Caps Off to the

Dr. Colvin Atchison, Ed.S. '23, graduated from Cumberlands almost exactly 60 years after his parents met right here on campus. Here is their story, in Colvin's words.

I’m not a gambling man, but I’d be willing to bet my house that neither my father, James Samual Atchison, nor my mother, Charlotte Anne Kemper, knew when they left their homes in 1960 and 1961 to attend Cumberland College how much that decision would change their lives forever.

Dad was a big-city boy, hailing from Media, a town on the southern outskirts of Philadelphia. Mom was a small-town country girl who grew up in the tiny, dying railroad town of Worthville, Kentucky. Both attended Cumberland College for different reasons. Mom’s strict Baptist mother felt that Cumberlands would be a safe and nurturing place for her only daughter, and Dad had an uncle who worked in the forest service and lived near Williamsburg, so he was guaranteed room and board, plus a summer job working in the National Forest with his uncle Walt. Dad was a journalism major, and Mom had dreams of becoming a teacher.

Dad’s claim to fame was that he had once been on American Bandstand, Dick Clark’s teenage dance show that originated in Philadelphia. Mom was instantly starstruck by his tales of big-city life and of him seeing Bill Haley and His Comets perform “Rock around the Clock” at his high school.

The two fell in love, so in love that they traded their college dreams for a family and a life together, and in August of 1963 were married in Philadelphia. Mom had arrived by train a few days earlier and had never traveled that far from home in her young life.

Mom and Dad built a good life together. They settled down in New Liberty, Kentucky, a tiny crossroads town even smaller than Mom’s hometown, and in June of 1964 I was born. To my dad, a young man who had grown up with skyscrapers and commuter trains in his backyard, rural life in Kentucky must have seemed like a different planet. They had two more children together, and Dad went back to school, trading his journalism studies for a degree in criminal justice, and spent 30 years working for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. Mom worked in the local school system, subbing and working with some of the hardest-to-reach students.

This May, in 2023, 60 years after Mom and Dad met at the Wigwam on Cumberland College’s campus, I graduated from University of The Cumberlands with an Ed.S. and am moving right into the Ed.D. program. Dad passed away from cancer last September, but he was thrilled that I had chosen Cumberlands for my advanced degree studies. As I reflect on their story, I realize that I owe my very existence to Cumberlands. As I graduated this May, I couldn’t help but think back on that young couple meeting and falling in love at that special place on the Cumberland River – and now I’m here, finishing (in a sense) what they started. Life has a way of coming full circle.

As Skyler Jones, ’23, puts it, “Actors are always playing. They’re always in a state of play. Directing, then, could best be defined as setting the boundaries and expectations for play. What you're doing is, you're taking the world that's been given to you on paper, making your interpretation of it, and then helping guide the actors in the direction of your interpretation of that world, that experience.”

Well. It’s easy to tell this isn’t Skyler’s first rodeo. Or, rather, his first theatrical performance. It isn’t his fifth or even his tenth, either; he’s been on stage since he can remember, doing everything from brief, silly skits at Boy Scout camps to serious, full-length productions.

“I just get up on the stage. I’m so used to it,” he said. “This is my safe space. This is where I feel the most relaxed and myself.”

Everywhere Skyler has lived – Michigan, where he was born, Corbin, where he lives now, and several places in between – have brought him opportunities to be on stage, and he has grabbed (almost) every opportunity by the hilt and charged ahead. The only time he put a pause on his theatre endeavors was during his freshman and sophomore years at Cumberlands, when he focused hard on his biology major with ideas of becoming a doctor. Admittedly, he isn’t sure what he was thinking at that point. He “took the plunge” his junior year and changed his major to public health, minoring in theatre arts. In fall 2022, Skyler took on a new challenge: directing a one-act play, One Lane Bridge. He leveled up the challenge this spring by co-directing a full-length play entitled Almost, Maine. In between it all, he somehow found ways to complete his