March 2009

Sports medicine, health care for the uninsured and community service have been ongoing interests of this year’s Young Alumnus Award winner at Bethel College.

Jennifer (Scott) Koontz, Park City, received a bachelor of arts degree from Bethel, with majors in natural sciences and psychology, in 1998.

Following their graduation from Bethel, Koontz and her husband, Matthew Koontz, served in Mennonite Voluntary Service in Hamilton, Ontario, for two years. …

After MVS, Koontz earned a master’s of public health (MPH) degree at the University of Kansas in 2001, for which her honors thesis was “Patterns in the treatment of college smokers by health care providers,” and her M.D. from the KU School of Medicine in 2005. From 2005-08, she was in the Via Christi Family Medicine Residency Program in Wichita, serving as chief resident 2007-08. …

Koontz’s involvement in service activity has continued well past her MVS days. She was a founder, and has served as executive chairperson, of JayDoc Free Clinic in Kansas City, Kan., in 2003, and helped found JayDoc Community Clinic in Wichita in 2005, both student-run clinics for uninsured clients. For the last several years, she has participated in the Doc of the Day program during Kansas legislative sessions in Topeka, in which health-care professionals provide any needed emergency medical services to lawmakers, legislative staff and visitors in the Capitol Building. …

BETHEL MAKES 2008 COMMUNITY SERVICE HONOR ROLL

Bethel has been named to the 2008 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for the second time since the award was launched in 2006.

Bethel was one of five Kansas private colleges and universities named to the Honor Roll, which recognizes educational institutions nationwide that support innovative and effective community service and service-learning programs. The Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service and is sponsored by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation and the U.S. Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development.

Bethel students have been winning at debate and forensics competitions throughout the area. So far, six have qualified for the American Forensic Association-National Individual Events Tournament, to be held April 3-6 at the University of Akron in Ohio.

The debate and forensics squad took first place at the Hutchinson Community College-Sterling College tournament Jan. 30-Feb. 1, with Sarah Pohl and Alex Stucky, both freshmen from Moundridge, joining Matthew Stucky, junior from Moundridge, and Julia Huxman, freshman from Wichita, and as national qualifiers (Huxman in her second event, having qualified for her first in a tournament before Christmas.)

Two more talented competitors -- Taylor McCabe-Juhnke, freshman from North Newton, and Dana Daugharthy, senior from Iola -- qualified at a tournament in Salina Feb. 7-8.

Huxman qualified for nationals in a third event in a tournament at Bethel Feb. 21.

This is the 31st consecutive year that Bethel has had students qualify for the national tournament, a record matched statewide only by Kansas State University and nationwide by only five other schools.

The selection of Bethel’s spring musical this year very much reflects student choice.

The college’s music and theater departments present The Light in the Piazza March 5, 6 and 7 on the Krehbiel Auditorium stage.

Based on the novella by Elizabeth Spencer, The Light in the Piazza tells the story of an American mother and daughter on vacation in Florence, Italy, in 1953. The daughter, Clara, meets and falls in love with an Italian boy, Fabrizio. Their love faces various obstacles, including Clara’s mother, Margaret.

Spencer’s work was adapted into a musical that debuted on Broadway in 2005. The production is so recent that rights to perform it are still unavailable to most professional companies.

The Bethel College Concert Choir will perform in Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Oklahoma during spring break, March 20-29. The 40-member choir is under the direction of Dr. William Eash, professor of music. Alumni and friends of Bethel are invited to attend any of the following concerts:

Friday, March 20

• Hope Mennonite Church, 868 N. Maize Road, Wichita, at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 22

• Albuquerque (N.M.) Mennonite Church, 1300 Girard Blvd. N.E., in the worship service at 9:30 a.m.
• New Life Baptist Fellowship, DeGrazia Elementary School, 5051 W. Overton Road, Tucson, Ariz., at 7 p.m.

Monday, March 23

• Trinity Mennonite Church, 4334 W. Vista Ave., Glendale, Ariz., at 7 p.m.

Tuesday, March 24

• First Mennonite Church, 1208 L Street, Reedley, Calif., at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, March 25

• First Mennonite Church, 379 N. Campus Ave., Upland, Calif., at 7 p.m.

Thursday, March 26

• Shalom Mennonite Fellowship, 6044 E. 30th Street, Tucson, Ariz., at 7 p.m.

Friday, March 27

• First Presbyterian Church, 208 Grant Ave., Santa Fe, N.M., at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 29

• Turpin Mennonite Church, Route 2, Turpin, Okla., in the worship service at 10:30 a.m.
• Bethel College, home concert in Memorial Hall at 7 p.m.

Kauffman Museum announces a change in schedule and an opportunity to see historic southeast Kansas.

The March 8 Sunday-Afternoon-at-the-Museum program by Robert W. Regier ’52, North Newton, has been postponed until Friday, May 1, 7 p.m. The illustrated lecture will be part of a special exhibition featuring digital photography by Regier, who is professor emeritus of art at Bethel.

Bethel alumni and friends are invited to travel to historic southeast Kansas with Kauffman Museum curator of education Andi Schmidt Andres and museum trip planner Susan Rhoades on a bus tour April 2-3.

Highlights will include the Safari Museum in Chanute; the towns of Girard and Frontenac, both rich in mining and socialist history; Big Brutus, a massive electric shovel 16 stories tall; the Brown Mansion and Dalton Defenders Museum in Coffeyville; and Sedan, hometown of television journalist, producer and former CBS News anchor Bill Kurtis.

Dinner stops will provide special experiences at Chicken-N-Pickin’ in Walnut, featuring fried chicken and musical entertainment; and the Beaumont Hotel on the edge of the Flint Hills, where pilots of small airplanes fly in for steak dinners. Lodging will be at the Lamplighter Inn in Pittsburg.

Cost is $230 for museum members and $260 for non-members and includes all meals, admission fees, gratuities and lodging. For information or to make reservations contact Andi Schmidt Andres at asa@bethelks.edu or (316) 283-1612.