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around the green – campus
– Alumni group awards first endowed scholarship– Young Alumnus Award winner has been devoted to mental health services
– Bethel audience challenged to “let suffering speak truth”
– Outstanding Alumnus Awardees’ collaboration has covered Africa, Europe, South America
– Veterans, medical education focus of Distinguished Achievement Award winner
– All brooms on the Green as students form Quidditch Club
Alumni group awards first endowed scholarship
For the first time, Bethel College’s African-American Alumni Association (AAAA) was able to present an endowed scholarship to a deserving Bethel student.
Travon Lewis, freshman from Houston, Texas, is the first scholarship recipient.
The AAAA established an endowment fund in 2005, after several years of discussion at AAAA reunions and meetings. The idea for the fund arose from the AAAA’s desire to be more involved in the Bethel community and to support students “of African-American heritage,” as stated in the scholarship guidelines.
The group raised funds through donations from alumni, class gifts and fundraising events including a regular Fall Festival booth, a Martin Luther King Jr. Day program and portions of book sales.
The latter came from two books by AAAA’s immediate past president Sammie Simmons ’89 of Newton. He decided to donate a percentage of the sales of his books of poetry, New Beginnings and Tall Grass Prairie Offering Praise, to the endowment fund.
The other major fundraiser for the endowment came from the January 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at Bethel. An offering taken at an evening program that featured a friend and co-worker of King’s, Vincent Harding of Denver, helped complete the goal of $10,000 needed for the endowment to fund its first scholarship.
Although the AAAA decided to give responsibility for deciding the recipient to Bethel’s financial aid department, the association did get to say what type of scholarship it should be and offer some insight into who should get it.
“We wanted to make sure it was given to someone who needed it,” Simmons said. “There was some discussion on: ‘Do we give it to a firstyear, to someone who has been here for a while, to someone who is in the organization or in the multicultural group?’”
The financial aid office decided on Lewis, who said he feels very lucky and blessed to receive the scholarship. “I think it’s a great honor … to receive the award,” Lewis said. “It means it was a blessing from God and only through him was this possible.” Simmons hopes the scholarship will help the AAAA have more of a presence on campus and in the life of students.
“The biggest thing as far as expectations for our organization is that we are an active part of the Bethel community,” Simmons said. “We just want to let people know that we’re part of the community and we’re going to continue to be part of the community.”
Erin Bradley
Young Alumnus Award winner has been devoted to mental health services
It’s hard to think of Prairie View Mental Health Services in Newton without thinking of Matthew Schmidt.
Schmidt has been working at Prairie View for most of the past 18 years. Like many Bethel students, he was a mental health worker while still in college, employed starting in 1993, his junior year, in the inpatient psychiatric unit.
Schmidt is the winner of Bethel’s 2011 Young Alumnus Award. He graduated in 1994 with a B.A. (major in psychology, minor in history) and continued at Prairie View until 1996, when he left for graduate school at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. He earned a master’s degree in social work there in 1998.
Schmidt then returned to Prairie View as the adult team social worker on the inpatient treatment team and has been with the organization ever since.
In 2002, Schmidt became director of Community Support Services (CSS) at Prairie View, a program that “provides community based mental health services to adults in Harvey, Marion and McPherson counties experiencing evere and persistent mental illnesses,” he said. “I [give] the primary clinical and programmatic supervision to the CSS staff.”
In 2007, Schmidt took on the additional role of director of Access/Emergency Services, which handles both initial admissions and intake as well as 24-hour crisis coverage.
Schmidt has just completed a three-year term as chair of the statewide CSS director’s group and is the current president-elect of the Kansas chapter of the U.S. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Association. He is on the core team for the Kansas Social and Rehabilitative Services (SRS) Mental Health Division Unified Training Advisory Group.
Schmidt’s community activities and memberships include the screening team for Big Brothers/Big Sisters; the executive board of the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale; serving as congregational moderator at Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton; and involvement in the local chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI).
