Monmouth College Spring 2010 Magazine

V O LU M E 25 | N um b e r 1 | s p r ing 2010

M O N M O U T H CO L L E G E M AG A Z I N E

new regional Midwest Monmouth’s studies program takes root Matters!

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An extensive collection of Native American artifacts from the central United States is one of the latest additions to Monmouth’s Midwest Studies program. monmouth | spring 2010

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COVER: Assistant professor of history Fred Witzig shows off some of the Native American artifacts, flanked by Leigh Anne Lane ’10 and Nichole Brants ’10.

From theory to practice: Science, business students work together.

Photo by george hartmann

Monmouth

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Monmouth College Magazine is published by the Office of Development and College Relations for alumni and friends of Monmouth College. All opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff or the college.

E d i t or i al Board

Molly A. Ball Vice President for Development and College Relations Don Capener Vice President for Strategic Planning/ Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey D. Rankin Director of College Communications Barry J. McNamara Associate Director of College Communications Lucy Kellogg Thompson ’99 Director of Alumni Programs M a g a z i ne S t a f f

Editor: Jeffrey D. Rankin Associate Editor: Barry J. McNamara Designer: Nancy Loch 700 East Broadway Monmouth IL 61462-1998 alumni@monm.edu (e-mail) www.monm.edu (Web) 309-457-2323 correc t i on : In the last issue of Monmouth College Magazine, the new job title for Jennifer Goedke ’98 was incorrect. She is deputy chief of staff for Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.). le t t er s p ol i c y : We welcome letters about the college or the magazine. Letters will be printed on a space-available basis and may be edited for length, style and clarity. Send letters, queries or submissions to: Monmouth College Magazine, 700 East Broadway, Monmouth IL 61462, or email jeffr@monm.edu.

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Key Yang ’50 (right) was one of several individuals honored at the President’s Homecoming Gala.

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The Scots scored in bunches, but their defense, led by senior Anthony Goranson (right) was strong, too.

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There was no one quite like beloved chemistry professor Richard “Doc” Kieft.

campus news . . . . . . . 4 people news. . . . . . . . 8 monmouthiana . . . 20 clan notes. . . . . . . . 32 the last word. . . . 44

Letters to the editor your piece on the late Pete Kovacs brought back fond memories. Our family was always on hand to watch the MC basketball teams of the late ’40s and ’50s, with many great players like Kovacs. He seemed less graceful than many good players but, as Allen McGehee (another great) says, he was a crowd favorite because he always hustled. His underhanded scoop shot as he approached the basket often resulted in a foul and another one or two points from his almost “automatic” free throws. I saw this deadly shooting first hand at Monmouth High School one day.

The practice teacher in our gym class was Dick Vogt, another MC athletic Hall of Famer. When we were “learning basketball,” Dick enlisted his friend Pete to help out. After we had played a while, Kovacs stepped up to the line to demonstrate how to shoot free throws. He didn’t miss. After he sank about 60 in a row, the bell rang and Vogt said, “OK, Pete, you can quit now.” I always wondered how many it would have been if he had continued.

Don Beveridge ’59 thanks for the story on English majors at Monmouth. My wife, Ann Doherty Kramer ’73, and I were English majors. My major helped me a great deal as a newspaper reporter. I now publish a daily newspaper and spend my time with numbers and business plans, but I can collect my thoughts on paper quicker than most other executives, and I attribute that to my professors at Monmouth.

Mike Kramer ’73 Senior Vice President and Publisher Law Bulletin Publishing Company Chicago, Ill.

Cream of the crop Senior Jack Clifford won “Best of Show” honors for his acrylic painting Corn at MC’s 2009 Student Art Exhibition and Competition.

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hen i was traveling in the highlands of Scotland a few weeks ago, college officials there spoke of their concern that the brightest young people were leaving the area to attend prestigious universities and never returning. They referred to the phenomenon as a “brain drain.” It was interesting to hear in another part of the world a term that describes an issue that is also of great concern here in the heartland of the U.S.

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Plugging the Midwest brain drain

“Study hard, get a good education, and you can punch your ticket out of this onehorse town.” This is an age-old refrain that has been preached to young people in small towns across the Midwest for more than a century. If you haven’t heard it directly, you have certainly heard it in literature and film. In my favorite sports movie, Hoosiers, the assistant principal urges the new coach to stay away from the local basketball phenom so he can study hard and get a scholarship to a prestigious liberal arts college. If Jimmy Mauri A. Ditzler Chitwood can do President that, she argues to the middle-aged Coach Dale, he won’t be like all the other 50-year-old failures still stuck in small town Hickory.

Last fall, two sociologists reported that this same message—study hard and get out of town—is still the central message in small Midwestern high schools. Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas spent two years in a northeastern Iowa town listening and observing. Their report, Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America, echoes the message I heard growing up in rural Indiana and is not unlike the concerns I heard in Scotland. Carr and Kefalas conclude that local schools are undermining the local economy and culture by privileging those who, because of academic promise, are encouraged to abandon their hometowns and apply their gifts to the benefit of communities hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Those who remain are not prepared to maintain the vitality and viability of small towns across the American Midwest. Carr and Kefalas make the

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difficult recommendation that smalltown schools reallocate resources and effort to support those who will stay home and rebuild communities of the heartland.

While the authors’ message is focused primarily on pre-college education, it is an issue that should not be ignored by the premier colleges and universities of the Midwest. As a founding member of the prestigious Associated Colleges of the Midwest and as an institution that traces its roots to community leaders who understood the importance of liberal arts colleges in a local economy, Monmouth College is an ideal candidate for leadership in reversing the “hollowing out” of our country.

Our approach is a bit different from that suggested by Carr and Kefalas.

Certainly their idea—that we should invest more of our scarce educational resources in middle-ability students who are less likely to be recruited away from the heartland—is worth considering. We believe, however, that this philosophy may be selling the Midwest short. We believe, in fact, that the Midwest may well become the single most influential region in the world during our students’ lifetime, and that by educating them of this fact we will inspire them to remain here and be productive citizens.

