John and Ann Kirkpatrick Runnette ’56

Sunny Chen ’06 remembers the first time she met John and Ann Kirkpatrick Runnette ’56.

“I had just co-founded the Wheaton Investment Club with two classmates,” she recalls. “The Runnettes were so supportive of our initiative that they immediately promised seed funding to the investment club!”

Their investment in the club marked the start of a relationship between Chen and the Runnettes that has featured several big surprises.

The first came in 2006, when the economics major and Wheaton Posse Scholar graduated. The Runnettes, who were on campus for Ann Runnette’s 50th Reunion, attended the Posse celebration that followed Commencement. “We just think she’s a lovely person,” Ann Runnette says. “When she graduated, we met her parents and many of her family members at graduation.”

The Runnettes were so moved by the ceremony that they decided to name their Wheaton Fund Scholarship in Chen’s honor. “I was very surprised and humbled,” admits Chen, who prefers to see the honor as symbolic. [Read more...]

Gentlemen Callers board members: Austin Simko ’09, Alexander Grover ’09, Mark Mckone-Sweet ’92

The way that Mark McKone-Sweet ’92 remembers it, the first Gentlemen Callers had no idea that they were forming a group that would last beyond the semester. That makes it all the more remarkable that the male a cappella ensemble is approaching the 25th anniversary of its founding.

To celebrate, and to put the group in position for another 25 years or more, former members of the Gentlemen Callers decided to create a formal organization, the Gentlemen Callers Alumni Union, and establish a $100,000 endowment to support the student group into the future.

The fundraising effort pays forward the generosity that helped the original Gentlemen Callers prosper.

“We should never let go of the fact that we wouldn’t be here without the help of the Whims and the Wheatones, the Alumnae/i Relations Office, the dean of students and many others,” said McKone-Sweet, who serves on the group’s board of directors along with fellow alumni and a current student. [Read more...]