a publication for alumni, family, and friends

Gloria Hanson
University Relations

When you talk about family, Don Screes will tell you that his extends throughout much of the United States and overseas. He will also tell you that tradition runs deep and the ties that bind and keep them together are the three words etched in stone at the gateway to Wesleyan-Sacrifice or Service.

In a few months Screes will say goodbye to his Wesleyan family and end an era that he says has brought him much joy and happiness. It will no doubt be an emotional farewell, both for him and for those he's worked closely with over the years.

"When you spend a good portion of your life at one place, you can't help but become attached," he says.

Screes' attachment with Wesleyan began after he completed a year at Butler University, a four-year institution a few blocks from his boyhood home in Indianapolis. At Butler, Screes had a successful year of baseball, but academically the picture wasn't as good. He needed a change.

Unknown to his parents, he applied for admission to DWU and was soon accepted. Wesleyan was familiar to him because his mother, Vivian Christensen Screes, attended classes in the mid-1920s while working toward a teaching certificate.

For the next three years Screes improved his grades, settled in to dorm life in Graham Hall, fell in love with a cheerleader named Donna and took to the basketball court. He and Donna Furchner ex'62 were married a week after his 1960 graduation.

With his degree in hand, Screes took a teaching and coaching job at Reliance and then with the Kimball School District. His life would take an interesting turn in December of 1962.

"I got a call from Wesleyan over Christmas vacation asking if I wanted to come to work. A new position was opening up as an admissions counselor," he said. "I came for the interview and got the job with the understanding I'd start after basketball season." Screes had to complete the season at Kimball before moving to Mitchell.

It was the best of times and the worst of times in the 1960s when Screes began working as a college recruiter. Wesleyan, like other private universities in the state, was reaping the rewards of military deferments for young men who decided on education instead of the jungles of Vietnam. Enrollment was around 900.

"Bob Wagner, Matt Smith and Gordon Rollins were pretty heavy hitters as far as leadership goes," Screes said. "Then when Jack Early came, he opened the floodgates and started to recruit on the East Coast." Screes remembers a headline in one Tumbleweed of the '60s, 'Three-hundred and sixty freshman show up for classes.'

Wesleyan's basketball team was top-notch with five conference championships, and some of the university's toughest football players were recruited out of Pennsylvania.

On campus, students were more vocal and began to question chapel attendance, while the war in Southeast Asia and the happenings at Kent State added to the diversity. "The students were becoming more outspoken and used to give the college administration some gray hairs. It was hard for the administration to deal with that because they set the goals and the rules and expected them to be followed," Screes said.

Recruiting practices at DWU included four trips annually to the East Coast where Screes says it was a rarity for him not to have a steady stream of students lined up to talk with him. "I wasn't only recruiting new students. I was visiting with the alumni," he said.

As the '60s came and went, Screes said he felt the need to expand his academic profile and applied for graduate school at the University of Arizona's Tucson campus. Donna and their daughters, Robin and Traci, joined him.

After earning his master's degree in 1973, Screes worked as director of personnel for a school district in Tucson until 1979. He then moved to the state capitol, serving in the same capacity with the Phoenix Union High School District. His next move was to the Phoenix Job Corps where he served as the center director until returning to DWU in 1988.

"We visited with Jim Beddow. One thing led to another and here I am," he said. Upon his return to Wesleyan, there was a noticeable difference on campus. The weekend dances that were popular in the '60s were a thing of the past and enrollment had dropped. "It will never get to the point like it was in the '60s; it was a decade in itself."

Hired as the director of alumni relations, Screes settled into his new job and began visiting with alumni, planning reunions and raising money for the university. He discovered his prior involvement with alumni was a valuable asset.

On campus, it's well-known that losing Screes also means that the university will lose someone who knows a great deal more about what's happened over the years. To help keep the record straight, he spent a lot of time over an 18-month period developing a publication that lists athletic hall of fame inductees, stats and other information about Wesleyan athletic events.

Also for the archives, he's put together a seven-page paper, "Facts, Figures, Superstitions and Other Tidbits" on Wesleyan. In the paper he gives a complete history of every building on campus, discusses each landmark and even makes reference to Nelson, the ghost that supposedly exists in Graham Hall.

As for some of his most memorable times, Screes says they're all memorable.

He and Donna will divide their time between Arizona and Minnesota where their daughters and grandsons live.

"There comes a time when you've got to make a decision if you want to do other things and not have to worry about being here at a certain time. I'll miss the association but I think the time is right, not because I'm 65, but because it's time for somebody fresh with new ideas to come in and maybe build on what I've done or change it completely," he said.

"This is just one of those places that was a nice fit. Even though I went to different places, I was always the happiest here."