How can we make such a claim about our region? We live on a globe of finite size with an ever-growing population. Our well-being will increasingly rely on our collective ability to produce food and energy from limited resources. With its fertile soil, temperate climate, fresh water, reliable wind, ample coal and a remarkable work ethic, America’s Midwest (should we call it the Global

Midwest?) is poised to supplant the Mideast as the most dominant spot on the globe.

I am confident that Monmouth College can be a leader in creating a Global Midwest that serves all of society, with particular benefit to those who live and work here in the heartland.

Our traditional brand of liberal arts education, with its emphasis on citizenship and its history of preparing effective leaders, will be a boon for our students and our community. Our recent decision to build a curriculum with active citizenship as the capstone experience could not have been better timed. Our traditional strengths in science and business, soon to be reinforced by a new building that will foster overlap in these fields, are ideally suited to prepare our young people to be at the center of a resurging Midwestern economy.

Emerging faculty interest in interdisciplinary studies of sustainable agriculture and renewable energy could also not be timelier. The experimental mini-farm that we hope to establish later this year will be as exciting as it is unusual among nationally recognized liberal arts colleges. Our longstanding interest in creating remarkable teachers and leaders for local government will be essential to our revitalized communities. With so many Midwestern colleges trying to downplay their location, I am pleased that some of our faculty members have begun to design courses that highlight issues of regional literature, history, transportation and immigration issues.

Monmouth College is ideally suited for reversing the Midwestern brain drain. We will do that by demonstrating to the best and brightest of our students that there are compelling reasons to build a career and a life in the Global Midwest.

message from the president

Keith Williams, assistant professor of political economy and commerce, asks his “Principles of Marketing” students to review the methods used in their taste test. p h oto s b y Mike Roemer

Assistant professor of chemistry Brad Sturgeon is willing to unveil a secret recipe. Now, it’s not as big as

Duke, the talking dog, revealing information on Bush’s Baked Beans, or finally learning KFC’s 11 herbs and spices, but there are certainly some inquiring minds on campus who want to know his inside information.

But first, it’s no secret that Monmouth College is seeking to create opportunities to bring its science and business departments together. That has been the thrust of the college’s proposed academic complex, and it is also behind one of the new courses being developed for the college’s Midwest Studies initiative.

During the fall semester, Sturgeon and his faculty colleague, assistant professor of political economy and commerce Keith Williams, participated in what Sturgeon said “may be the first actual physical collaboration between our science and business departments.”

Sturgeon and four students—freshmen Roy Sye of Arlington Heights and Kyle Earman of Olympia Fields and transfer students Ramon Ceja of Galesburg and Brandon Borowski of Mokena— have been developing various beverage products, including an iced coffee, a ginger ale and “Peach Tree Soda.”

“By working on these products, the students have been given an avenue to ask questions and go into the lab to look for answers,” said Sturgeon, whose interest in soft drinks was sparked by wanting to create better and cheaper beverages for his own family.

Students in Williams’ junior-level “Principles of Marketing” class became involved, sampling the beverages and “getting a flavor for product research.”

The “flavors” they liked best were the iced coffee and Peach Tree Soda, according to Williams, who said his students broke into three different groups and asked questions about the products, in addition to doing a taste test.

“We’ll be involved with designing a marketing plan with the possibility of commercializing it on campus,” said Williams.

Above, senior DeMarkco Butler makes notes about one of the beverage products.

Right, junior Anna Bertoncini gets a flavor for product research.

campus news

Sturgeon said that is especially true for the coffee drink, which has a “Starbucks” quality.

“We’ve mentioned it to the campus food service, and there’s the potential we could sell it through them if we decide to scale up production,” said Sturgeon. “Although I don’t think our product is vastly different from what you can get at Starbucks, an appeal might be for consumers who want to think locally. Rather than coming from Seattle to Chicago to Monmouth, this is something that would originate right here.”

Sturgeon also said it’s possible that larger equipment will be available for Assistant professor of roasting coffee beans as part of an chemistry Brad investment in the college’s new nutriSturgeon shows off a bottle of Peach tion lab.

Tree Soda.

“This is just the beginning of a number of different initiatives that we’re trying to tie together,” he said.

Although reluctant to give too much away about his students’ work, Sturgeon did provide a couple key details of the beverages’ recipes. An ingredient that distinguishes the vanilla coffee drink, he said, was “sweetened condensed milk,” while Peach Tree Soda is actually a carbonated version of Crystal Light’s peach tea product.

Asked if carbonating was an easy step, he replied, “For us it is. You can’t necessarily do it at home. What carbonating does is take a known drink and give it a different perspective.

Our taste buds are stimulated by CO2, and it’s like adding flavor to the drink.”

Besides creating a tasty product, Sturgeon said the interdisciplinary project “gives us an opportunity to discuss some subjects that might not come up in a typical chemistry or —Barry McNamara business classroom.”  monmouth | spring 2010

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New Newman Center

Senior Daman Bautista, president of the Newman Club, shows off the sign in front of the organization’s new facility.

mc students don’t have to travel far to

visit a new off-campus meeting place.

Located just across the street from the western edge of campus, the St. Augustine Catholic Newman Center has been “up and running since last March,” according to Kathy Mainz, an MC staff member who serves as the adviser for the college’s Newman Club.

“The Catholic Diocese of Peoria purchased the home in 2008 as a service for the students at Monmouth,” explained Mainz. “ We had minimal programming there last spring, but this fall, we’ve kept regular hours from 7 to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays.” Adult members of the local community serve as “house hosts” throughout the week.

The Newman Center actually opens a bit earlier one day a week for “Sunday Suppers,” an event that the college’s Newman Club president, senior Damon Bautista, says is a popular one, attracting more than a dozen students each week.

“It’s a great chance for us to get together and have a nice, home-cooked meal,” said Bautista, who reported that students “kick in a couple bucks each week” to enjoy hearty meals such as chili, chicken noodle soup or “breakfast for dinner.”

