{"id":142079,"date":"2021-09-30T12:25:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T16:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=142079"},"modified":"2022-04-22T16:07:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T20:07:59","slug":"at-lake-andrews-wedding-vows-reaffirmed-among-treasured-bates-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2021\/09\/30\/at-lake-andrews-wedding-vows-reaffirmed-among-treasured-bates-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"At Lake Andrews, wedding vows reaffirmed among treasured Bates friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Bill Tucker \u201967 and Monica Drozd decided to renew their wedding vows, more than three decades after getting married before strangers in the Black Forest of Germany, they knew exactly where they wanted to be, and who they wanted to share the special moment with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to renew our vows in a context that, while still small and intimate, took place in a more personally meaningful location,\u201d says Tucker. \u201cBates and Bill Hiss immediately came to mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiss, a 1966 Bates graduate, was Tucker\u2019s college roommate back in the day. They\u2019ve been friends ever since. And besides a long career heading Bates\u2019 admission program, Hiss is also a licensed minister in the United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monica Drozd and Bill Tucker \u201966 hold hands during their wedding vow reaffirmation ceremony at Keigwin Amphitheater on Sept. 24. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith one of my oldest, dearest friends to officiate \u2014 he kind of pulled the arc of our lives together,\u201d Tucker says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it happened that Tucker and Drozd re-dedicated their union next to Lake Andrews last Friday morning, with Hiss officiating. His wife, Colleen Quint \u201985, joined the gathering, along with two official witnesses, Bates leadership gifts officers Cary Gemmer \u201907 and Rebecca Lazure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tucker wore a suit with his father\u2019s cufflinks and tie clip, which held sentimental value. Drozd held a bouquet of fresh flowers cut from Gemmer\u2019s garden. The more casual \u2014 but special \u2014 event reflected the first time they exchanged vows: in a remote German chapel, witnessed by a handful of tourists and travelers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drozd did not attend Bates, but she and Tucker share a love for the school, and Drozd teared up as she explained how much having the ceremony at Bates meant to her. \u201cI can\u2019t even express in words \u2014 my tears are probably sufficient,\u201d Drozd says. \u201cBill loves Bates, I love Bates and I love Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monica Drozd tears up as her husband, Bill Tucker ’67, says his vows during the reaffirmation ceremony on Sept. 24. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hiss and Tucker met during Hiss\u2019 senior year and Tucker\u2019s junior year. Tucker was 26 years old at that point, older than a typical Bates junior. After spending the better part of a decade in and out of Bates including service in the U.S. Army with the Military Police Corps in Korea, he was finally ready to finish his degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t meet until we both moved into apartments on the top floor of what\u2019s now Turner House,\u201d Hiss recalls. They were studying two very different things: Hiss was studying English, and Tucker was majoring in psychology. They both found the other\u2019s studies to be interesting, and this set the stage for their lives to complement each other for the next 57 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFresh out of the military and filled with anxiety over returning to college after a five-year hiatus, I found in Bill not only a good friend,\u201d Tucker says, \u201cbut a role model of academic engagement combined with social conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Hiss \u201966 addresses Monica Drozd and Bill Tucker ’67 during the wedding vow reaffirmation ceremony on Sept. 24. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t really \u2018get\u2019 what the intellectual life was all about,\u201d Hiss says of Tucker. \u201cAnd he sort of learned that, he said, from watching me write an honors thesis, in the English department, on a topic nobody would want to read about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The friends left Bates and became leaders in their fields. Hiss became a national expert on the gatekeeping effect of standardized tests like the SAT, while Tucker, a professor emeritus of psychology at Rutgers University, used his academic career to focus on how social science has been used to advance oppressive and racist social policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To say that Bill Tucker has a lifelong commitment to racial and social justice is a big understatement,\u201d says Hiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the ceremony, Hiss, dressed for the occasion in his academic robe and hood, reflecting his Tufts Ph.D., and a minister’s stole, spoke about the love Tucker and Drozd share. He told them that \u201ccaring for each other and caring for other people is what you two do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like any group of old friends, they recognize that every moment spent together is more special as the years march on. Tucker and Drozd clasped each other’s hands while Hiss talked about the couple and their love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told the small gathering that Tucker and Drozd met at a dance competition, and \u201cthe two of these folks are spectacular dancers, among other things. Lucky Bill,\u201d Hiss said, \u201cand yes, lucky Monica, too. And I have to say, at this moment, lucky me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bill Tucker \u201967 and Monica Drozd decided to renew their wedding vows, they knew exactly where they wanted to be, and who they wanted to be with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1422,"featured_media":142092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11671,4985,10890],"class_list":["post-142079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-bill-hiss","tag-keigwin-amphitheater","tag-lake-andrews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142079"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142122,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142079\/revisions\/142122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}