HoCo Event Preview 3: Memories On The Hill

You won’t get lost in Cheryl’s labyrinth—but who knows, you might just find something there!

Sitting in the soothing autumn pine tree shade at the centroid of the Cheville Chapel‒Fitzgerald Fitness Center‒Tess Morgan Hall triangle, her labyrinth marks a still greatly undiscovered spot on the Lamoni campus map.

The new landmark will be officially introduced at one of several dedication ceremonies that take place during Homecoming: on Saturday, October 4, at 11:00 a.m.

Nicknamed “Pebbles” by her friends, Cheryl Ann Edwards McCullagh graduated with a degree in English Literature from what was then Graceland College in 1967. Cheryl was known for her refreshing self-deprecating humor, her advocacy of the voiceless, her compassion and understanding.

Not long after her passing in 2015, the McCullagh family began the process of creating a memorial to Cheryl, which led to the labyrinth path. It was placed in the sacred space of her home congregation, the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Community of Christ in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A perfect spot, as fellow congregation member Julie Parrott points out.

Until the congregation faced the unforeseen difficult decision to sell off land, and the labyrinth meandered toward an uncertain future. “Cheryl was our sister and dear friend and we loved her so much,” Julie recounts. “So we were determined that the labyrinth survive and be preserved; we just didn’t know how…when one day at a congregation meeting, someone mused, ‘Well, what about Graceland?” A formative place that Cheryl had never stopped thinking and talking about.

Julie immediately took the initiative to make it happen. She reached out to Cheryl’s son James McCullagh. Touched by the congregation’s consideration for the labyrinth and the commitment to maintain the memory of his mother, he gave Julie his blessing and trust to go ahead with the idea.

Julie connected with Mike Hoffman, Graceland Campus Minister and Director of Spiritual and Religious Life—and as it goes with Cheryl’s labyrinth, one step led to another, and Julie and several Gracelanders really did make it happen. Just before winter rolled in to Cedar Falls last year, a landscape architect and his team took great care in disassembling and storing the labyrinth. When summer rolled in to Iowa this year, it was transported to Lamoni and newly installed on our campus grounds.

Julie Parrott hopes that the labyrinth will be a blessing to the campus community, and extend to every visitor the gift of the cherished lifelong friendships that Cheryl found at Graceland.