Bautista said that the Newman Club plans to sponsor a series of talks on issues such as faith, spirituality and hope, and the organization plans to join forces with the Newman Club at Western Illinois University for a spiritual retreat.

Found on college campuses around the world, Newman Clubs typically focus on opportunities for students to make friends, perform service projects and worship together. The clubs are named in honor of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890).

MC’s Newman Club actually dates to the 1950s but had become inactive in recent years. Since being reactivated, though, Mainz said there has been a “tremendous outpouring of support” from the campus community, including the administration.

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Lincoln, Darwin misconceptions, truthhoods persons who attended one of MC’s “Darwinpalooza” lectures by “eloquent and insightful” author Adam Gopnik learned that who Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln “were not” was just as interesting as reviewing who they were.

Gopnik, a staff writer for the New Yorker for more than 20 years, is the author of two previous bestsellers, Paris to the Moon and Through the Children’s Gate. His latest work, Angels & Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, looks at the birth of the modern era through the lives of these two extraordinary men who were born within hours of each other on Feb. 12, 1809.

In addition to their date of birth, Gopnik shared other similarities, with his central theme being several misconceptions about two of the giant figures of the 19th century and, indeed, the second millennium. One by one, he shot those misconceptions down, three for each man.

Of Lincoln, Gopnik said it is frequently thought that he was a writer by accident and that his anti-slavery views were secondary to him. He also sought to help the overflow crowd better understand Lincoln’s religious beliefs.

As for Darwin, Gopnik said that the thought that he “blundered” into his theory of evolution couldn’t be further from the truth.

He also said claims that Darwin was racist were “not even partly true,” and claims that he was anti-religious were “a terrible misconception.”

After setting the record straight on those skewed popular beliefs about the men, Gopnik tied them together with three “truthhoods.”

He said they staged their major arguments “from the ground up,” practiced the art of “sympathetic summary” and were both optimists.

In the question-and-answer portion of the evening, Gopnik was Adam Gopnik asked if the two men were aware of each other. He replied that Lincoln had read and been influenced by the 1844 book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a precursor to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. However, by the time Darwin’s masterwork was published 15 years later, Lincoln was too busy with the crumbling Union and the ensuing events of his presidency and the Civil War, to stay current on the subject. The same was not true in reverse, though.

“The Civil War was followed very closely in Britain and, being an abolitionist, Darwin was acutely aware of Lincoln,” Gopnik said.

During his introductory remarks, Gopnik referred to Lincoln as “a man of this place,” not the East or the South. He also said he had done a little research on Monmouth College and learned that its second president, Jackson McMichael, had to protect the teaching of Darwinism while he was in office.

“This is a place where both men have a special vitality,” he said.

NBA’s Ainge comes to MC via conference call lester hudson, a rookie point guard on the NBA’s Boston Celtics, probably

thought that his biggest moment in his first week of the regular season was an appearance on national television during his team’s 118-90 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

Hudson played 10 minutes and scored the first three points of his NBA career.

But little did Hudson know of another highlight a day earlier, when the low-salaried was the central point of discussion during a class at Monmouth College. Students in “Business in Context,” a political economy and commerce course that is team-taught by professors Mike Connell and Don Capener, learned about the Celtics’ business concerns and were treated to a half-hour conference call with the team’s general manager, former NCAA and NBA star Danny Ainge.

“Conference-call capabilities in the class allow our students to talk directly with business leaders, alumni and entrepreneurs,” said Capener. “We feel it’s a unique and innovative learning tool.”

Earlier in the semester, the class heard from Dave Babcock, director of player personnel of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a low- to mid-level team in terms of spending and on-court performance. Learning about the Celtics from Ainge—which was facilitated in part by Capener’s time at the NBA star’s alma mater, Brigham Young University— allowed the students to contrast the Bucks to the Celtics, one of the major spenders in the current NBA market.

“We’ve found students successfully learn more important and complex theories about business if we put them into the context of sports,” said Capener. campus news

Buchholz Scholarship created by alumnus an alumnus has created an endowed scholar-

ship fund to honor the contributions of longtime biology professor Robert Buchholz.

Joseph Svoboda ’75, president of Freedom Natural Resources, Inc., and his wife, Leslie, established the scholarship in appreciation for the influence Buchholz had on Svoboda as a student at Monmouth. Buchholz, who retired in 1994 after a 44-year career on the MC faculty, taught Svoboda while he majored in biology and geology. Svoboda received his master’s degree in geology and geophysics at the University of Iowa and worked for Champlin Petroleum and Union Pacific Resources before starting his own oil and gas exploration company in Fort Worth, Texas.

Robert Buchholz (right) “Dr. Buchholz was an outstanding teacher and adviser for me and many others who attended Monmouth,” said Svoboda, who particularly recalled an interim course on marine biology that Buchholz developed and taught in Florida during winter break. “He has had a great impact on his students and their professional careers. By establishing this scholarship fund in his honor, my wife and I hope to provide students who may not have the necessary financial means with an opportunity to share in the Monmouth College experience.”

Svoboda’s intent is to match gifts up to $25,000 in each of the next five years from donors who wish to support the Buchholz Scholarship.

Class project gives students insight into Vietnam seventh-grade students at Monmouth-Roseville Junior

High School learned about freedom and the Vietnam War thanks to a talk that was organized by a group of Monmouth College students.

The college requires a citizenship component for seniors as part of its Integrated Studies curriculum, and the talk at MRJHS by Vietnam War veteran Dan Merry helped fulfill that requirement for four students in associate professor Dick Johnston’s class, “Liberty and the Citizen.” The students are seniors Janelle Ahlgren, Zach Howerter, June Machacek and Cole Norman.

War veteran “It was obvious the kids were interested in what Dan had to Vietnam Dan Merry makes a say, and I think they all have a greater appreciation for those point during his talk who serve in the military than we had originally anticipated,” with local junior high said Machacek. “It was a great way to connect an older mem- students. The talk was organized by four ber of the Monmouth community with the youth.”

