Bethel has been presenting its three major alumni awards during the month of April.
On April 21, 1982 graduate Carolyn Coon, Fresno, Calif., will receive the Distinguished Achievement Award in convocation at 11 a.m.
After meeting a Bethel recruiter at her Sarasota, Fla., high school, Coon took a chance on an unknown school in an unfamiliar place. Despite “culture shock,” she says, she was able to make friends through involvement in student government and forensics, and connections with supportive alumni.
Following graduation with a degree in economics and business, Coon went to work as administrative coordinator at Prairie View. That led her to a master’s degree in health sciences administration from Wichita State University, which she completed while working at Bethel in several positions in the Office of Student Life.
In 1988, she went up the road to McPherson College, as director of residence life. She later served as assistant dean of students at Avila University, Kansas City, and then in several administrative roles back at McPherson, all the while completing a Ph.D. in counseling and student personnel services at Kansas State University.
In 2002, Coon made her big move out to the West Coast, to the institution where she would stay for the rest of her career, California State University-Fresno.
She retired at the end of 2022, having served as associate vice president of student affairs and dean of students for most of that time, with two stints as interim VP of student affairs and enrollment management.Over the next several weeks, Bethel College will be recognizing its alumni award winners for this year.
Bethel presented the Outstanding Alumnus Award to George Rogers III of Newton on April 7. His longtime friend and colleague Wynn Goering, Albuquerque, facilitated “A Conversation with George Rogers” in convocation.
George “Jolly” Rogers was recruited to play football at Bethel from his hometown of Chicago, transferring from Woodrow Wilson (now Kennedy-King) Junior College.
Rogers graduated from Bethel in 1969 with a degree in physical education and shortly thereafter was named Bethel head track coach.
In the space of 10 years, he built a varsity track program that dominated the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC).
Coaching both men’s and women’s track, Rogers was the KCAC Coach of the Year in 1974, 1975 and 1979 and, also in 1975, at age 28, the NAIA District 10 Coach of the Year, the NAIA Area 3 Coach of the Year, and one of eight finalists for the NAIA National Coach of the Year.
Rogers earned a master’s degree in physical education at Wichita State University in 1972, then joined Bethel’s phys ed faculty, having already been named athletic director in 1971. He was the NAIA District 10 Administrator of the Year in 1990, and a member of Bethel’s Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2006.
Rogers also coached football at Bethel from 1969-1991, when he became dean of students (today called vice president for student life and dean of students), staying in that position until 1998, when he joined his friend and fellow Bethel graduate Earl White’s company.
Rogers stayed at Whitewing Construction as chief operating officer until retirement in 2011.
In addition to his many accomplishments at Bethel, Rogers worked part-time at Youthville (now EmberHope) as a counselor and instructor throughout the 1970s.
He has served or currently serves on the Newton Substance Abuse Board; the boards of Meadowlark Homestead, Prairie View Inc. and Mirror Inc.; the USD 373 Board of Education, including two terms as chair; the Ninth Judicial District Nominating Commission; and the Bethel Board of Directors.
Rogers is married to Rita (Guhr), a 1970 graduate of the Bethel Deaconess Nursing Program, and they are parents of two and grandparents of four.
Jerrell Williams, Newton, received the Young Alumnus Award and gave a presentation in convocation on March 31 at 11 a.m.
Williams is the pastor of Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton. He grew up in the Dallas metro area and, like Rogers, was recruited to play football at Bethel, graduating in 2015.
From a young age, Williams was drawn to pastoral ministry as a career, and Bethel’s Bible and religion program was an important factor in choosing a college. Growing up Southern Baptist, Jerrell had important pastoral mentors, and he saw youth ministry as his future career.
Williams majored in Bible and religion with a Human Services minor. A year-long internship at Offender Victim Ministries in Newton, to fulfill a requirement for the minor, led to a job after graduation as director of prison ministries and coordinator of the Batterer Intervention Program at OVM.
Williams met Goessel native Sierra Dirksen at Bethel and they married in 2015. In 2016, they moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., where Jerrell enrolled at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
While at PTS, Williams began a regular column for the Mennonite Church USA magazine Anabaptist World, which he still writes. Upon graduating with a Master of Divinity degree, he was hired to pastor Salem (Ore.) Mennonite Church and then, in 2023, Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton.
All alumni award presentations will include talks by the recipients, and are free and open to the public.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel was the first Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see https://www.bethelks.edu
