Harding students gathered on campus Sept. 6 to honor the life of alumnus Botham Jean, commemorating the second anniversary of his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event, called \u201cA Night of Praise, Remembrance and Unity,\u201d was co-sponsored by the Student Association (SA), Black Student Association (BSA) and men\u2019s social club Sub T-16, Jean\u2019s former club. The vigil was held on Sunday from 7-8 p.m. on Harding\u2019s front lawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event, closed to those outside of the University due to COVID-19, was hosted by Jason Darden, an instructor of the College of Bible and Ministry. Some of Jean\u2019s favorite melodies were sung, including \u201cOur God Is Alive,\u201d \u201cJust A Little Talk With Jesus\u201d and \u201cAwesome.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Todd Gentry, a college community outreach minister, read remarks from a letter written by sophomore Brandt Jean, Jean\u2019s brother. In the letter, Brandt Jean said that Jean was able to see the positive in every situation. Tommy Schuler, a close friend of Jean from Sub T-16, also said that Jean walked after God\u2019s spirit. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt just changes your life when you\u2019re around someone that puts that much effort into trying to model himself after things like the fruit of the spirit,\u201d Schuler said. \u201c[The fruits of the spirit] couldn\u2019t describe him any better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event included words from\u00a0 SA President Morgan Proffitt, who spoke about other Harding students who have died in recent years; BSA President Raissa Ames, who encouraged the Harding community to take a stand against racial injustice; and Tiffany Byers, director of diversity services at the University. Additionally, Justified, a chorus group, sang \u201cDreaming of a City.\u201d University President Bruce McLarty was the last speaker of the night, and he reflected on the moment he heard of Jean\u2019s death, as well as his favorite Jean story. The night ended with a prayer from McLarty and a candle lighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gentry, also a board member of the Botham Jean Foundation, said he devised the idea of the event, believing that people needed to remember Jean\u2019s passing. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn a time when our world is really struggling with race tension, I think that\u2019s a great event for unity,\u201d Gentry said. \u201cBotham used to say that one thing that unites us is singing together, so I think that is pretty key.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After sharing the idea with the event\u2019s sponsors, Gentry said they worked together to help the vision come to fruition. Junior Stone Nix, a representative of Sub T-16, said the sponsors unanimously wanted the event to spread a message of solidarity to the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to unite people and see past each other\u2019s differences to see the things that are more important than what divides us,\u201d Nix said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harding students gathered on campus Sept. 6 to honor the life of alumnus Botham Jean, commemorating the second anniversary of his death. The event, called \u201cA Night of Praise, Remembrance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":14902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}