Sam Peppers head shot

Samuel Peppers ’25

INVOCATION SPEAKER: Samuel Peppers ’25 is a political science major and religious studies minor from Roanoke, Virginia. While at the College, he has been on the board of multiple clubs, including serving as president of Model UN, and holding positions in the Jewish Student Organization, and the Slavic, Eastern European, and Central Asian Culture Club. He pursued interests in music, religious studies, and Middle Eastern politic, and economic sanctions have been a focal point of his studies. His Independent Study focused on authoritarian governments’ responses to sanctions. After graduation, he will be moving to Washington, D.C. 

Rev. Matthew Davis head shot

Rev. Matthew E. Davis

BENEDICTION SPEAKER: A parent to Wooster students in the classes of 2024 and 2025, Rev. Matthew Davis is pastor at Mendocino Presbyterian Church, a historic carpenter gothic style church serving its community in Northern California since the 1850s. Leading the congregation for the last ten years, Rev. Davis has built upon a traditional worship with a leadership development approach focused on “giving thanks” and “blessing.”

He sees ministry as an invitation to build community, sharing one’s gifts exploring God’s world and making a difference, whether by hiking the Grand Canyon with students “Looking at Life with God from the Top-Down and the Bottom-Up” or confronting the devastating wildfires in California by developing a herd of 80 goats and sheep called “Holy Goats: Your Fire Prevention Angels.” When band was cut at the local public school because of lack of funding, he introduced a classical guitar program that has enabled over 400 students to learn how to read music and play music at a high level.

Davis earned his master’s degree in divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1997 and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in anthropology and religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis in 1993. His son Hudson Davis ’24 majored in geology at Wooster, and Drew Skylar Davis ’25 is a communications studies major with a minor in environmental studies.