Faculty find passion in reenactments
There are more than 50 years of Civil War reenactment experience on the Waynesburg University campus.
One the most proud Civil War reenactors is Rea Redd, director of the Eberly Library.
Since early childhood, Redd has had a fascination with one of the most troubled parts of American history, buying Times magazine’s six-part series on the 100th anniversary of the Civil war in 1961.
Redd’s father, a dairy farmer, came home one day with the magazine. Every night his mother read him the issues. After that, Redd was hooked, and he targeted the books in his senior high school.
“My brothers and sister are going to the library from in the senior high bring books back,” said Redd. “I am just devouring it, something happened, it’s the life I want to live.”
It wouldn’t be until 1993 that Redd would take part in his first reenactment, and since then he has been a member of the Union Army, Confederate Army, had small roles in films about the Civil War, takes part every year in the reenactment of the Gettysburg address in Gettysburg and has portrayed Abraham Lincoln.
Redd isn’t the only member of Waynesburg University to take part in reenactments. Lecturer of communication Doug Wilson started reenactments in 1994. Wilson’s interest for the Civil War also started at a young age.
“I had a wonderful fifth grade teacher, Richard Gene Rubio, and he put a very heavy emphasis on American history,” said Wilson, “but a very, very heavy emphasis on the American Civil War.”
Professor Bill Parker reached out to Wilson, a graduate of then-Waynesburg College, and pitched the idea of taking part in the Civil War reenactments. The original talks were to join a group, but the two decided to start their own group.
“For us, it was trial and error. We decided to form the group as closely mirroring how a real war unit would have formed,” said Wilson. “The unit we recreated was the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers Company A.”
What Wilson did not know was that the unit others and he recreated mirrored the same unit that was started in the 1860’s on Waynesburg College’s campus.
Although Redd and Wilson are the most experienced reenactors, more recent reenactors like Richard Krause, chair of the Department of Communication, started in 2012, but has been a fan of the Civil War since sixth grade.
On a trip to Gettysburg, Krause’s son gained interest after he took him to Gettysburg for his sixth grade elementary school graduation gift.
“We went out there, and he was more engrossed with it and more fascinated with it than I was at that age,” said Krause. “We cultivated that interest together, not long there after we connected with a reenactment group.”
Krause used a mutual interest that he and his son have to build memories over the years.
“It was an opportunity to spend time with my son,” said Krause.
Redd used the same opportunities to continue to follow his dreams.
“I met the story and the story consumed me,” said Redd. “It’s like I am doing all these things, how did I get here? And you just follow your dreams.”
For Redd, he continues to follow his dreams and remembers where they started, on the pages of his 1961 TIME magazine.