Four years ago, Lime 4 Lyfe began a friendship that is still going strong today.
Like other Taylor students, the Foundations of Christian Liberal Arts “Lime 4” Precept group classmates met one another during Welcome Weekend their freshman year, and they spent their first semester at Taylor learning the ropes in the Preceptorial section of the class.
Today, about half of the original group members, including Hasi Ehlers, Ethan Cutshaw, Isaac Rex, Isaac Elkin, Mya Miller, Kenzie Miner, Olivia Nairn and Alexa Twiggs, still meet for weekly dinners.
Isaac Rex, an intercultural studies major, said that when people bash the Foundations class, he can’t relate.
His great experience with his preceptorial group began freshman year under the leadership of their Precept Leaders, Ali Kirk and Jake King, who fostered an environment where the then-freshmen got to know and interact with one another.
The classmates became close starting in the fall of 2022, when they would get lunch after class on Thursdays, social work major Hasi Ehlers said.
“The semester after that, a group of us were like, ‘We still want to hang out and be friends,’ so we started doing dinners,” Ehlers said.
After finding new times that worked each semester, Ehlers said the group added other events outside of dinner.
Ehlers said that some of the group’s traditions include going to Casa Grande the week that three of the students celebrate their birthdays and going to Cracker Barrel during finals week.
A favorite of both Rex’s and Ehlers’ is seeing the Gas City Lights at Christmastime, which Lime 4 Lyfe has seen together every year.
“A lot of people think that you hang out with people who are like you, and like, that’s your people,” Ehlers said. “But this group, we are so different, but we're such good friends. So it's like, you don't always have to join people who are similar to you. You can be friends, good friends, with people who are different.”
Social work major Ethan Cutshaw said that the group comes from totally different places, representing different residence halls and all of campus.
Even though he was involved in residence life on his floor, Sigma Beta (Second Bergwall Hall), his first two years at Taylor, Cutshaw got to know people and their traditions across campus through Lime 4 Lyfe. Some of his friendships off his wing were even introduced to him by Lime 4 Lyfe members.
“It's so special because it's a very odd group of people, that if people were to see us walking around, they'd be like, How in the world do any of these people know each other?” Cutshaw said.
Some of Cutshaw’s favorite memories are game nights, karaoke nights, Valentine's Day Dairy Queen runs, and again, seeing the Gas City Lights at Christmastime, he said.
More special, though, is that Cutshaw and his fiancée, Olivia Nairn, met through their Precept group and are getting married this June.
Ehlers said that all eight students even made it into town this summer for Olivia and Ethan’s engagement party, and one student even flew in!
Cutshaw said that for the annual Gas City Lights trip, “My fiancée and I bake a cake. And usually, for some reason, one of the people in our Precept group is leaving to go on a semester-abroad trip. So we usually use the Gas City Light Show like a going-away party for one of our members as well. And those are always special.”
As the Lime 4 Lyfe prepares for graduation this May, they celebrate a unique experience from other students.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people at Taylor, and none of them really even remember the people in their precept group,” Cutshaw said. “It's really cool to have a group of people who are sort of from everywhere that I genuinely know will always have my back, and they've just always been there through the first day of college to the end.”
