Pride and passion were the theme words on a night celebrating the 25-year career of Jim Drummond, sport and event management professor at Elon University.
“The Drummond Golf Classic” didn’t quite go off as planned because of Mother Nature, as heavy rain flooded The Challenge Golf Course, causing the scheduled tournament to be canceled and transforming the outing into The Drummond Banquet Dinner.
Friends, fellow colleagues and students both past and present spent the evening sharing stories and praising Drummond's time at the institution.
“A lot of people take pride in money and titles and things like that,” Drummond said. “But to have your students and former students do something like this for you, it’s a real honor.”
Students shared their memorable moments with the professor, recalling images of Drummond with a can of Diet Coke, which was described as a fixture in the man's daily routine. But as sophomore MacKenzie Meyer, one of Drummond's former students, told, it wasn’t always Diet Coke in the can - often times, she caught him filling the can with water from the water fountain.
Other students spoke of their experiences in the classroom while friends spoke of their time spent on the golf course.
Over the course of his career, Drummond has become a distinct face in the Elon community, appearing in admissions videos and speaking to hundreds of students about Elon before they’ve even enrolled at the school.
“He’s the kind of mentor that every parent would want their student to work with,” said Gerry Francis, executive vice president. “He’s going to be very, very hard to replace.”
The event, which the students in the Programming and Event Management course planned as a class project, was not only designed to celebrate Drummond’s career, but to also raise money for scholarships of his choice. All of the proceeds from the day go to the Sport and Event Management Endowed Scholarship and the North Carolina Recreation and Parks Scholarship Foundation.
“We split up into five different groups, each focusing on different parts of the event,” said junior Beka Bischoff. “I was part of the sponsorship group, so my job was basically done on Friday, but the banquet group and most all of the others did most of their stuff today.”
To close the night, the class auctioned off a gift package from Lighthouse Resort Services and Village Realty, including a golf outing and a horse-drawn carriage ride for four, as well as a $500 certificate for a Village Realty property in the Outer Banks.