Monmouth College Largely by answering students’ questions, Merry told students. teacher Tom Best’s class what his life was like during the Vietnam War, why the war was fought and what happened to him afterward.

“When I returned from my first tour of duty, we flew in to a base in California,” said Merry. “President Nixon was there to meet us, and there were a lot of people there because the media got ahold of it. Before we deplaned, we were told to change out of our uniforms into civilian clothes. That was a disgrace. It really sat hard with me, and it still does.”

Merry said that military personnel are viewed differently today, and he can pinpoint the day it happened.

“It took 9/11, unfortunately,” he told the class. “The public’s outlook changed, and that’s how we got our patriotism back. I manage the VFW, and after 9/11, I could not keep enough flags in stock. As far as support for the troops, it’s just wonderful. When we have soldiers returning, the Patriot Riders meet them, and people shake their hands and look them in the eye and say, ‘Thank you.’ It’s a difference of day and night.”

Told by Best that the class had written letters to soldiers in veterans’ hospitals, Merry said, “Keep writing those letters. Support them. They need it … Freedom is not free.”

“Thank you for your service,” Best said to Merry at the conclusion of his talk. “It’s important that students get to hear these stories.” campus news

Ladies and gentlemen, the beetles! what’s black and

white and chased all over?

Dusty Sanor (right), a senior from Chebanse, Ill., knows the answer to that riddle thanks to her passion for collecting insects.

That life-long hobby has paid dividends for the college, which now has a greatly improved collection thanks to Sanor’s hard work.

“I talked to Professor (Ken) Cramer, and he arranged for me to do this as an independent study,” said Sanor. “A lot of the college’s collections were mixed up, and some of them are pretty old and had gotten into bad shape. I got it all organized and put back together,” spending 10 to 20 hours per week on the project.

“I’ve been collecting insects for a long time,” said Sanor. “I’ve done lots of 4-H projects with my brother.”

In fact, the pair formed a dynamic duo, winning eight natural resource project awards in a row at the local level and earning the right to show their collections at the Illinois State Fair. Although they were a team, they also had their individual moments of glory.

“My brother was really into scarab beetles, and there was this particular one he’d been trying to get for a long time,” said Sanor. “We went to the Kankakee State Park one day, and right when I got out of the car, I immediately spotted this thing.

It was a really pretty metallic red and green beetle. Since I caught it, it was my name that went on the label.”

Sanor was less successful in catching her “Moby Dick,” the beautiful black-and-white zebra swallowtail butterfly.

“It’s from a family of swallowtails, and we had all but one,” she said. “My mom, my brother and I were at a park, and we saw one. We chased it for an hour, but we couldn’t catch it. We got a few feet away a couple times, but it wouldn’t land.”

With such a strong background in insect collecting, Sanor was a natural to take over the long overdue project of restoring Monmouth’s various collections.

The oldest collection, which features beautiful noctuid, sphinx, tiger and giant silk moths, dates back more than a century to the late 1890s. Others include insects collected by MC biology professor Malcolm Reid (1938-1952) and student collections from the 1970s by Louis Hultgren ’73, Scott Pearson ’73 and Jay Fox ’74. monmouth | spring 2010

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Illinois Clean Energy grant received monmouth college has received a

$22,500 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to fund a feasibility study for the college’s proposed wind energy project.

The college is exploring the possibility of locating a wind turbine on an 80-acre property that it owns in Warren County. To complete the feasibility study, the college will contract with a wind energy company that is active in the area. Physics professor Chris Fasano has worked with the company over the past year, engaging in extensive analysis of the data derived from meteorological towers in Warren County.

Monmouth is now ready for the study’s second phase, which will address issues of environmental impact and economic analysis. Completion of the phase, which will involve Fasano, biology professor Ken Cramer and vice president for finance and business Don Gladfelter ’77, is expected in the spring of 2010. Should the project be approved, the college hopes to initiate construction of the wind turbine within the next two years.

“Electricity produced by wind via a wind turbine would provide the college with exciting educational opportunities,” said associate academic dean Bren Tooley, who assisted with the grant proposal. “We envision educational programs associated with the wind turbine for both students and the general public.”

Calling all MC artists the buchanan center for the Arts in

Monmouth, in cooperation with Monmouth College, will sponsor a national juried show intended to draw entries from artists around the country. Entries will be accepted through May 15, and a special invitation to MC alumni artists to participate in this exhibition is extended.

Al Gury, chair of the painting department of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, will serve as juror and will also conduct a workshop for selected MC art students to coincide with the opening of the exhibit in August. Gury’s paintings have been exhibited in several major venues and he has written books on the history of color in painting and the history of painting techniques.

Categories include works on paper (watercolor/pastel/drawing), sculpture, photography, mixed media, ceramics and painting. More details about entry information and prizes are available at the Buchanan Center’s Web site (bcaarts.org) or by phone (309-734-3033).

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MC sets all-time enrollment mark after a great deal of buzz around campus that Monmouth College’s all-time

enrollment record could be broken, it was announced one week into the fall semester that 1,379 students were officially enrolled, eclipsing a mark that had stood since Lyndon Johnson was the nation’s president.

When the nation’s economy bottomed out in 2008, colleges like Monmouth began bracing for a drop in enrollment. Planning for a decline of 200 students—or roughly 15 percent—was a worst-case scenario. President Mauri Ditzler was asked how the college was able to not just maintain its enrollment, but actually increase it.

“There’s a growing perception that a Monmouth education is a best value, and in difficult economic times, value becomes increasingly important,” Ditzler said. “Our growing reputation as an institution that provides great value at an affordable cost is serving us well.”

Both Ditzler and dean of admission Christine Johnston also credited a campus-wide student recruitment and retention effort, including increased help from faculty and alumni.

