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Young alumnus awardee advocates for women worldwide

Bethel College’s 2014 Young Alumnus Award winner has dedicated her life to peacemaking and conflict resolution, especially with issues that affect women in the developing world.

Palwasha L. Kakar ’99, Woodbridge, Va., just completed four years with the Asia Foundation, based in Kabul, Afghanistan. From January 2013-January 2014, she was the Foundation’s director of women’s empowerment and development programs.

At the end of January, she joined the staff of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., as senior program officer for religion and peacemaking.

Because of her new job and busy travel schedule, Kakar’s Young Alumnus Award presentation, originally scheduled for March 14, has been moved to April 14 and will be at 7:30 p.m. (rather than during the regular morning convocation slot) in Krehbiel Auditorium. The public is invited.

The event will be co-sponsored with the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution as one of their periodic Peace Lectures.

Kakar was born in Seattle to medical-student parents — father from Afghanistan, mother from Iowa. When it was time for her to go to college, she chose Bethel, the alma mater of her grandmother, the late Ruth (Smith) Graber, class of 1946.

Kakar did her undergraduate work in global studies, and Bible and religion, graduating in 1999 with a bachelor of arts degree.

Among the benefits of her Bethel liberal arts education, Kakar is quick to credit the opportunity for gaining practical mediation skills through KIPCOR.

Her first job upon graduation was director of the Newton Area Peace Center, which is now Peace Connections.

For more of this article, visit http://www.bethelks.edu/news-events/news/post/4980/.

Hege to receive first Goering Award

Bethel College is now ready to present to its first recipient a brand-new award for a music alumnus.

The family and friends of Verna Kaufman Goering, Moundridge, and the late Erwin C. Goering have established a music award named for the couple.

The award honors a Bethel College alumnus of outstanding character for distinguished achievement and recognition in music. The awardee may be a professional musician or a volunteer who has served the community; may demonstrate excellence in instrumental music, vocal music and/or conducting; may be a donor whose gifts have substantially strengthened Bethel’s music program.

The first recipient of the Erwin C. Goering and Verna Kaufman Goering Music Award is Daniel Hege ’87, Janesville, N.Y., music director and conductor of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (WSO) and a 1987 Bethel graduate.

The award carries a cash gift of $1,000, which will be presented to Hege at Bethel College on April 27 during the annual Masterworks concert in Memorial Hall.

As a Bethel student, Verna Goering ’37 was a solo pianist and accompanist, and a member of the A Cappella Choir, often setting the intonation for the group with her gift of perfect pitch.

Verna earned an advanced degree from the Chicago Conservatory of Music. For many years, she would periodically join the Bethel music faculty as a piano teacher and an accompanist, and she also gave private piano lessons for many years.

Erwin C. Goering ’40 also was a member of the A Cappella Choir, as well as the Men’s Octet and the Men’s Quartet.

After graduation, he went on to be a public school teacher and later earned a master of arts degree in religious education from Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Chicago and Elkhart, Ind.

For more of this article, visit http://www.bethelks.edu/news-events/news/post/4986/.

Admissions Office invites juniors to Jumpstart Visit Day

The Admissions Office invites all high school juniors to Admissions Junior Jumpstart Visit Day, which is April 25.

Juniors are encouraged to sign up online at www.bethelks.edu/admissions/visit-bethel/junior-jumpstart/.

The Admissions Office also has planned an Early Enrollment Day for new Bethel students on April 5.

Miller creates portraits to stimulate conversation

Knowing well that a picture can speak 1,000 words, Audra Miller, Hesston, wants to start a conversation about gender perceptions.

Miller, a fifth-year senior finishing degrees in graphic design, fine arts and communication arts, decided she didn’t have enough to do with getting her senior show (drawings) ready and her senior communications seminar project done in her final semester.

So — for fun, she says — she began doing a series of what she thought would be androgynous portraits. Miller has been taking photos for years and even has her own photography business.

Her idea for these portraits was to use contour makeup (employing shadows and highlights to emphasize, change or create certain physical features), clothing and poses to create photos of people whose gender couldn’t be determined just by looking at them.

She enlisted the help of several friends, Bethel students who are leaders of the campus group FemCore, whom she knew to be interested in the ways gender is perceived in U.S. culture and would know others who had thought about the issues.

We went around campus asking people if they’d like to be part of a photo shoot, she said. We put this together as an all-day event, with a whole rack of clothing options, and people to help do hair and makeup.

However, she said, As we were working through the details, I realized that to do what I wanted, I had to start with people who already looked androgynous, because to try to make them look that way ended up making them look like the opposite gender.

So this morphed into doing double portraits that showed people as both sides.

For more of this article, visit http://www.bethelks.edu/news-events/news/post/4973/.