Schmidt has been married to Amy (Franz) Schmidt ’93 since 1994. They have two children, Abby, 12, and Luke, 8.
Schmidt represents a long legacy at Bethel College, including his mother Deb Schmidt ’70 (current Bethel Board member) and father Don Schmidt ’69, brothers Phil Schmidt ’96 and Mark Schmidt ’02 and sisters-in-law, Marla Schmidt ’94 and Emily Schmidt ’05 – “not to mention aunts, uncles, grandparents and so on.”
Schmidt noted that while he is a great-grandson of David H. “Uncle Davy” Richert 1899A, he “did not pick up any of the math genes.” “I had an absolutely wonderful experience at Bethel,” Schmidt said. “In addition to [my wife] Amy, I also met many of the people that I continue to consider my closest friends.”
Schmidt spoke in a Bethel College convocation March 14, where he received the 2011 Young Alumnus Award.
The Awards Committee of the Bethel College Alumni Association names one or more Young Alumnus Award winners each year. The Young Alumnus Award recognizes character and citizenship, achievement or service rendered, and honors and recognition received. The recipient must be 39 years of age or younger and present a convocation program for Bethel students, faculty and staff.
Melanie Zuercher
Bethel audience challenged to “let suffering speak truth”
Pondering the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. at Bethel College’s annual celebration of the King holiday, Mark McCormick recalled another man who fought racism with unconventional weapons.
McCormick, communications director for the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, titled his address “A Choice of Weapons,” which is also the title of an autobiography of Kansas native Gordon Parks, an author, photographer and filmmaker.
In his welcome, Bethel President Perry D. White said, “What would our civilization be today if [Martin Luther King Jr.] had been permitted to live and do his work? But more significantly, where would we be without him?”
“I see a lot of similarities between Dr. King and Gordon Parks,” Mc-Cormick said, including the fact that King preached Christ-like love and nonviolence in the face of racial hatred and Parks “responded to racism with a camera, a typewriter and a brilliant mind.”
McCormick pointed out that U.S. government officials once described King as “the most dangerous Negro in America.” McCormick noted that when he says this to many young people today, “they look at me like I’m crazy. They see Dr. King as a nice little old man, a Santa Claus peddling kindness. We have forgotten he was so much more than that – he was someone who said that ‘extreme racism, extreme materialism, extreme militarism could become this country’s downfall.’
“Violence is typically a reaction,” McCormick said, “and peace is a courageous, personal choice.” He illustrated the statement with two stories, one taken from Gordon Parks’ autobiography, A Choice of Weapons, and one personal.
In the first illustration, McCormick read Parks’ description of his experience as a very young man in Chicago, hungry and broke, when he considered using a switchblade knife to rob another man. In the second, McCormick recalled his cousin, Riccardo Harris, who in 2008 lost his 19-year-old son, Robert Ridge, shot at a stoplight by another teenager, high on drugs at the time.
More than a year later, Harris was given the chance to speak at the sentencing hearing for his son’s killer.
“Riccardo came face to face with the child who killed his child,” Mc-Cormick remembered. “He said he immediately began thinking of the similarities between Robert and this boy – both of them someone’s son, someone’s grandson. When the judge asked Riccardo if he had anything to say, he made a choice.
“How would you feel? What would you do? What would you say? Just last week, I saw someone ask for the maximum penalty for the killing of their loved one, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.
“I know there’s a God,” McCormick continued, “because that’s the only way Riccardo could have stood there and said what he did. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded for leniency for that young man.” McCormick also noted that since Robert’s death, Riccardo has been crossing the country to talk, especially with young men, about the cost of violence and the need for respect.
McCormick concluded with an adage he learned from the words of Cornel West: “Truth cannot surface until suffering is allowed to speak.”
“Suffering spoke in North Newton with the death of [19-month-old child abuse victim] Vincent Hill, and in Tucson where six people died [Jan. 8], including a 9-year-old girl. Yet 30-40 people die from gun violence every day in the United States – when will we make a different choice of weapons?
