HANNIBAL – Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was the big
man on campus Nov. 15 at Hannibal-LaGrange University (HLGU) as he spoke at the school’s annual Booster Banquet.
Huckabee is the host of the number one rated “Huckabee,” 7 p.m. CST Saturdays on the Fox News Channel, and is heard three times daily across the nation on the “Huckabee Report.” After his second place campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he formed HuckPac to assist conservative Republicans running for office nationwide and has amassed a volunteer team with thousands of activists in all 50 states. From 1996 to 2007, Huckabee served as the governor of Arkansas.
He steered clear of politics and challenged the Hannibal crowd to “do what is right.”
“What if all of us did the right thing?” Huckabee asked. “Long ago as governor I came to the conclusion that we really only needed to pass one law, if we’d all adhere to it: do what is right. That’s how you’ll rein in the size and cost of government.”
The problem creeps up when a sinful society tries to redefine what is “right.”
“People try to make up their definitions of what life is, what marriage is,” he said. “They just want to be kind and tolerant, but when we change God’s law, the result will always be disaster. That’s why we need schools that teach what God’s law is.”Huckabee, a graduate of one of HLGU’s sister schools, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., had more kind words for Christian liberal arts education and HLGU.
“I was just on Yale’s campus and they have extraordinarily bright students, but frankly they were no brighter than the ones I’ve met at HGLU. I value a school that is unapologetically committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, where a student leaves a university education with not only his head filled with information, but with his heart filled with Godly wisdom. Sometimes I know people think education at a Christian school like Hannibal-LaGrange University is expensive. You know, I guess in some ways you could say that it is. But you know what’s more expensive? Not having young people who grow up with the kind of values that they’ll get from a school like this. If America needs any one great thing, it’s not fewer kids going to HLGU, it’s more kids coming here.”
The 71st annual Booster Banquet will be Nov. 16, 2012. Woody Burt, HLGU president, hinted that the featured speaker will be someone associated with the hit movie, “Courageous.”
BRIAN KOONCE / Staff Writer