Ed Arn: Patriot, Father, and Wooster Man

In many ways, the story of Ed Arn’s long and well-lived life follows the plot line of the Successful All-American Male.

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In the early ’60s, Arn partnered with College of Wooster President Howard Lowry and Wilson Compton (Class of 1911) to raise funds to renovate Kauke Hall.

“He’s a Wooster Man”

The College of Wooster is at the center of the values their father passed to them, say his children. Arn has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, and these days his family finds many excuses to get together and reminisce. Says Kit, “I tell him, ‘What a great place you brought us to back in the late ’50s to live in a small college town and work for the school you love.’

“He taught us so many things about what’s important in life. It’s not about corporate executives making money; it’s about the quality of life you seek out. He’s never thought of Wooster as anything more than the foundation blocks of his whole existence. He’s not a guy who’s gone on to great wealth. He’s just a guy who loved his school and loved his town,” says Kit. “He’s a Wooster man, through and through.”

However, as Ed Arn looks back at his Wooster experience, he remembers that he didn’t take the cut in pay that was first requested. Arn, a successful salesman making $14,000 a year at the American Seating Company in Philadelphia, was called to the College in 1956 by College president Howard Lowry. “Lowry said to me, ‘Arn, I’m prepared to offer you $3,000 a year to head up our development efforts.’ And I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’”

But less than two years later, College administrators added $15,500 to their offer. Arn came to The College of Wooster and stayed for the next 17 years. His natural affection for people served him well as development director and then as alumni director, a position he took in 1963. His legendary success at fundraising was a natural result of his positive leadership, says Bruce Grandy ’49, who volunteered with Arn on many development campaigns.

“Ed was hard to say ‘no’ to,” says Grandy. “He always thanked you personally and would end by saying, ‘Bless your heart.’”

The sense of history that had prompted Arn to chronicle his wartime activities kicked into gear again in 2004, but this time for a lighter purpose. After 20 years of research, he authored a 995-page manuscript, “Black and Gold: The History of College of Wooster Athletics, 1870-1945.”

He is a strong advocate of a liberal arts education in the Wooster tradition, particularly in today’s employment culture. Investing in one set of job skills and pledging yourself to a corporate employer who values you only for one narrow ability is a no-win situation, says Arn. “There’s nothing lonelier than a physics student who is completely confined to physics.”

Although he is the consummate cheerleader, Arn can throw a dart or two with a steady hand. “At one time, we were pretty snooty here at Wooster.We thought we were something. An over-exaggerated ego is very dangerous.” Academic embellishment, says Arn, can only go so far. “Two and two makes four, without music.”

Putting Death into Perspective

Sixty years after he served in the war, Arn speaks out against armed conflict to anyone who will listen, as well as to those who won’t. Still a charmer, he apologizes for being pessimistic about his country’s future. Prodded to speculate about the possibility that humankind is evolving into more peaceful creatures, he is adamant. “ Why, no! It’s right under our noses.We’re killing. I don’t see any progress. I think we’re headed for another world war.

“We can invent the automobile, we can work marvels with TV, we have taken immense strides in all sorts of things, but we have yet to learn to sit down around the table and solve our problems peacefully.Why? Why do we have to kill one another to get something done?”

But if Arn is pessimistic about his country, as he nears the end of his life he seems lighthearted about his own place in the universe, say his children. “Death doesn’t scare him,” says Heidi. “Being in the war scared him. It puts death into perspective.”

Says Kit, “He told me he wasn’t afraid of the prospect of dying, just angry. And when I asked him why, he said because of all the things left to do. Thinking perhaps I could help out, I asked him, ‘ What things, Dad?’

“And he said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m angry because I’m not going to live long enough to know what those things are.’”

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