Will Lane

Lecturer of English

Class of 1982

Will Lane grew up at Gettysburg College. His parents, both photographers, had regular assignments on campus, everything from taking traditional senior year pictures to snapping famous dignitaries.

"I remember hanging out at the barracks for returning soldier-students that stood at the site of the present College Union Building. My favorite activity, however, was swinging on the ropes in Plank Gym. My buddies and I would sneak in and lower them down from the girders, then scramble up to the top row of the bleachers, fat rope in one hand, and cut loose from the wooden bleacher, gliding right across that shining wooden floor."

It wasn't long, however, before Lane was also "working" for the College, called on by his parents to take campus pictures when they were busy.

"I had been working as a carpenter and building contractor, but was also beginning to write poetry and had always had a hankering to read classical Greek. Suddenly in the late ¿70s the College offered classes at half price to non-traditional students. Who could resist?"

"I had the same professor for all my Greek language classes: Mr. Robert Held. These classes were one-on-one...Mr. Held sat at one end of the table-Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand, lit cigarette in the other-and I sat at the other end with my dictionary, grammar, text and notes spread out in from of me. It took at least three hours to prepare for each class!"

Karl Mattson (l) and President Charles Glassick (center) visit Nicaragua. Photo by Will Lane.

"After graduation I went to Nicaragua. I was interested in the social experiment being carried out by the Sandanistas, revolutionaries who had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. Upon my return, I gave presentations in church basements around town and at the College. Karl Mattson and others soon traveled to Nicaragua as well, and through their efforts came Project Gettysburg-Leon, the sister city project between our two towns that continues to this day."