WINGS troupe disbanded
by Joshua Snow

After nearly 15 years as an active and successful program on campus, WINGS, Virginia Wesleyan’s Christian performing arts troupe, has been disbanded due to budgetary concerns and other issues.

From the time of its inception, WINGS played a strong role within both the Religious Life program here on campus as well as in the community at large. They journeyed out to local churches on Sunday evenings with the purpose of spreading the Christian gospel through the performing arts of drama and music.

They also worked as a unique outreach program that got prospective students to take notice of Wesleyan. One of those prospective students attracted to the school by WINGS was freshman Sarah McQueen.

“WINGS was one of the reasons I chose to attend VWC,” McQueen said. “I am going into Christian Service and was looking forward to working with WINGS to develop the skills needed to lead Christian outreach programs into the community through the arts.”

WINGS was inspired years ago when the late Rev. Dick Waters came to Virginia Wesleyan’s campus with the drama group he had created, the Fisherman’s Players. A number of Wesleyan’s students took part in the group until a similar ensemble, WINGS, was created.

Approximately four years ago Mark Eulo came on board as the music director and co-ordinator for the WINGS program.

“When I got there the program was floundering,” said Eulo. “In fact that’s why Scott Davis, the former chaplain, hired me.”

Over the course of Eulo’s involvement with WINGS, the program continued to evolve and grow.

“We had all the gigs we could get and fit in reasonably,” Eulo said in reference to the demand for their mission.

All of that came to a halt when WINGS’ funding was cut from the Religious Life budget for the Fall 1998 academic year.

When asked for what reasons WINGS was cut from the total programming budget, Chaplain Bob Chapman pointed out that although WINGS was probably the most popular program cut, it was by no means the only program that was now defunct. According to Chapman, balancing a budget “is like a puzzle, all the pieces have to fit.”

When asked if there were any further reasons as to why WINGS was canceled, such as failing participation or anything similar to that, he said no. Chapman explained that despite the severe budget cuts of the summer of 1997, they were able to keep WINGS active last year, but the present monetary situation and subsequent strain had been too much for their budget to allow.

Eulo, on the other hand, had a very different take as to why WINGS had been disbanded. He relates that while he was in the Chaplain’s office in July working on WINGS-related business, the Chaplain had called him into his office and told him that they would not be renewing his contract in the coming year.

“When I asked him why my contract wasn’t being renewed, he responded that on a lesser scale it was due to budgetary concerns, but more important than that he had ‘heard things,’” Eulo said. “When I pressed him about what he had heard, he just told me, ‘I don’t have to tell you that.’ I thought about taking the issue further, but I thought that would come to no avail.”

Whether or not WINGS was disbanded due to monetary concerns or “other things,” the fact remains that there are a number of students upset about the decision.

“I was very sad and disappointed when I found out about WINGS, because I was looking forward to being a part of it my final year,” said senior Deborah Williams.

“I was disappointed as well, because it was something that I really put a lot of time and faith into and I really believed in our mission which was to bring our love of God to people outside of our school through drama,” junior Heather Hanson added.

“God moves in mysterious ways and maybe that is why WINGS isn’t on campus right now,” Williams pointed out.

As it stands now, there are no plans for another Christian performing arts troupe, however, there could be another program similar to WINGS in the future.