“We were very pleased to welcome one of our largest incoming classes to campus this fall,” said Johnston of the college’s 440 first-time students, which came from a pool of a record number of applicants. “These students promise to be great additions to all of our programs. It is always rewarding when students find their college fit at Monmouth.”

Eighteen alumni share at Scots Connection event in november, MC hosted its

second annual Scots Connection: College-to-Career Conference, an event that enables current students to learn more about professional opportunities from alumni now in the working world.

The two-day conference was a joint effort between the college’s Career Development Office, directed by Michelle Shawgo, and the Alumni Programs Office, directed by Lucy Kellogg Thompson ’99.

Eighteen alumni participated, sharing their experiences in small groups at a networking dinner, and at roundtable and From left, alumni Joe Stefani, Pam Wyeth Bellm, Jeff panel discussions.

Miller and Darcy Crandall Thorp participate in the “We want our alumni and Scots Connection: College to Career Conference. students to share ideas, to share experiences and, ultimately, to share in success—success that we hope can be traced, in parts large and small, to their time here at Monmouth College,” said President Mauri Ditzler in his opening remarks.

Ditzler added that although students typically learn many of their lessons from their professors, there is also a great deal of education that takes place outside the classroom.

As students meet with alumni, they not only learn valuable information about a specific career, but they have the opportunity to be inspired by some of these professionals and to form initial connections with them that might fully blossom years from now,” he said. In fact, two of the students were hired over the weekend for future internship opportunities, said Thompson, who added, “To attend the conference, students had to be nominated by faculty members. They are some of our best and brightest students, and some of our most inquisitive and outgoing.”

Alumni who attended the event included Pam Wyeth Bellm ’76, Chris Byers ’89, Dan Cotter ’88, Jennifer Hootselle Cybart ’95, Jay Dickerson ’00, Michael Frantz ’99, Addie Dallas Hebard ’98, Trevor Hiel ’99 and Elysia Logan Mahoney ’04.

Also, Eric Matthews ’99, Jeff Miller ’84, Rebecca Ortiz ’99, Mike Salaway ’89, Debra Jackowniak Scarlett ’95, Chad Simpson ’98, Joe Stefani ’04, Darcy Crandall Thorp ’93 and Ralph Velazquez ’79. campus news

Four professors earn Hatch Awards

Kaiser is Lincoln Laureate

four faculty members received 2009 Hatch Academic Excellence Awards.

John Kaiser, a senior from Hanover Park, Ill., was honored in November by the Lincoln Academy of Illinois at the Old State Capitol in Springfield.

Each year, an outstanding senior who exhibits overall excellence in curricular and extracurricular programs is selected from each of the fouryear, degree-granting institutions of higher learning in Illinois.

An accounting and business administration double major with minors in economics and Spanish, Kaiser currently serves as the president of the Associated Students of Monmouth College, as well as his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and the Accounting Society. He has served as a Scot Ambassador and captain of the varsity swimming team, and he has been a member of the residence life staff and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee.

Steve Buban, professor of sociology and anthropology, received the Distinguished Service Award. Sharing the Distinguished Scholarship and Research Award are political science professor Farhat Haq and associate professor of sociology and anthropology Petra Kuppinger. The Distinguished Teaching Award went to Marta Tucker, professor of mathematics and computer science.

“I gained confidence completing difficult assignments while Professor Tucker provided the supportive instruction that guided each task,” wrote her alumni nominator.

“Her example of leadership, scholarship and dedication is an inspiration to all women entering the computer science field.”

The Hatch Award for Distinguished Service is awarded to “individuals and groups that do especially noteworthy work for the institution.” Buban has chaired almost all of the college’s standing committees in his 32-year career and has chaired the sociology and anthropology department for many years, including the past 10.

Criteria for the Distinguished Scholarship and Research Award include: participating in faculty-student research projects leading to publication; pedagogical research to improve classroom teaching; creative activity that explains the research; and traditional research in peer-reviewed journals.

Haq has published numerous articles in books and journals—including prestigious journals such as Asian Survey and Signs—and has recently started using political blogs in order to reach her audience. Kuppinger has published eight professional articles.

Most of her work stems from dissertation research in Cairo, Egypt, where she spent years doing fieldwork. Additional research in Stuttgart has given Kuppinger a new interest in German Islam, which she hopes to turn into a book.

Tooley awarded Fulbright for research in Bulgaria Bren Tooley, associate academic dean, was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach and do research at the University of Veliko Turnovo in Bulgaria this spring.

Tooley, who is also the director of the grant program at MC, will teach a course on gothic novels and film in collaboration with UVT faculty member Ludmilla Kostova, chair of the American and English studies literature program. Tooley will spend most of her time researching how Kostova’s department introduces new faculty members to professional life, mentors faculty members throughout their careers and facilitates conversation about the interdependence of teaching and research. Tooley will also explore how UVT incorporates international studies into its academic program and how it assesses the efficacy of international study.

“All of the things I learn will come back to Monmouth College in the form of ideas, advice and support for the further development of rigorous and rewarding off-campus courses and for the creation of faculty partnerships—even, perhaps, institutional collaboration,” said Tooley. “I am very much looking forward to this experience.”

Buban gets instructional technology job Chris Buban ’93, a staff member at his alma mater since 2005, has been appointed coordinator of instructional technology.

Examples of instructional technology include Moodle, a course management system that educators can use to create effective online learning sites, and a new initiative for the college’s business and science programs involving the use of tablet PCs. Buban will also explore new software and teaching tools while working with the information systems office and faculty.

Buban’s other charges include managing a new instructional technology budget, providing faculty workshops and assisting with the development of student e-portfolios and blogs.

“Monmouth is dedicating more resources to instructional technology because of its impact on students,” said vice president for academic affairs Jane Jakoubek. “Technology allows faculty to engage students in powerful ways—for example, by demonstrating concepts more clearly or creating opportunities for students to apply principles in a wide range of situations.” people news

Fighting Scots’ field photo a winner

a photo taken by senior Leigh Anne

Lane earned honorable mention in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Off-Campus Study Photo Contest.