“Most of us here tonight, God willing, likely won’t experience exactly what Riccardo did that night [Robert was shot], but we will have times when we are forced to choose, moments when suffering will begin to speak and the truth of who we are begins to surface and we will have to choose, so let’s choose wisely. If Riccardo could do what he did, the rest of us have no excuse.”
The rest of the Bethel program focused largely on the arts, including an exhibit of artwork by local elementary school children hung on the Fine Arts Center walls outside Krehbiel Auditorium where the program took place. Cheryl Jefferson Bell, pastor of Trinity Heights United Methodist Church in Newton and the program emcee, called attention to the display, noting that the children had been asked to describe their “vision of peace – If Dr. King could come back, how would you show him you are living his dream?”
Roz (Royster) McCommon ’93, Kansas City, Mo., sang several numbers accompanied by Nathan McCommon on bass, Nathaniel Yoder, senior from Kalona, Iowa, on djembe and Rich Toevs ’80, Newton, on piano, while three Bethel students and two local alumni read poetry.
Jerrell Williams, freshman from Garland, Texas, read an original poem, “I See,” which concluded with the lines: “Let’s make the future doing what Dr. King preached/Because I firmly believe love is a language that the whole world speaks.”
Nicole Eitzen, freshman from Xalapa, Mexico, also read an original work, “To Grow a Banana Tree,” and Megan Siebert, sophomore from Topeka, read Langston Hughes’ poem “Daybreak in Alabama.” Both were winners in two different categories of a poetry-reading contest held on campus Jan. 13.
Bridget Kratzer ’06, Newton, read Langston Hughes as well, a poem called “America,” and Sammie Simmons ’89 read excerpts from Mary McLeod Bethune’s “Last Will and Testament.”
In her benediction, Jefferson Bell said, “We hope you have heard something [this evening] that will help you be part of the dream, to choose weapons of peace – peace as Christ brings peace.”
Melanie Zuercher
Outstanding Alumnus Awardees’ collaboration has covered Africa, Europe, South America
John and Reinhild (Kauenhoven) Janzen met at Bethel and have worked together on many projects and individually on their own careers.
John majored in social sciences and received a bachelor of arts degree from Bethel in 1961. He was also the recipient of a Thresher Award for photography, which has played an important role in his career since.
John is the former director of the Kansas African Studies Center at the University of Kansas, where he is currently professor of medical and socio-cultural anthropology. He has devoted much of his career in anthropology to research on health, sickness and healing in central and southern Africa. His work has enriched the fields of African studies and medical anthropology, and has gained him an international reputation, including the Wellcome Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Reinhild attended Bethel in 1960-61 as an international scholarship student from a post-World War II Mennonite community in Germany. She is professor of art history at Washburn University, Topeka. Her areas of expertise include the Northern European Renaissance, the non-western arts of North America and Africa, and the cultural history of Mennonites (European, North and South American). She has also been a director and curator at several museums.
Both John and Reinhild have taught and done research around the world, published prolifically, and have received numerous awards and grants. From 1983-92, they led the Kauffman Museum and, with many others, developed it into the museum the Bethel and south central Kansas communities know today.
John and Reinhild are the parents of three Bethel alumni – Bernd Janzen ’88, Gesine Janzen ’89 and Marike Janzen ’95. They divide their time between Lawrence and their restored country home in rural Newton, which is adjacent to Janzen Family Farms, a venture in grass-fed beef and organic wheat (including flour production and baked goods) that involves many extended family members. They are active in John’s home congregation, Zion Mennonite Church in Elbing.
The Bethel College Alumni Association gives the Outstanding Alumnus Award on the basis of character and citizenship, service to church/community or college, or other outstanding achievements, honors and recognition.
John and Reinhild will receive the award at the Alumni Banquet on Saturday, May 21.
Dave Linscheid and Melanie Zuercher
Veterans, medical education focus of Distinguished Achievement Award winner
Laurel Preheim, Omaha, Neb., majored in natural sciences and received a bachelor of arts degree from Bethel in 1969. He retired last July from the Department of Veterans Affairs Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System after serving 32 years, most recently as chief of medicine.
