{"id":65656,"date":"2013-05-26T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=65656"},"modified":"2023-11-21T11:02:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T16:02:36","slug":"alumni-parents-celebrate-childrens-unique-achievements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2013\/05\/26\/alumni-parents-celebrate-childrens-unique-achievements\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni parents celebrate children’s unique achievements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following in their parents\u2019 footsteps may have led them to Bates, but children of alumni blaze their own trails on campus \u2014 and their families couldn\u2019t be more proud.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Sarah Wason ’13 of Barrington, N.H, the daughter of Donald ’79 and Nancy Wellman Wason ’81, admits she \u201cgrew up wearing Bates clothes\u201d and at one point worried that \u201cby going to Bates, it wouldn\u2019t be special for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She quickly found her own voice, however \u2014 and became a voice of Bates \u2014 as a DJ and general manager of the campus radio station, WRBC-FM.<\/p>\n

Of the 436 graduates this year, 22 have at least one parent who went to Bates. Seventy-four graduates have Bates siblings or other relatives.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>

The Wasons returned to Bates to celebrate younger daughter Sarah’s graduation. From left are Donald Wason ’79 with daughters Sarah ’13 and Rebecca Wason St. Cyr ’09 (holding her son, a future Bates Class of 2034), and wife Nancy ’81. Photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n

This year\u2019s legacy families come from as far away as Malaysia and as close as Freeport.<\/p>\n

Some alumni parents have underscored their connection to Bates as volunteers.<\/p>\n

Robert Cramer \u201979, and William Carey ’82, co-chairs of the Mount David Society and Bates Fund, respectively, each have sons in the Class of 2013, as do trustees Stephen Fuller \u201982 and John Gillespie \u201980. (Cramer and Carey will also have senior children graduating next year.)<\/p>\n

Rob Cramer insists that his son Bo is his own Bobcat, through and through. \u201cLike me,\u201d he says, Bo \u201cwas an English major, but there the comparisons stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Legacy<\/a>

Legacy families pose for a group photo on Saturday, May 25, 2013. Of the 436 graduates in the Class of 2013, 74 have a parent or other relative who graduated from Bates. Photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n

Donald says, \u201cSarah always prided herself on being different from the rest of her family,\u201d but he suspects that may have been \u201cmore wishful thinking than reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching their second daughter graduate from Bates has shaped Donald and Nancy\u2019s own relationship with the college \u2014 beyond just discovering WRBC-FM.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumerous times while walking across campus, we have felt like we were students again,\u201d says Donald. \u201cWe always thought Bates parents were \u2018old\u2019, but we don\u2019t feel old at Bates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following in their parents\u2019 footprints may have led them to Bates, but children of alumni blaze their own trails on campus \u2014 and their families couldn\u2019t be more proud. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":65667,"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":[4,7,11009],"tags":[2330,10831],"class_list":["post-65656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-alumni","category-the-college","tag-class-of-2013","tag-commencement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65656","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\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65656"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82809,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65656\/revisions\/82809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}