Titled The Battle Cry, Lane’s photo was taken in the spring of 2009 in Culloden, Scotland, on the site of the Battle of Culloden, which occurred in 1746. It was the last battle ever fought on British soil.

“The day I took the photo, it constantly went back and forth from sunny to overcast,” said Lane, a history and classics major who was in Europe as a participant in the ACM’s London & Florence semesterabroad program. “The land that the battle took place on was beautiful. You felt such a great connection. It was almost as if you could see the Scots fighting for their freedom. I feel that the ray of light (in the photo) is a symbol to all the brave men who fought on this field.” monmouth | spring 2010

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Fannin’s book fills need the sixth and most recent book

by the Rev. Dr. B. Kathleen Fannin, MC’s chaplain, is all about filling needs, both general and specific.

Reverence and Revelry: Remembering God at College is a 326-page paperback book of 366 daily meditations available through Amazon.com and the Monmouth College Bookstore.

“I’ve been wanting a book of daily meditations for our student chaplains,” said Fannin. “I haven’t been to find it, so I decided to write it.”

The book, which features a key word, a quotation—which is often from scripture— and a personal reflection by Fannin for each day, came in handy almost immediately.

“On Aug. 21, I needed a meditation for an opening meeting I was having with our student chaplains,” said Fannin. “I picked up the book, and the word for that day was ‘best, and the quote was, ‘To our Lord, only our best.’ It was a perfect thought for our student chaplains as we got ready to start a new year.”

Fasano in national news mc’s innovative

physics department again received national notice thanks to an article that appeared in the Aug. 10 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Department chair Chris Fasano was quoted extensively in a story titled Your College Gets a Supercomputer! And Yours, and Yours! The article discusses how supercomputers, once a multimillion-dollar investment that was affordable only for elite universities and government labs, have now become common. Fasano’s work at MC was used as a shining example.

The article stated, “Consider the new supercomputer that Monmouth College … cobbled together from dozens of old highend computers bought on eBay for about $200 each. It was assembled by Christopher G. Fasano, a professor of physics, who figures the machines retailed for $30,000 apiece a few years ago, when they were new. He uses the homemade device for research on protein folding, in hopes that his simulations of the behavior of living cells can one day help medical researchers cure diseases.”

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monmouth | spring 2010

Ball named new vice president Molly Ball, is monmouth college’s new vice president for development and college relations. She was previously executive director of development at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

“Molly’s colleagues and supervisors from Kalamazoo provided exceptional praise for a career that is well-begun,” said Monmouth College president Mauri Ditzler.

Ball, who had held her previous position since 2007, directed a 10-person development staff at Kalamazoo responsible for $5 million in yearly fundraising. She previously served as a major gift officer and senior major gift officer at Kalamazoo. Prior to entering the world of higher education, she worked for the Michigan Farm Bureau, the Future Farmers of America (FFA) Foundation and the National FFA Foundation.

At Monmouth, she will be responsible for creating and implementing a plan for strengthening the college’s advancement efforts in fundraising, alumni programs and strategic communications.

Ball graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and natural resources communications. Her emphasis was agribusiness management and marketing. She also was certified as a fundraising manager through coursework at the Indiana University Center of Philanthropy.

Capener to head up college’s marketing efforts president Mauri Ditzler recently announced that associate professor Don Capener will fill a new vice president position at Monmouth College.

“I am pleased to report that Don Capener has accepted an invitation to spend the next 18 months serving as vice president for strategic planning,” said Ditzler. “He will bring his extensive experience in marketing—both as a practitioner and professor— to bear on a series of tasks that require immediate attention.

Don’s marketing expertise, when combined with his thorough knowledge of our academic programs, make him an ideal candidate for this task.”

The need for a senior appointment in the area of marketing is not new, Ditzler said, noting that it was the central recommendation of an external review in 2002, and more recently, was endorsed by an ad hoc marketing committee of MC’s Board of Trustees.

“The charge to Vice President Capener is to move beyond simply marketing our existing programs by helping us understand what the market expects of a high-value institution,” added Ditzler.

Capener, who joined the faculty in 2001, earned his B.A. in political science and economics in 1984 from Brigham Young University and his MBA in 1985 from the Thunderbird School of International Management. He is doing dissertation research after completing all of his coursework towards a Ph.D. in international management.

Capener has successfully driven marketing advertising programs for companies such as Fuji Film and Eddie Bauer. He also directed efforts for three major Visa promotional campaigns, including “It’s everywhere you want to be.”

Later in his career, he led large multi-disciplinary teams as a chief marketing officer and one of the founders of Above The Rim and Silicon Valley software developer Netcentives, Inc.

Bunce honored for philanthropic work in St. Louis at its annual “Ageless-Remarkable St. Louisans” gala in November,

St. Andrew’s Resources for Seniors recognized nearly two dozen seniors, 75 years “young” and greater, for their contributions.

One of the honorees was Peter Bunce, a member of the Monmouth College Board of Trustees’ executive committee since 1972 and its chairman from 1975 to 1983. Bunce is currently a consultant for special projects at Grand Center, Inc., in St. Louis, where he is known for founding and growing the Bunce Corporation, a successful construction firm, and also for his willingness to support worthy causes.

At Monmouth College, he was called “the single leading and binding influence on the college in the last quarter of the 20th century ... despite having no ties to the school as a student or faculty member.” His initial tie was that he was a college roommate of the late Richard Stine, who was MC’s president from 1970 to 1974. people news

Jakoubek earns CIC Chief Academic Officer Award

Harrison knows heroes

Jane Jakoubek, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, was selected as the 2009 recipient of the Council of Independent Colleges Chief Academic Officer Award, in recognition of her contributions to colleagues at private colleges and universities. The award was presented in November at the CIC’s annual Institute for Chief Academic Officers in Santa Fe, N.M. The CIC cited Jakoubek for being instrumental in preparing new chief academic officers for their work through her service to the CIC New Chief Academic Officers Workshop and her work as a mentor. She has helped strengthen private institutions around the country through her leadership of CIC Department Chair Workshops.

comic book characters like Superman certainly provide entertainment and they can also inspire.

