Groom Offers Wedding Song on Graduation Day
Student Senate President Josh Cole celebrated his graduation from BVU in a unique way. While Commencement was rescheduled to October, he commemorated the day with his marriage to Emily Beck.
Buena Vista University senior Josh Cole was supposed to give a Commencement address on Saturday, May 23, date of BVU’s originally scheduled 129th Commencement.
Cole performed that day, but it wasn’t for graduates. Rather, it was to celebrate his wedding. He played the piano and sang to his bride, Emily Beck, in a double-ring ceremony hosted by Cole’s parents, Richard and Cheryl Cole, in their backyard in Saint Hedwig, Texas.
“Our wedding was scheduled for June 6, two weeks after BVU’s graduation,” says Cole, who was named BVU Senior of the Year one day earlier. “But when COVID-19 pushed Commencement back to October, Emily and I figured we might as well move our wedding date up. We couldn’t have many guests beyond family, anyway. So, we got married in my parents’ back yard. It was a beautiful day.”
“The faculty and staff pushed me along to reach some goals I’d never even thought about. It was awesome to be surrounded by people who believed in me.”
Josh Cole
Fellow BVU Senior of the Year nominees Joe and Lincoln Rock were among those who made the trip from Northwest Iowa to Texas for the wedding.
The Coles now head west to begin work in New Mexico as Josh has been accepted in the U.S. Air Force’s prestigious training program, COPPER CAP. The son of a career Air Force officer, Cole was accepted as one of 70 to 80 civilians in the program, which has him starting his work at Cannon Air Force Base on July 6, first step in the process to make him a contracting specialist.
“I’m an Air Force kid,” he says. “I knew the Air Force would represent a great career in which you could raise a family. I couldn’t be more excited.”
Josh Cole, one of BVU’s first basketball recruits from Alaska, says the instruction and encouragement he received from professors, staff members, and peers at BVU has him ready for life’s next steps.
“I’d never been to Iowa or the Midwest when I came to BVU, interested in playing basketball,” he says. “I visited the University originally for basketball, but I liked the professors immediately and was able to take advantage of all kinds of academic and extracurricular opportunities.”
Cole was a music leader in campus ministry. He served as parliamentarian, then president of the BVU Student Senate, and took part in the BVU Honors Program. He traveled to Orlando, Flor., with Student Senate, and completed internship experiences in Phoenix and San Antonio.
“I never thought I’d be Student Senate president,” says Cole, who double-majored in business with a concentration in sport business and human performance. “The faculty and staff pushed me along to reach some goals I’d never even thought about. It was awesome to be surrounded by people who believed in me.”
Cole hopes to return on Oct. 11 to deliver his Commencement address in person as BVU celebrates the graduation rite on the day following its 2020 Homecoming celebration. He plans to don his BVU graduation robe and mortarboard for the second time this year on that day. And, he’ll bring a special guest along to introduce to his peers in the Class of 2020.
“Emily would love to see our campus,” the new groom says of his wife. “She’s anxious to see a place that means so much to me.”