LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) — At the memorial service for Charlie Kirk on September 21st, Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry P. Arnn stepped to the podium as a schoolmaster remembering one of his most unusual pupils.

Arnn recalled first meeting Kirk when he was barely 19 but already attracting national attention. True to form, the professor in him began asking questions Kirk couldn’t answer. “What should I do?” Kirk finally asked.

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“You have to suffer,” Arnn told him. “If you want to grow, you have to suffer. It’s hard to learn. Into the night, crack of dawn in the morning. Start with the Bible. Read the classics. Study the founding of America.”

Within a month, Kirk had tracked down Arnn’s cell phone number and sent him proof that he’d completed a Hillsdale online course. He did the same 31 more times, according to Arnn.

Arnn said he keeps a mental list of the brightest young people he’s met —“the best I ever saw”— and though Kirk was never a full-time student at Hillsdale, he earned a place on it.

“An assassin must give up his humanity to destroy something that has being. Charlie lives on. The assassin will die,” Arnn told the hushed Arizona crowd, drawing applause.

Arnn and his wife have since established a scholarship for Kirk’s children, and he announced that Hillsdale will award Kirk an honorary degree next May. 

“Charlie has suffered enough,” Arnn said. “He’s gone to the Lord. He deserves his reward.”

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