Assistant professor Michael Harrison is one of many who believe they can educate, as well. Harrison was a presenter and a panelist at “Understanding Superheroes,” a conference hosted by the University of Oregon in conjunction with an exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, titled Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of a Superhero.

“I’ve been to numerous conferences based on comic books, but this was the first conference, as far as I know, focused exclusively on superheroes,” said Harrison, a member of MC’s department of modern foreign languages. “It was intended to be a little different, exploring the cultural impact of superheroes.”

Harrison presented a paper titled Transformations, Masks and Dual Identities: Queer Superhero Imagery in Contemporary Spanish Literature. It dealt with the use of American superhero imagery by contemporary Spanish poets and authors in the expression of issues of gay and lesbian identity. Harrison was also included on a panel that discussed “Queer Power: Superheroes and Sexualities.”

The new Monmouth faculty member said he has been interested in superheroes and comics since he was a child, and named Batman and Robin as his favorites.

“I have an identical twin brother, so I really identified with that one, in particular,” he said, adding that the Batman story is typical of what is occurring in the modern world of comics.

“In the 1960s, you had the light, campy Batman on TV. In the late 1980s, the first of the much darker Batman films was made.

The characters have a lot more depth, and we begin to focus more on who Batman is and the psychological issues that drive him.

The superheroes of the 1940s were essentially fighting crime.”

Harrison said he plans to have a “comics component” in a course he will teach on contemporary Spanish culture during the spring semester.

Superheroes such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman are familiar throughout the world, but there are some characters who are nation-specific. In Spain, that includes El Hombre Enmascarado (The Masked Man) and El Guerrero del Antifaz.

The latter hero, said Harrison, is a “medieval hero who extols specific national Catholic virtues.”

Brady accepted into Fulbright-Hays program Heather Brady, associate professor of modern foreign languages, has been accepted into the Fulbright-Hays Summer Seminar Program in Mexico.

Brady will participate this summer in “A Comparative Study of Mexican Cultures: Ancient, Colonial and Contemporary,” a five-week program that will focus on five cultures related to Mexico—Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Toltec and Aztec. Visits will be made to cities representative of ancient culture and modern development, including Oaxaca, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey and Merida. The project is designed to provide higher education faculty and high school teachers with rich content as they develop curricula in Mexican studies.

“I’m looking forward to bringing back my new knowledge about Mexico to Monmouth so that I can better understand the forces of globalization and migration at work in our community,” said Brady, who joined MC’s faculty in 2003.

Separate from, yet as competitive as the Fulbright Scholars program, Fulbright-Hays programs receive their funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

Goble accessed Hollywood through seminar communication studies instructor Chris Goble was one of

20 faculty members from around the country selected to attend the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation Faculty Seminar, which offers college professors opportunities to see how television entertainment works behind the scenes. It includes five days of discussions, presentations and interactions with major studios, production companies, the networks and their top production and programming personnel.

Among the personnel who addressed the group during the faculty seminar were the creators of TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

“They all spoke fairly candidly about what we should bring back to our students about the TV industry, particularly in L.A., and how it works at their level,” said Goble.

“Many talked about their biggest mistakes. It was interesting how candid they were.”

One executive was candid about a decision, but passed the buck, said Goble.

“One of the funny things that happened was, we walked into a meeting and there was an executive from NBC. His first words were, ‘Leno, not my call. Moving on.’”

Goble and the group received some counsel that could prove to be priceless if one of their students runs with it.

“We were told that our students interested in getting into the business need to be prepared to do any job,” he said. “Many people in Hollywood got their start as PAs, or production assistants. It’s very important to do that job well, to get lunch right, get the coffee right. You need to have the attitude that no job’s below you.”

As for the small screen’s big picture, Goble said, “We learned that TV is alive and well. What’s interesting is the issue of how TV will get to its audience in the future.

TV is strong. More people are watching TV than ever, but things like ‘time-shifting’ (recording a show to watch later) and watching online are happening more than ever before. How can they monetize it and bring in the advertising revenue? Advertising on the Internet compared to major network advertising is pennies to dollars.” people news

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Monmouth’s message: Midwest matters

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midwest matters

A new logo and slogan (above) will be used to promote Monmouth College’s commitment to the cultural and economic enhancement of the region through its Midwest Studies initiative.

Providing the keynote address at an economic summit that launched the program last fall was Richard C. Longworth, author of Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism. Panelists included Bill Ratzburg, Deere & Co. executive working in community development, and Colleen Callahan, Illinois State director for rural development, USDA.

midwest matters

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“Longworth”

