What a heritage McCook has in producing outstanding, gifted, and talented citizens. You all know about our rich political heritage and the tremendous leaders this small close-knit community has sired.

We had the privilege of meeting yet another one yesterday at the MCC graduation ceremonies.

 

The graduation speaker was Dr. Gene Budig, a native of McCook and a former student at McCook Junior College back in the late 1950s. I'm sure he will also be written about on the front page of today's newspaper in the feature story covering the graduation but I wanted to look at his accomplishments in a little different light. Because it's important for you to know the details of his life, much of the following biographical information was taken from the MCC commencement program.

 

Dr. Budig was a normal kid growing up in McCook. His dad was an auto mechanic and was towards the lower end of the economic spectrum. Because of that, Gene Budig attended the Junior College in McCook because of its fine faculty and affordable pricing.

After attending here for two years, he transferred to UNL where he earned a bachelor's degree in English, a master's degree in journalism and a doctorate in education. He worked his way through school as a reporter for the Lincoln Star and Journal newspaper.

 

He was appointed Chief of Staff for Gov. Frank Morrison and served in that position from 1964 to 1967. In 1973, he was named president of Illinois State University, where he stayed for four years before becoming president of West Virginia University in Morgantown.

 

He also served his country, retiring as a Major General from the Air National Guard in 1992.

 

At the young age of 42, Dr. Budig was the unanimous choice by the Kansas Board of Regents to become Kansas University's 14th chancellor, a position he held until 1994.

At that time, he was elected President of the American League for Major League Baseball, a position he held for five years. In 1999, the president's offices of the American and National League were dissolved and he became the special advisor to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. He later returned to teaching with a professorship at Princeton University, where he taught until he retired in 2002.

 

He has written numerous columns and articles for a variety of local and national newspapers, has authored more than 70 academic journal articles and has also written two books.

 

Throughout his career, he has remained a humble man, and that humbleness was on display at McCook College on Friday.

The most important thing he said that everyone who reads this article should hear is that without the opportunity to attend an affordable community college and develop a taste for knowledge; the course, direction, and quality of his life would most likely have taken a totally different direction.

 

It's the most important lesson any of us can learn. Look back on your life and the decisions you've made and think of how different things may have been if you had done something you weren't sure you could do, or didn't do something that you probably should have done. We all can participate in this exercise and usually find more than one critical decision we made or didn't make that changed the nature and course of our lives.

 

Dr. Budig is the perfect example, the cover boy even, for what we tell our young people day in and day out. You don't have to come from wealthy parents. You don't have to graduate at the top of your class. You don't have to have influence that others don't. With  hard work, effort, personal discipline, desire, and some sort of a game plan, there is no limit to what a person can achieve in this world

 

If you can see it, you can believe it and if you can dream it, you can do it.