not much bigger than our St. Mary’s College, Kenyon’s alum list is pretty remarkable.
Musician Nick Petricca graduated from Kenyon College in 2009. Who? I hear you asking. OK, you may not recognize him by name but I’m betting you will know the catchy 2014 song that he and his bandmates Walk the Moon recorded. (I warn you however, you’re gonna be humming this little ditty all day.)