Students honor Hibbards with floral offering

Silliman University Elementary School (SUES) led the commemoration of the University’s humble beginnings and the selfless service and dedication of Dr. David and Mrs. Laura Hibbard through a floral offering at Dr. Hibbard’s statue on Aug 10.

The annual floral offering rites, which was first done in 2016, is a tribute to the Hibbards for setting up Silliman Institute that has grown to what is now Silliman University. The rites are done every 10th of August, the anniversary of Dr. David and Mrs. Laura Hibbard’s arrival in Dumaguete City.

The husband-and-wife team opened Silliman Institute on Aug 28, 1901 with 15 boys as the first students. David was the president, and his wife Laura the lone faculty.

One activity at the floral offering this year was the reenactment of the life of Dr. David and Mrs. Laura Hibbard by the SUES Dramatics Club. University President Dr. Betty Cernol-McCann told the children the story about the Hibbards and how they started the school, the philanthropist Horace B. Silliman and the Presbyterian Mission, and how the school came to be set up in Dumaguete. She said the Hibbards were looking for a place to set up a school for boys in southern Philippines. They were just invited to make a side trip from Cebu to Dumaguete. But during that side trip Dr. Hibbard decided to establish the school there “because of the beauty of the place and the friendliness of the people.”

Other SU administrators who attended the event were Vice President for Finance and Administration Dr. Jenny Chiu, Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Earl Jude Cleope, and Vice President for Development Prof. Jane Annette Belarmino, along with a number of students, faculty, and staff.