Alumni Weekend brochures, packets in the mail

Alumni from the classes of 1954, 1959 and 1964, as well as alumni from classes before those who are celebrating milestone anniversary years, should watch for packets arriving soon in the mail regarding Alumni Weekend.

People not receiving packets by mid-April are asked to contact Wendy Nugent in the Alumni Relations Office at 316-284-5251.

For more information, visit http://www.bethelks.edu/alumni-weekend/.

The Voice star performs at Mojo’s

A friend of Bethel — and the daughter of longtime adjunct instructor of guitar, Howard Glanton — created a flurry of excitement in south-central Kansas on the evening of March 11.

That’s when Kaleigh Glanton, Wichita, earned a four-chair turnaround from the coaches on NBC-TV’s star-search show The Voice with her cover of Credence Clearwater Revival’s Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

Kaleigh is familiar to Bethel and North Newton audiences from having appeared a half-dozen times — with Howard on guitar — in the Mojo’s Coffee Bar live music series.

She made a special visit March 27 to Mojo’s at Bethel with a public show from 7-8 p.m. and a show for students from 9-10 p.m.

I was starting to do Thursday night music about a year after opening Mojo’s, owner Patty Meier said. I was talking to Howard, and he mentioned that his daughter, Kaleigh, was a singer. At that point, she was still in high school.

Kaleigh and Howard Glanton first appeared at Mojo’s in November 2011.

The Teschemacher/Deknatel/Van der Smissen organ at Kauffman Museum will be featured in concert at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, April 5, in the Kauffman Museum auditorium.

Bethel College organ instructor Donna Hetrick ’90, Eastborough, will perform works by Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and German composers Johann Pachelbel, Johann Gottfried Walther, Georg Boehm and Ernst Pepping. Bethel student Mika Patron will play music by German composer Max Drischner.

The program is free and open to the public, and is part of the month-long Spring into the Arts Festival organized by the Newton Area Arts Council www.newtonarts.org. For more information, contact Rachel Pannabecker ’80 at Kauffman Museum at rpann@bethelks.edu.

Kauffman Museum offers bird walk April 19

Kauffman Museum will have its annual Earth Day Adventure starting at 7 a.m. Saturday, April 19.

Expert local birder Gregg Friesen will lead a bird walk along Bethel’s Sand Creek Trail. Meet at the museum to follow the loop trail and return to the museum for coffee, juice and bird nest cookies.

The bird walk is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Andi Schmidt Andres ’84 at Kauffman Museum at asa@bethelks.edu.

Enrollment open for summer camp registrations

Bethel College is offering the following camps this summer:

Kauffman Museum again has a schedule of Uncle Carl’s Camps, which are week-long, half-day educational camps for children age 4-18. For more information on Uncle Carl’s Camps, including price, time and detailed descriptions, go to http://www.bethelks.edu/community/events/summer-camps/uncle-carls-camps/ or contact Andi Schmidt Andres ’84 at asa@bethelks.edu or 316-283-1612. The basic schedule is as follows:

  • May 27-30, Little Houses on the Prairie, Kristin Neufeld Epp ’95, North Newton, ages 4 and 5 and not yet in kindergarten
  • June 2-6, Traveling the Ancient World, Brian Skinner ’13, Newton, youth who have finished grades third through sixth
  • June 9-13, Oral History Project: Passing on Traditions, Karen Kreider Yoder, Goshen, Ind., finishes seventh through 12th grades
  • June 16-20 mornings, Figuratively Speaking 1 art camp, LaDonna Unruh Voth ’86, Newton, finished kindergarten through second grade
  • June 16-20 afternoons, Figuratively Speaking 2 art camp, LaDonna Unruh Voth ’86, Newton, finished third through sixth grades
  • June 23-27, Survivor: Prairie, Amber Celestin ’04, Bloomington, Ind., finished kindergarten through second grade

The Summer Science Institute will be from June 1-6. The institute is open to students entering grades 10 through 12 and, if space is available, to 2014 high school graduates. The $50 fee includes lodging in a residence hall, meals in the cafeteria, readings, a T-shirt and one hour of college credit. Enrollment is limited to 36. For more information, contact Marilyn Flaming at 800-522-1887 extension 229 or mflaming@bethelks.edu. To enroll, visit www.bethelks.edu/community/events/summer-camps/summer-science-institute/.

There also will be a Lady Thresher Basketball Camp for youth from May 27-30. A summer league for sixth- and seventh-grade girls will be Monday evenings in June and July 7. For more information, call 316-284-5311.

Concert Choir performing with Wichita Symphony

The Bethel College Concert Choir will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 6, in the Century II Concert Hall in Wichita as part of the Wichita Symphony’s 2013-14 Classics.

Performed will be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also singing for this large work will be the Wichita Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

The Concert Choir performed in March for the Southwestern Division convention of the American Choral Directors Association.