Mike Jernigan spoke to students on topics of the Auburn Creed and its author George Petrie as part of the sixth annual This is Auburn Speaker Series on Friday afternoon at the Alumni Association Center.
After retiring from Auburn in 2004, Jernigan was named editor emeritus of Auburn Magazine the following year. He is currently a history instructor at Lee-Scott Academy and a freelance writer.
Jernigan is the author of “Auburn Man: The Life and times of George Petrie” and co-author of “After the Arena” with Pat Dye. Jernigan wrote the book as a way to spread more understanding of who George Petrie was and why the Auburn Creed is special.
“It’s hard to imagine today, with how large universities have become, that one man could have such a tremendous influence on an institution," Jernigan said. "[But] I think it can safely be said that Petrie shaped the modern Auburn University and he deserves credit for that."
Jernigan said he heard concern that people don't have much touch for with George Petrie. He said people hear the creed in all types of marketing ways but very few people are exposed to the man who wrote it.
Jernigan went through, line by line, of the creed to extrapolate on the meaning behind the creed. He referenced anecdotes of Petrie as he unfolded Petrie’s life story as it intertwined with the meaning behind the creed.
“Really the Auburn Creed was George Petrie’s personal life philosophy, it’s the way he lived his life during the career that spanned 53 years at Auburn,” Jernigan said. “He just basically wrote about the principles he lived by during those 53 years at Auburn."
Jernigan said the creed is from the heart because it is how he lived his life.
Jernigan’s talked tied in with the weekend as he was able to give an account of the first Auburn football game Petrie coached in February 1892 against Georgia, the team Auburn hosts in football this weekend.
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Jernigan discussed how Petrie brought the game of football to Auburn and the South as a whole after becoming enamored with the game when Woodrow Wilson introduced him to it at Johns Hopkins University.
Mark Wilson, director of the Caroline Marshall Draughn Center for the Arts and Humanities, introduced Jernigan at the event. The Center for the Arts and Humanities helped Jernigan re-publish his book after the copies were sold in 2007 when Jernigan had the book initially published.
“We wanted the rest of the Auburn Family and future people [to] have a chance to buy it," Wilson said. "You got to keep the story out there, if you don’t keep the stories out there, then they vanish into history."
Jernigan held a book signing after the lecture and talked one-on-one with anyone who had thoughts or questions.
“I think it was great," said Lucy LaMar, the office of communication and marketing. "I think everybody that was here was engaged and interested in learning more about George Petrie–learning more about the impact that he had on the university is important.”
Along with others, Logan Williams and Murphy Barswell, former students of Jernigan, were in attendance to see their instructor give the lecture.
“I thought it was interesting, he brought up a lot of things that I didn’t know about,” Williams said.
In addition to discussing the writing of the creed, Jernigan talked about the many accomplishments Petrie made which all played a role in how he wrote the creed.
Petrie was the first Alabamian to receive a doctoral degree, he assembled and coached Auburn’s first football team, chose orange and blue as the school’s colors, coached Auburn’s first baseball team, assured the success of liberal arts at Auburn and enrolled and taught Auburn’s first female students.
According to Jernigan, Petrie was so vital to the beginnings of liberal arts at Auburn that Alabama tried, without success, to steal Petrie away because Alabama did not want to expand out of agriculture and mechanical arts.
“I could have told another two hours of Petrie stories,” Jernigan said at the conclusion of the speech. “People tend to think that one person can’t have an impact, but nobody had more impact on Auburn than George Petrie. So, I think that if there’s one thing that people can learn from Petrie it’s that one person can make a difference."
The This is Auburn Speaker Series holds an event the Friday before every home game. Next week will be the last installment of this year’s series as the Iron Bowl falls the day after Thanksgiving.
Chris Heacox, executive director of Auburn University's performing arts center will be the speaker at next week's event.
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