 The President of the United States and Mrs. Reagan. Thank you, would you remain standing please? We'd like for you to remain standing for the invocation by Dr. Howard E. Short of the class of 29. When Howard Short graduated, he bequeathed his prized position as dishwasher in Wood Hall to an upstart freshman named Dutch. Dr. Short. That is Bray. Our father, we give thee thanks for the fellowship of this hour and for the occasion which brings us together. We remember before thee the years in Eureka College with our respective classmates and fellow students. And we give thee thanks for those who taught us and those who made possible those happy years. We're thankful also that we have been permitted to live, to continue to learn, and to serve. We ask thy continued blessing upon all of us, especially upon the one from our number who leads us all from the White House. May the renewal of our friendships this night strengthen our determination to be what we ought to be and to support those who carry on the college we love today. Bless this food, those who have brought it to us and make us worthy of such bounty we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. We, our affection and our esteem, I present first the president of the class of 1982, Ms. Charlis Hall. Marked with a bronze plaque bearing this inscription. Presidential Shade Tree planted by the class of 82 in commemoration of the visit of President Ronald Dutch Regan as commencement speaker on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his graduation from Eureka College, May 9, 1982. I fully expect to return to campus on the 50th anniversary of my graduation in the year 2032. And sit in the shade of that tree and remember, we would also like to say a very special word to the First Lady. Mrs. Regan, you must understand that for 50 years we at Eureka College have had our Dutch and we've always wanted a Duchess. Well, this is our chance. Very seriously, I speak not only for the class of 82, but for all alumni, for everyone in the entire Eureka College family, when I say how deeply we desire to include you with your husband in the circle of affection and pride, which is uniquely marked by the Eureka spirit. For us, the ties which bind all Eurekans are symbolized by the Ivy Ceremony in which we participate in graduation. Today we include you as a link in that precious chain by the presentation of this sprig of Ivy, especially cut for you from today's Ivy Ceremony. I suppose this makes you not only our Duchess first and last, but also you become a member of the class of 82. I thank you very much, but I just liked you to give a message to your class. I think this is the best graduation I ever went to. I never had so many kisses in all my life. It was wonderful. Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mrs. Reagan, Dr. Gilbert, Mrs. Gilbert, fellow alumni and friends, needless to say, it is indeed a great honor to be on this program today. One of the greatest joys of my life has been the designing, the carving, and now the presentation of this plaque to the college in honor of Mr. Reagan's 50th graduation anniversary. In designing this plaque, I had in mind three levels. The national level represented by the portrait of the president, the state level as seen in the 21 stars around the medallion, and the local level at the bottom of the plaque with symbols inspired by the college seal in the center. In the lower two corners, the elm leaves from our alma mater song, and in between on each side, the sprig of ivy recalling the annual ivy ceremony. It is my hope that all who view this plaque today and all who may view it in the future will see it not only as a work honoring one of our most distinguished alumni, one who has risen to the highest office in our land, but also as a symbol of our gratitude to those who down through the years have made the college what it has been and what it still is today. Mr. President, it is with the greatest personal satisfaction that I now present to the college in your honor this plaque. And in all sincerity, I assure you and Dr. Gilbert and all of our friends that the pleasure in this has been entirely mine. Thank you. This plaque will hang in the Reagan Visitor Center when it is completed, whenever the president tells us. No, we are planning whenever he wants the library and museum, it'll go in our Visitor Center at our college just in the next few months until that time when we have the permanent facility. See, I told all you people I was gonna do it in front of the world and now you see we're serious about this. But this will be permanently displayed. And it's been a wonderful experience working with Mr. Taylor in preparation for this. And thank you again for all these matters of attention. Now, Mr. President, we have a special surprise for you, the cherished Eureka College Athletic Hall of Fame presentation. And I call upon Mr. Craig Gerdas, the chairman of the selection committee and Mr. Coach Leo Tracer for the presentation. Thank you, Dr. Gilbert. Will all those past inductees and widows of past inductees to the Athletic Hall of Fame please rise and be recognized at this time. Thank you. The Eureka College Athletic Hall of Fame was instituted in 1970 to honor those college graduates and former students who distinguished themselves in athletic endeavor while at Eureka College and who have exemplified the Eureka spirit throughout their careers. Tonight we induct the 40th member of that distinguished company. It is my privilege