Skip and Carole Coulter: Partners for Life
Published: April 13, 2021
In honor of Valentine's Day, we asked several alumni sweethearts to share their stories. Skip Coulter '67 tells how and he and his wife, Carole (Welch '67), met at Greenville College. Skip and Carole were paired as debate partners and later named their son after Dr. Brock Brentliger, their former debate coach and speech professor.
Skip's Story: Carole and I met at Greenville College when we were paired as debate partners. When we met, we resolved that wed just be doing debate team work together, but the debate work evolved into dating pretty quickly.
Dick Huseman 51, who was the assistant coach of the Greenville College debate team and a graduate student at the University of Illinois at the time, paired Carole and me as partners. I was from Alliance, OH, and Carole was from Urbana, IL. It was a real privilege to be partnered with this bright girl from Urbana. While I was the more experienced debater, Carole, who had no debate experience, soon caught up and became, in my mind, the stronger half.
I remember competing against a debate team from Michigan State University that was also dating. The first thing the judge said while critiquing the debate was that it was a good thing the girls were debating well for each school, because the men had little or no effect on the decision!
Being on the debate team was one of the most rewarding parts of college. Dr. Brock Brentlinger was our debate coach. In addition to being a fine debate coach and speech professor, he was also an administrator by the time Carole and I attended Greenville College. He was one of those professors who remains just as compelling in memory as he was in person. His personal interest in each student, his high standard for class work, and his wit are all things that stand out as we think about him.
He was also one of the best chapel speakers. His address to the student body, entitled For Whom the Bell Tolls, is still one of the best speeches either of us has ever heard. When our son was born in 1975, we named him Benjamin Brock in honor of our former debate coach and professor. Years later, we had a chance to visit Dr. and Mrs. Brentlinger in Texas, where they were living at the time.
Carole and I graduated and married in 1967. Since then, we have both worked as classroom teachers. Carole taught English and served as a school counselor, while I taught debate and speech at the junior high level for twenty years and at the college level for twenty years. It was a blessing to be put together as debate partners, and after 44 years of marriage were still a team.
Our three children are grown and our six grandchildren are, of course, just incredible delights. Carole and I thoroughly enjoy continuing to team together to teach children at church and facilitate a couple Bible studies. The Birmingham News recently featured our family for having seven debate coaches in the family tree, beginning with my mother Fern (Goshen 38) Coulter, also a Greenville College graduate.
