William “Bill” Gossett, Omicron ’45 (Illinois) was honored this Veterans Day and received a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Lincoln College in his hometown of Lincoln, IL at the age of 97. Brother Gossett attended Lincoln College for his freshman year of college in 1941 and transferred to the University of Illinois the following year, living in the Omicron Chapter House. He remembers enlisting at the Armory Building across the street of the Omicron Chapter House in 1942 and the Captain telling him after he took the oath, “Well son, you’re ours now!”
Brother Gossett served in the Army Air Corps in the U.S. and Europe from 1943 to 1946, during the height of World War II. After returning home, Gossett took over the family business, Gossett’s Cleaners. He has been an active member of numerous civic organizations including the Abraham Lincoln Hospital Association, American Legion, Knight’s Templar, Lincoln Rotary, Lincoln Toastmasters Club, Lincoln-Logan County Chamber of Commerce, Masons, Oasis Senior Center, Salvation Army, and the Union Cemetery Association. He joined the Lincoln College Board of Trustees in 1998 and served as a member of the Board for 15 years. Upon his retirement from the Board, Gossett was elected as Trustee Emeritus in 2013.
Brother Gossett gives a piece of advice to all his brothers, a lesson he learned from his father, “Don’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands – throw something back!”