to announce that Ronald Wilson Reagan of the class of 1932 has been selected for induction into the Eureka College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982. While at Eureka College, Ronald Reagan participated in football, swimming, and track. He quickly established himself as the college's outstanding swimmer. He was also the coach of the team for his last two years. In football, he earned a regular position at guard by his sophomore year, lettering for three years under coach Ralph McKenzie. His career since graduation is known to all and at every level of achievement, he has reflected honors upon and expressed pride in Eureka College. Coach Tracer, I present to you and to these assembled Eurekans, President Ronald W. Reagan for induction into the Hall of Fame. The inscription on this plaque reads as follows. The Eureka College Athletic Hall of Fame, Ronald W. Reagan has been inducted into the Eureka College Athletic Hall of Fame. This date, May 9, 1982, signed Daniel Gilbert, President Craig Gertis, Chairman of the Athletic Hall of Fame. Mr. President, I congratulate you upon your election to this coveted roll of honor. Thank you very much. I will now call on again, the President of the Alumni Association, Bill McNett, for the induction of the President into the Golden E-Club. In 1980, the Eureka College Alumni Association established the Golden E-Club. The scroll signed by each inductee in which President Reagan will be signing reads as follows. Eureka College Golden E-Club Membership Scroll, be it known herewith that all Eureka College alumni, both graduates and former students whose names are inscribed below have been duly inducted into the Golden E-Club, which includes all that distinguished company whose classes have graduated 50 years or more and who have been officially inducted into membership by the President of Eureka College. President Reagan is the 196th signer of the Golden E-Scroll. Every Golden E-Club member wears proudly the lovely pin being presented here by President Gilbert. Congratulations, Mr. President. You honor us as we honor you. I thank just everybody. I've cleaned up a Golden E-Pin, a plaque, a bust in my honor, being in the Eureka Athletic Hall of Fame. I thought I had reached the pinnacle when the 1931 prism said that as President of the Booster Club, I received commendation from my part in managing the committees in charge of the homecoming festivities. You don't know how much I wish I could remember what I did. There are a few committees on Capitol Hill that need some managing right now. But Mac, this, if we could have gotten this many people to a football game on a Saturday afternoon, we wouldn't have had to wear the same pants to her three years. We could have had new uniforms. But I'm not quite sure whether I got this for three years as guard or for making some touchdowns for Notre Dame at Warner Brothers. I was interviewed just the other day before I came out here by a reporter from the Bloomington Patograph who came up and wanted to talk all about memories and Illinois here and Eureka College and all. And then he said, well, now there's a story going around about you scoring a touchdown against normal in the last minutes of play. And that just goes to show you how stories can get stretched. I can tell you about that touchdown. We were one point ahead as I remember. And it was just seconds to go. I'd been in the entire game and normal was passing, throwing bombs all over. And I had finally decided because, I know you'll remember that no one in our backfield was over about five, nine or 10 in those days. So our pass defense wasn't all it should be if anyone on the other side was taller than they were. So I used to charge against my man and then when I felt it was gonna be a pass, duck back into the secondary and see if I could help cover for passes. And I saw everyone sucked over to one side of the field and this normal fella, never forget that bright red jersey going down the field all by himself. And I took out after him. And pretty soon as he was looking back, I knew the ball must be coming and I turned around and here it came and I went up in the air. I got it, but by this time, as I say having been in the entire game, I knew that there wasn't anything left in me. There was a lineman's dream, a guard, way over in the sideline, about 75 yards from the goal line, but a clear field down that sideline. But coming down with the ball, I thought if I just juggle it for a second or two, he'll tackle me, we still win the ball game and I won't have to run. Well, I juggled it and I bent over and I juggled it and some more and nothing happened. And just as I started to raise my head, he put his arms around me and said, tag, you're it. At the same moment, I saw a substitute coming in for me, I knew, and I started with the sideline and one Ralph McKenzie, very serious of face, indeed angry of face said, what happened to you? And all I could say was I'm tired. But that I told the reporter, that was my touchdown that was never made, my lineman's dream. You know, one thing I've stopped talking about is that receiving Eureka Centennial Citation in 1955, too many people began to think it was my centennial. But I've spent the day in a warm flood of nostalgia as I'm sure a great many of you have. You must be feeling the same way. Eureka is in all our hearts and it gave me the greatest happiness today to be on the campus and to see today's students and to see that that same spirit and that same