During chapel on November 1, Tad Evearitt, graphic designer for the Marketing and Communications department, received the Rudy and Collyn Schmidt Service Award for his service to the college. Several students flashed hall signs as Evearitt smiled for his presidential selfie.
“Covenant’s a much healthier place because of Tad’s years of faithful service here,” President Halvorson said.
Rudy and Collyn Schmidt moved to Lookout Mountain with the college in 1964. They helped found New City Fellowship in a YMCA on south Chattanooga’s Mitchell Street, where Evearitt attended as a young boy. At Covenant, they spent decades working often low-profile jobs that were vital to enriching the student experience and advancing the effectiveness of the college.
The award, named after the Schmidts, originated a few years ago, when the administration was searching for a way to honor exemplary employees who follow the Schmidts’ legacy in promoting Christ-like service. Since then, past winners have included head men’s soccer coach Scott Bosgraaf in 2018, campus architect David Northcutt in 2017, and Alumnus of the Year Bob Harbert in 2016.
“We wanted a way to recognize folks, and acknowledge their good service to the college, and naming an award after Rudy and Collyn Schmidt made a lot of sense,” said Halvorson.
When it’s time to choose candidates for the annual award, Halvorson says the entire staff of the college is included, as they are asked who has most exemplified these qualities.
Evearitt himself recalls “Aunt Collyn’s” generosity in frequently hosting students at her house, even in her old age. Having grown up here on Lookout Mountain, he has been involved with Covenant since his youth, with his father teaching in the Education Department.
After graduating from Covenant in 1998 with a major in Sociology and a minor in Biblical and Theological Studies, Evearitt now lives with his wife and four children near Cloudland Canyon State Park, where he can often be found outside with his family. He loves reading books and listening to podcasts, striving to constantly advance himself through his love of learning about a variety of subjects.
Evearitt will have worked for Covenant twenty years this January, during which President Halvorson says he has impacted every department on campus. Beginning in Technology Services, he honed his problem-solving skills and advanced into web development and electronic media.
Evearitt’s work consists of designing projects for multiple channels including email, print, apps, and web. While largely a student of typography and design principles, he analyzes the college’s marketing strategies and diagnoses various problems from his position in project management.
Evearitt says his former director and colleague Jen Allen, among others, was instrumental in his growth at Covenant College, and he accepts the award with humility in regards to both his coworkers and the Schmidts.
“I’m not in the same universe as these people,” he says of Rudy and Collyn Schmidt. “Where needed most, that’s where they were.”
Marketing and Communications Director John Horton, who arrived at Covenant two months ago, says Evearitt took the unique initiative of anticipating things before they happened. Before Horton moved to the area from Orlando, Evearitt was accommodating his arrival through email inquiries, the setting-up of his office, and the ordering of business materials.
“He personifies what Covenant College stands for,” Horton said, adding that he was not at all surprised when Evearitt won.
For Evearitt, the work he does is all about the meaning and vision of Covenant College, as he strives to explore and proclaim the preeminence of Christ in all things. One of his favorite quotes, by Abraham Kuyper, says, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”