Great to be back
Marshall McNott
Thursday, November 2, 2006
I WAS HUMBLED and honored to have been selected as one of ESU’s Outstanding Alumni this year. My visit to Emporia to receive this award was a reminder of how blessed I was to grow up in such a special place.
While I was there, I had all the yearnings to leave for greener pastures. However, having lived in larger cities the rest of my life, including the Los Angeles area, I recalled how blessed I was not to live among freeways and traffic congestion.
From Walnut grade school to Lowther Junior High School to Emporia Senior High School to Emporia State University, whatever good results I have achieved were strongly influenced by my family, my church, my schools and the community.
I was especially impressed that so many people remembered my dad, Bill McNutt, who was always seen driving around town in his convertible with the top down, regardless of the weather. When I think that he was able to support his wife, my sister Lona and brother Dan and me selling tailor-made suits from a sample case in a community of around 20,000, I am in awe.
ESU brought me back to reality, the reality of what life should be about — God, family, business, in that order. And, how very special a small community in Kansas is when, 50 years after you've left, you still have memories, roots and friends.
Marshall McNott
Montgomery Village, Md.