love is there among them every bit as great as it has been among us. They'll carry the memory of days at Eureka as abundantly and as warm as we have carried them. I got a letter a few months ago from Mrs. Lee Putnam, class of 50. Lee, are you here someplace? There. Hey, you don't mind if I let him in on your letter. Lee is the daughter of Professor Tom Wiggins, our English professor that so many of us remember so well. And she wrote me this letter about some of the memories that she had of her recollections of the 1930s at Eureka. Although she was the class of 50, she had to be pretty young in the 1930s. But she said they're vivid. Faculty tease before the fireplace, daddy reading, mother playing the piano, blue books being graded, having Carl Sandberg as an overnight guest and eating canned salmon, spinach and baked beans night after night. The college had an arrangement with the Happy Hour Canning Factory in Bloomington, which allowed us to order canned goods since no salaries were paid during that time. And that's right. We also received dairy products from the college farm run by Frank Felter. I was too young to be aware then, but the entire community must have pitched in to save Eureka College. And that is what happened. Day after day in those classrooms, those professors, just as if they were getting paid on time. I've thought about that sometimes when I see some teacher strikes lately. But I believe that that spirit is still at Eureka and the town, the faculty and the students. And Lee, I have to tell you a memory that I have of your father, God bless him. It seems that the late Bud Cole, God rest his soul. And I were declared ineligible if we did not take a makeup exam and it was the day before the homecoming game. So we went over to the gym that afternoon and we got into our football uniforms and then we went up in the Burgess Hall to the classroom where your father was there and he gave us each two questions and said, take your choice of one. And he said, I'll be in the administration building if you need me. And we finished the exam in quick time and went out to the field, convinced that we had passed the exam and we had and we're able to play the next day in the game. Hi, that's Spirit of Eureka last, not only four years but a lifetime and that's why there are so many of you gathered here this evening. And by the way, I want to thank Lee for writing. I don't know quite what to make of this but later in the letter she writes, my sister Barbara Cooper is a sergeant in Burbank, California police department and has met you. Wait'll the press gets hold of that. But I can't tell you how wonderful it has been. The only fly in the ointment, the thing that's really wrong is that today is over and now we turn back into pumpkins again because we can't even stay for dinner. It's the first time I've been a before dinner speaker. I've been an after dinner speaker many times but we have to go out and get in that airplane and be on our way so we have to leave but to be here among you again. Everyone in Washington that's in government should have to at regular intervals have this kind of an experience because there is a real difference between the real world and what's on the other side of the Potomac. So from one red devil to all the others, hail to maroon and gold and hail to our alma mater and I think all of us should pledge in our hearts that it will be there long after we're gone doing for young people what it did for all of us. God bless you and I wish we could stay and say hello to every one of you. It's been a very thrilling and exciting time for us and I leave greatly rewarded. I have one little story I just want to tell before I go. I'm having a hard time getting away from here. In my graduation speech, we had decided in Washington that I should make a speech on the world situation and our plans for attempting disarmament, reduction of nuclear weapons and so forth and they were talking about what would be a proper forum in which to make this speech before I go to Europe at the end of this month to meet with our allies and all and I said I have the perfect forum. I am making a speech in Illinois and I reminded them of Winich Churchill making a speech at a little college in Missouri some years ago in which he coined the term iron curtain. So I said we'll make the speech there but to those who were there today, I told them of a little story that illustrates the humor of the Russian people and their cynicism about their way of life and their government and I had to choose between two so I won't repeat the one that I told there today but the one I wanted to tell and didn't and this is truly the jokes. I've come to be a collector of these that the Russian people tell among themselves that reveals their feeling about their government and it has to do with when Brezhnev first became president and he invited his elderly mother to come up and see his suite of offices in the Kremlin and then put her in his limousine and drove her to his fabulous apartment there in Moscow and in both places not a word she looked she said nothing then he put her in his helicopter and took her out to the country home outside Moscow in the forest and again not a word. Finally he put her in his private jet and down to the shores of the Black Sea to see that marble palace which is known as his beach home and finally she spoke, she said lay on it what if the communists find out? We love you, we envy you being able to stay and God bless all of you, thank you.