Dear  John,

The Kirk Center has been blessed with stable leadership since its formation in 1995. Last year, however, we lost our founding chairman, former State Senator Joanne Emmons. Over the past few months, we have been privileged to elect several distinguished leaders to increase its ranks and help advance its mission.

Hailing from the worlds of education, letters, business, and public affairs, they are all committed to the legacy of Russell Kirk and the Permanent Things he championed. With the exception of one, each knew Russell Kirk personally. All uphold his legacy. Along with the Center’s long-serving treasurer, Kevin P. Shields, and current board colleagues David E. Khorey, Dr. Benjamin Lockerd, and Justice Stephen Markman, they will help me sharpen and expand much-needed programs to educate students about conservative beliefs and practices. 

We begin with our new chairman, but the list is in alphabetical order as it is. 

T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., Chairman. Ken was longtime president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is a counselor and board member of the Federalist Society and a board member of Young America’s Foundation. He worked at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration for its full eight years, including for Attorney General Meese and as President Reagan’s top advisor on domestic affairs. A longtime friend of the Kirks, Ken once joined Russell and Annette Kirk on a trip to Scotland. 

Hon. John Engler, Member. John served Michigan as governor for three terms and has been throughout his life of service one of the most influential of political figures. He is considered the last of the great conservative governors in Michigan and a great success story in modern American politics. He began political life in nearby Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, and was state representative and senator for the Kirks. His friendship with the family has spanned the entirety of his political life. He helped the Kirk Center in its early days by serving as a director for its partner philanthropy, The Marguerite Eyer Wilbur Foundation. He currently serves on the board of Fidelity and other organizations.  

Roger Kimball, Member. Roger is one of the preeminent public intellectuals of our time. He is the distinguished editor of The New Criterion and publisher of the indispensable Encounter Books. He is an influential art critic, cultural diagnostician, and conservative thinker and social commentator. In 2019, he edited a special section in The New Criterion considering Russell Kirk at 100. Recently, a paperback edition of his book, The Fortunes of Permanence, was released with a new preface that engages the living legacy of Kirk’s thought. 

Michael Maibach, Member. Michael is a successful business professional who has dedicated his life to better educating American youth in the bedrock principles of our nation and those enduring Permanent Things. He is a Distinguished Fellow for Save Our States where he manages outreach to academics, policy groups, and allied organizations. He is a seasoned professional in global business diplomacy and civic engagement, and serves on various non-profit boards such as the Witherspoon Institute and the James Wilson Institute. From 2003 to 2012 Michael was President of the European-American Business Council. In 1983 he established the Intel Corporation's Government Affairs Department. At Intel he built a global team of more than 150 professionals during his 18 years at the company and became Intel’s first Vice President of Global Government Affairs. Michael enjoyed several encounters with Russell Kirk in the 1980s and 90s, conversations that he until this day fondly remembers.

In my last e-letter, I announced our new Writing and the Moral Imagination workshop and conference program. The response to that initiative has been terrific! In that note, I mentioned in passing something I want to take more time to highlight now. I am delighted to announce the appointment of the Russell Kirk Center’s first Distinguished Teaching Fellow, Dr. David Hein. 

David is senior fellow at the George C. Marshall Foundation (VA). He is also a trustee of Saint James School (Hagerstown, MD) and a former trustee of his alma mater, St. Paul’s School (Brooklandville, MD). He has served as a boarding-school master in Virginia and a college professor in Maryland. In 2011 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK). He earned his doctoral and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Virginia, and his master’s degree from the University of Chicago.

His publications include 10 books and more than 75 articles in journals, including the New Criterion, Modern Age, the Journal of Military History, ARMY magazine, the Intercollegiate Review, the Mississippi Quarterly, and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Stay tuned for his writing in the University Bookman, too, beginning in April. 

David is a true man of letters with a capacious conservative mind. It is a privilege to have him serve as our first Distinguished Teaching Fellow.

We will have more news about our senior fellows program, board of trustees, and other developments throughout the year. For now, the entire Kirk Center community is grateful to its new stewards for taking on this responsibility. Each of our Kirk Center trustees and fellows will do much to ensure that together we, echoing Roger Kimball’s phrase, shore up the fortunes of permanence.

Best regards,