Giants
When we think of Giants, what is the image that comes to mind?
Is it the Giants of folklore, like Paul Bunyan or John Henry? Or maybe Goliath, of Old Testament fame? Maybe some sort of mysterious huge person at the top of a beanstalk – or the Jolly Green Giant in the commercials.
At any rate, we are likely to think of someone who is very large.
Dictionaries use words like superhuman, exceptional, extraordinary. They talk of people who have great abilities, influence, power, or importance.
Ordinarily Extraordinary
Most of the Giants that I have discovered at West Virginia Wesleyan were not huge in physical stature, but there are many who have given exceptional love and service to the school. There are many who have had great influence, not because they were trying to be Giants but because they simply were (are).
Some of these names you have heard. Some of these names are on buildings. Other names have disappeared from common knowledge over the course of time. One such example is Thomas W. Haught (formerly known around campus as “Our Tommy”).
Thomas W. Haught came to Buckhannon as a student at the West Virginia Conference Seminary in the spring of 1891 — just months after the school opened its doors. He completed the Classical Course in 1894. Because the school did not offer college level degrees in those early days, he went on to get his A.B. degree at West Virginia University in 1896.
In the fall of 1896, he returned to teach Science, English, and Mathematics. From 1899-1901 he felt the call to further his education and went to study at Harvard University.
Fall 1901 brought him back to teach at his first Alma Mater once again. That fall a new art teacher also arrived on campus, and a courtship began between “Our Tommy” (as he was known by his students) and Miss Helen Wetmore. They married in 1903 much to the delight of everyone on campus. In the very first edition of the Murmurmontis they were literally on the same page.
Salaries were low, and in 1905 he reluctanly accepted an offer to administer the State school in Keyser – now known as Potomac State – a position he held until 1908 when he finally returned to Wesleyan for good.
He taught until his retirement in 1941, and then World War II made it necessary for him to continue teaching during “the emergency” of 1942.
Beyond the classroom, Thomas W. Haught served the college in many other capacities through the years:
- Librarian 1901-03
- Dean and Registrar 1910-26
- Acting President Three Times (1913, 1922, 1925)
- Dean 1927-30
- Countless Committees
Recognized by Other Giants
Upon his death in 1957, others wrote about the gigantic things that Thomas W. Haught had done.
Here are a couple of highlights, but please Click Here to read this booklet.
Lewis H. Chrisman stated:
No name looms larger in the history of West Virginia Wesleyan College than that of Thomas W. Haught. No individual has made a greater contribution to the life of the institution. He belongs to its past, its present, and its future.
Roy McCuskey (former student of Thomas W. Haught) wrote an article titled, The Contribution of Thomas W. Haught to Wesleyan College. It begins:
And, James Stansbury closed his article, which was entitled The End of an Era, with these words:
But even with all of the things above, he is most of all a Giant in my eyes for the legacy of the written word about all that took place throughout those sixty-six years. Through his writings, he has given us our history. All of us who seek to know about the early years have consulted his work numerous times. They (we) are standing on the shoulders of this Giant named Thomas W. Haught.
Frank Meredith Thompson was a leader from the very beginning of his life until the end. Born in 1880 as the oldest of six children in a poor rural area of Pennsylvania he sold papers, ran errands, trapped muskrats, and pumped the organ at the Presbyterian Church to earn a few pennies.