As a physician, researcher, scholar and professor, Laurel has also served in numerous leadership capacities at Creighton University School of Medicine and the University of Nebraska College of Medicine (he continues part-time at both), particularly in the areas of infectious disease, medical microbiology and immunology.
He has been on the Best Doctors in America list since 1996, has published extensively, lectured across the United States and beyond and received many research grants and awards.
Laurel is one of a long line of students who came to Bethel after graduating from Freeman (S.D.) Academy. He met his wife, Twila (Friesen) Preheim ’69, at Bethel and they are the parents of three children.
Laurel calls it “a privilege” to have helped train more than 6,000 medical students, graduate students, internal medicine residents and/or infectious diseases fellows over the past 32 years, and “an honor” to have led a department that provides inpatient and outpatient care for more than 50,000 veterans in the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System.
“I remain a pacifist,” he says, “but I have tremendous respect for and owe a debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who have been willing to sacrifice their lives in order to preserve my religious freedoms.”
Laurel and Twila are longtime, active members of Countryside Community Church (United Church of Christ) in Omaha. In retirement, Laurel will continue to pursue his hobbies of golf, tennis, photography, gardening, music, model railroading and grandchildren.
The Bethel College Alumni Association presents the Distinguished Achievement Award to acknowledge character and citizenship, achievement in a chosen profession or vocation, and work of benefit to humanity.
Laurel will receive the Distinguished Achievement Award at the Alumni Banquet on Saturday, May 21.
Dave Linscheid and Melanie Zuercher
All brooms on the Green as students form Quidditch Club
Starting this fall, Bethel’s Harry Potter fans could grab their cloaks and broomsticks (or mops or Swiffer handles or whatever was available) and join the new Quidditch Club on campus.
And now Ultimate Frisbee isn’t the only game on the Green. Most Bethel students have grown up reading the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling and, like many readers, have harbored a secret desire to play quidditch.
April Kabagambe, junior from Newton, and Ken Ward, senior from Hugo, Colo., founded Bethel’s club and serve as team captains.
“I was planning on starting the Quidditch Club last school year,” Kabagambe said. “This year I applied for it to be a Bethel College club. Before I sent out an e-mail [inviting students to join], Ken sent out an e-mail, so he’s vice president now.”
Quidditch, for those who may not know, is a magical sport for wizards created by author J. K. Rowling. In the Harry Potter books, Quidditch is a wildly popular competitive sport, with the four “houses” at the Hogwarts school vying for the championship each year.
Quidditch resembles both soccer and rugby but is played on magical flying brooms. Each team has seven players (two Beaters, three Chasers, a Seeker and a Keeper). The object of the game is to get the quaffle (ball) through one of the three hoops on the opposing team’s side.
In the Harry Potter books, a quidditch game can be won by a Seeker catching the golden snitch, a small, flying ball that remains in play the whole game, but in the real world, it has to be done by a team scoring the most points.
Like the Snitch, a few obvious elements of quidditch are simply not possible in actual play, so concepts have been adapted to fit the needs of the sport. The game is still played on brooms, though, just not magical ones.
“It’s kind of awkward trying to run around with one between your legs,” Kabagambe said. “You always have to have one hand touching the broom and if you fall off your broom, you can’t do anything until you get back on.”
Awkward or not, to all appearances Bethel quidditch players have been having a great time with the game.
The team is using this year to get the club off the ground, recruiting new members and scrimmaging each other. They also recruited sophomore Audra Miller to design a Bethel Quidditch T-shirt that was available for anyone to purchase.
Kabagambe’s goal is to be able to play other colleges next year that have quidditch squads, like Wichita State University and Kansas State University.
Need a reason to join Quidditch Club? Take it from sophomore Jenae Janzen of Newton: “I play quidditch because Harry Potter is freaking amazing.”
Clarie Koehn and Melanie Zuercher