In these times we live in, perhaps more than in previous times, the need to join wills and efforts to cooperate in the search for the good of all and the improvement of society is evident. This is valid at the level of staff and it is also, of course, valid for institutions. It implies postponing one's own interests and valuing general interests, having a broad vision and a generous spirit, discovering the beauty and joy of service and solidarity. The University of Navarra found these qualities in Félix Huarte and Miguel Javier Urmeneta.

Ismael Sánchez Bella arrived in Pamplona in 1952 to undertake a great project project educational , a university, which St. Josemaría Escrivá had been cultivating in his heart for a long time. He lacked the material resources to start it up, but he counted on God's financial aid and on the fact that there would be people with big hearts and far-sightedness, capable of sensing the abundance of fruits that a university institution, longed for in this land for many years, could bring to Navarre. And he found them, in fact, among other places, in the Provincial Council and in the City Council.

After a few years in which the Provincial Council, presided over by Don Miguel Gortari, provided provisional premises for the beginnings, it became necessary to have land for the definitive location of the University. At that time, Miguel Javier Urmeneta was Mayor, who immediately understood the assets that Pamplona would obtain with his development.

One afternoon at the end of 1959, Miguel Javier himself picked Ismael up to show him two possible sites on the outskirts of the city: the end of the Sarriguren Road and the one that was finally preferred, in the Sadar valley, near the School of Medicine under construction, the Civil Hospital and the land acquired by the University to build the Clinic.

The two friends would let their imagination fly towards the current reality: a University where today some 4,000 people work, where tens of thousands of Navarrese have studied at programs of study and where hundreds of thousands have received medical training at attendance . An institution that has carried the name of Navarre around the world, that today sounds with respect in many different academic forums and is carried with healthy pride by a multitude of professionals. Urmeneta worked hard for the land to be assigned to the University and for the Municipality to cede thirteen hectares free of charge for the construction of the first facilities.

For my part, I had the opportunity to deal personally with Félix Huarte since 1966 when I started my work in the Office of the Executive Council. It had been a couple of years since he had been president of the Provincial Council and Miguel Javier was also there, together with him, identified with his great projects of development of Navarra and effective partner to make them come true. Others are more appropriate than me to ponder his great qualities as a businessman and as a determined promoter of the Program for the Industrial Promotion of Navarre. This Program, half a century ago, meant a lot for the evolution partner-economic and modernization of the Old Kingdom.

I only want to testify that his enthusiastic love and his submission for Navarra overflowed from his great heart at all times, and that he was a living example of magnanimity. At the same time he perceived with lucidity the importance of Education for society. He used to say that life was his school, that he had started working at a very young age, with no time to obtain higher degrees. Perhaps for this very reason he was convinced that progress should not be based only on industry, but should be accompanied by Education at all levels.

From the Diputación he supported many educational institutions, including the University of Navarra, continuing what had been done since its beginnings, also with its patrimony staff.

I am moved now to remember that in that distant 1966 he financed with his own resources the costly equipment and the implementation at the University for several years of a research center on cancer. And the insistence he showed, shared by Miguel Javier Urmeneta, for the University to establish the School of Industrial Technical Engineering in El Sario, which for nearly twenty years trained hundreds of Technical Engineers for the new and old industries of Navarre. He was also very interested in the establishment of School of Architecture in Pamplona.

With these lines I would like to express my adhesion staff to the recognition that the Comunidad Foral expresses to these two personalities by awarding them their Gold Medals. They had a broad vision and a generous heart and knew how to commit themselves in their present so that the following generations could enjoy a better future. A reason for gratitude for their contemporaries and a good example for the younger ones. The University of Navarra will always be grateful to them.