ALLEGANY, N.Y. — As the student speaker at the 158th annual commencement exercises May 13 at St. Bonaventure University, Ethan Kibbe plans to talk about how the Bonaventure experience is a family affair.
For Kibbe, a journalism and mass communication graduate from Harrison Valley, Pa., “family” has a double meaning.
His mother, Kathryn Hamilton Kibbe, is a member of the Class of 1979. His brother, Steven, graduated from St. Bonaventure in 2015, and his sister, Amelia, graduated last year. And when Ethan arrived on campus as a freshman four years ago, one of his classmates was his twin sister, Ellen.
“Freshman year, there were four of us running around campus,” said Ethan. “And it was great. I could do what I wanted, provided my siblings approved. I could go to parties on the weekends, as long as I didn’t mind my sisters being there, and I could establish myself on the cross country team — I just had to check with the captain, my brother, first.”
All kidding aside, said Kibbe, he came to St. Bonaventure to be with his family, and now leaves it as a member of the extended Bonaventure family, one he cherishes as much as his own.
What’s a Bonnie?
Bonnies, said Kibbe, are the kind of people who hold doors for everyone, who say “Hi” simply because you’re wearing the same school colors and who raise $50,000 “in the blink of an eye” to send students they have never met to NCAA Tournament games, a reference to the university’s alumni raising funds virtually overnight to send students to games in Dayton, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, in March.
Kibbe said he will remind his classmates that while they come from different families, they leave campus “with the same color blood coursing through their veins: brown and white.”
Kibbe has had an outstanding career as a student journalist while attending St. Bonaventure. He began writing for The Bona Venture student newspaper as a freshman and worked his way up to sports editor before shifting into broadcast journalism as a reporter, anchor and producer for weekly newscasts with SBU-TV. He has also been involved with sports television production, serving as a play-by-play announcer and producer for Bonaventure sports telecasts.
In the summer of 2017 he served as an intern at SiriusXM NBA Radio in New York City, working as an assistant producer and board operator for “The Starting Lineup” morning show with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine.
Kibbe was one of five students selected from candidates nationwide for a 2017 Jim Murray Memorial Foundation Scholarship, a sports writing contest based on the strength of student essays. His sister Amelia won a Murray Scholarship the year before, the first time siblings have won the award.
Ethan, whose essay won the Judges’ Choice Award, wrote about Paul Wieland, a 1959 St. Bonaventure graduate who worked for The Buffalo News, General Motors and the Buffalo Sabres before returning to his alma mater to teach budding journalists and broadcasters. Wieland retired in 2017 after a 15-year career as a faculty member in St. Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communication.
Kibbe said he regards the former instructor as not only a mentor, but “my favorite professor and one of my best friends,” noting it was Wieland who taught him that while graduates of St. Bonaventure may travel the world over, in their minds they never leave the place.
Wieland, in turn, called Kibbe “my favorite student among all the wonderful young men and women I taught over my years at Bona’s. And that’s saying something, as there were some terrific people. Ethan brings a sharp mind and a big heart that reflects everything Franciscan. He is thoughtful, focused and funny; and every day he metaphorically and patiently runs toward the goal of making this a better world.”
Dr. Pauline Hoffmann, former dean of the Jandoli School, called Kibbe “one of the best and brightest students” in the school.
Kibbe, a son of Len and Kathryn Kibbe, was a member of the university’s cross country team for four years, serving as captain the last three years. He also served in leadership roles with the campus chapter of the Knights of Columbus.
A summa cum laude graduate, Kibbe has accepted a job as a producer at Spectrum News in Buffalo.
St. Bonaventure University’s Commencement Exercises will be held at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, May 13, in the university’s Reilly Center Arena. For a Commencement Weekend schedule of events, go to www.sbu.edu/commencement.
Commencement will be live-streamed on the university’s UStream channel, which may be accessed via this web address: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/st-bonaventure-university-live-stream.
