Axe ’Em, Jacks!
I can't believe it's 2025 and has been 22 years since I walked across the stage at Johnson Coliseum. It is an honor to represent you and SFA's more than 120,000 living alumni as your SFA Alumni Association board president.
As my dear friend Erika Tolar was ending her term as president with our final board meeting of 2024, and as the annual and always axe-ceptional Alumni Awards weekend took place, I reflected on my time on the SFA Alumni Association board and my pending tenure as board president. I kept coming back to a question Dr. Neal Weaver, SFA's president, asked when he visited our board meeting in October: "Where do we want to be in 2050?"
When he asked it, he was certainly speaking about the university as a whole, focusing on setting the direction of the institution. However, as those words stuck with me, they became even more relevant not just to what we do at the Alumni Association but to what we do and how we do it as alumni.
In December, I had the opportunity to assist in The Big Dip ring ceremony, Dr. Weaver's first. At each ceremony, he reminded recipients, "The ring does not make the alum; rather, the alum makes the ring." How we alumni conduct ourselves in our professional and personal lives reflects on us as Lumberjacks and thus on the institution. It also impacts the value of an SFA degree for those both before and after us.
I am proud of my time in Nacogdoches and proud to be a Lumberjack, just as I know all of you are. My first boss once told me he recruited at SFA because "y'all just have a certain grit about you, as if nothing was ever given to you, and you've had to work for everything you have." I am proud of that statement and proud to be associated with that perception.
As alumni, it is our duty to ensure the value of the degree we worked so hard for is more valuable than when we received it. Have you been back to campus? Have you visited Nacogdoches? Engaged with your college as an alum? Recruited a student or volunteered for an alumni event?
Dr. Weaver asked, "Where do we want to be in 2050?" So, I am now asking each of you: Where do you want your Alumni Association to be in 2050, and what can you do to help us achieve that vision?
The future is bright
'Neath the purple and white!
Axe 'em, Jacks!
Brian Dawson '03
Conroe
President, SFA Alumni Association