BC3 inaugurates 'Neu' president
BUTLER TWP— It wasn't all honor and praise for Butler County Community College President Nick Neupauer at his inauguration ceremony Friday. Some of it was hidden.
The man who hired Neupauer to be the college's dean of humanities, former President Fred Bartok, retold a story of a golf outing Bartok had to leave early. He assigned Neupauer to pick up his prize at the end of the day, and over a selection of putters and golf bags, Neupauer picked a blue plastic flying disc.
Neupauer's buddies chided him for the poor choice, Bartok said. So, the next day, when Neupauer went to Bartok's office to drop the gift off, he offered to make up the difference in prizes out of his own pocket.
That day, Bartok said, he fully realized Neupauer's integrity.
Bartok, who served as the college's sixth president from 1994 to 2002, returned to the college Friday to be one of many to welcome Neupauer as the college's eighth president in a formal inauguration ceremony.
Neupauer took the office Aug. 1 after he became the first college president to be named without an external search.
He was promoted to his new position after serving as the college's vice president for academic affairs.
About 400 people, including college trustees, students, alumni, faculty and staff, elected officials, a state Department of Education representative and 20 college and university representatives from around the state, gave Neupauer a standing ovation as he received the medallion of the presidency.
Former public relations student Maggie McClaine said Neupauer was the professor who wanted students to call him at home if there was ever a problem — as long as it wasn't during a Steelers football game.
Faculty member Chris Calhoun said Neupauer had inherited the blue-collar work ethic of his late father, Nick Sr., a steelworker.
Robert Smith, Slippery Rock University president, and Joseph Forrester, Community College of Beaver County president, told Neupauer his days will be filled with pressures of public scrutiny.
And Bartok gave Neupauer a little advice, handing him a wooden disc inscribed "Sometimes it's not what you decided, but rather that you made a decision at all."