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during homecoming weekend festivities, Monmouth College launched its new Midwest Studies initiative with a major forum focusing on economic development in Illinois and the Three months after serving as the keynote speaker for Monmouth College’s greater Midwest. Titled “Roadblocks to Economic Recovery: The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus once said, “Know thyself, ” and that is just groundbreaking forum on the Midwest, Challenges for the Midwest Region, ” the forum featured keySimon Cordery and Fred Witzig are trying to Richard C. Longworth included President what history faculty members note speaker Richard C. Longworth, new MC Board ofdo.Trustof the Midwest Studies they are acutely Mauri Ditzler among seven influential indi- As the academic coordinators ees member Jack Schultz andinitiative, a guest panel. aware of the importance of “We studying theforMidwest and understanding thetounique viduals in his blog, “The Midwesterner: intend the Midwest Studies program immediBlogging the Global Midwest.” challenges and opportunities atelythe addregion value faces. to our community, region and the entire In his introduction to a list of “A Few Midwest,” said MC president Mauri Ditzler. “The economy in Good People,” Longworth wrote, “The westMidwest is still struggling to redefine itself ern “The Midwest Studies program in the age of globalization, but a lot of good Illinois will bring together decision people are engaged in that struggle. As a difneeds makers and public intellectuals ficult decade ends and a new, perhaps help, better, one dawns, it’s a good time to salute and and will help citizens to a few of these good people. They’re among we are understand the identity of the the leaders who are setting the Midwest’s confiagenda for the future and who will help region. We can understand dent guide it into that future.” and shape the future based Ditzler, wrote Longworth, “made news this past year by setting up the first Midwest on the past and present events Studies Initiative in the region. of the area.”— Simon Cordery Astonishingly, until now, no Midwestern college or university even taught a course on the Midwest. In addition, most small colleges like Monmouth seemed to go out of their way to shun the communities around them and to present themselves as not really Monmouth College can be a catalyst for innovation and Midwestern, but as scholarly outposts in change that will add value and enrich lives. We want to be flyover territory. Ditzler, an Indiana native part of the solution.” (who) still owns a farm near Crawfordsville, Longworth, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on is out to change this. His program will focus Global Affairs, wrote the bestselling book, “Caught in the on the impact of globalization on the region Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.” A foraround Monmouth. With luck, his vision mer longtime Chicago Tribune correspondent, Longworth is a will rub off on other Midwestern colleges.” realist who argued that individual Midwestern states, locked When Longworth drew up his list, he within borders drawn more than 200 years ago, are too small, ended up having many more names than he parochial and incompetent to compete in a globalized world. could initially mention. The seven he did But he is an optimist too, having stated that “the Midwest has detail are “typical of the good work going on always been the bellwether for American social issues, ecoacross this region.” nomic trends and political movements. What happens to “Anyone traveling around the Midwest America, happens first in the Midwest.” quickly learns that the region is loaded with Longworth was answered by Schultz, founder and CEO of people who clearly see the challenges of this the industrial development firm Agracel, Inc., and author of new global era and that the old Midwestern “BoomtownUSA: The 7 1⁄2 Keys to Big Success in Small way of doing things doesn’t work anymore,” Towns,” which attempts to answer the question: “What sepahe wrote. “One of our jobs on the site is to rates the thriving towns from the struggling ones?” He put them in touch with each other, to help believes that rural communities are the key to renewal of the them leverage their work and ideas into a regional recovery.”

Midwest economy.

Also mentioned was another college presA guest panel of practitioners offered personal perspectives on ident, Rob Denson of Des Moines Area the unique challenges the Midwest faces. Comprising the panel Community College, who was praised for were Colleen Callahan, Illinois State Director for Rural leading a campaign to get Midwestern comDevelopment, U.S.D.A.; Jim McConoughey, president and CEO of munity colleges to work together, especially in regard to training workers for green economy jobs.

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raining MC students on the Midwest

midwest matters

when thinking about the Midwest,

Assistant history professor Fred Witzig, one of the designers of the Midwest Studies curriculum, discusses the program with local radio host Vanessa Wetterling ’96.

midwest matters

people often go straight to the image of life on the farm.

“People often don’t realize that this region is a place of great innovation,” said Witzig, who did not realize this either until moving to the region. Originally from Los Angeles, Witzig said he enjoys the Midwest more than he ever thought he could. “I really got tired of the city life. It was expensive, intense, traffic was bad, and having millions of people racing around was exhausting. The pace of life here is slower and more enjoyable.”

Cordery’s love of the Midwest is very similar. His family moved to the Chicago suburbs from Great Britain when he was a child and, after attending school outside of the area, he was more than happy to return.

“I find the Midwest to be relaxing and laid back, but it is not a cultural wilderness,” said Cordery, who pointed out that while there are rural areas, there are just as many urban areas. “There are many opportunities to experience the city, and it is not hard to find something to do.”

Originally, Witzig had little interest in studying the Midwest. As a California native, he “found the Gold Rush and Spanish Southwest more interesting and exciting.” However, his opinions about Midwestern history quickly changed while he was teaching in Indiana.

“The professor who taught Indiana history was retiring, so I began to teach that course,” he said. “Once I started studying it, I began to really enjoy it.”

Witzig wrote his dissertation on the Northeast, but it seemed far away. “The nice thing about studying Midwestern history is that you can feel it. You can go to the place where the event occurred, and that really allows students to understand their background.”

Cordery’s research interests center around transportation and railroads.

“I enjoy studying railroads and reading about railroad history,” he said. “The Midwest, particularly Chicago, is the hub of the American railroad system.” As an Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar, Cordery often speaks about the history of railroads in the Midwest.

Cordery and Witzig agree that the majority of the country perceives the Midwest to be a “flyover zone.” The area from Columbus, Ohio, to Salt Lake City, Utah, is rarely studied, and Cordery believes there’s a reason.

“The West Coast has Hollywood, Starbucks and everything that California represents. The East Coast has New England, the Revolutionary War, traditions and heritage. The southern United States carries so much baggage that goes along with saying, ‘I’m from the South.’ The

Midwest is seen as anodyne. There is no great conflict about the Midwest, which translates to very little interest in the Midwest.”

Witzig offered a counterargument. His first example was the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were from Illinois, and their debates sparked the controversy that became the Civil War. Witzig also noted that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was from the Midwest.

Witzig is currently teaching a “History of Illinois and the Midwest” course, and English lecturer Kevin Roberts is teaching Culture of the Midwest. More courses will be added to the Midwest Studies initiative, including a course about transportation to be taught by Cordery in the fall of 2011.

When asked about what the initiative can do for the region, Cordery and Witzig both stated high hopes.

“The Midwest Studies program will bring together decision makers and public intellectuals and will help citizens to understand the identity of the region,” said Cordery. “We can understand and shape the future based on the past and present events of the area.”

“The Midwest Studies initiative gives students an opportunity to study the region as a whole and realize that Illinois shares the same challenges as Iowa or Indiana,” Witzig said. “If we are able to see ourselves as a region, rather than individual states, we will be able to find solutions to these challenges in more effective ways.”

Witzig also hopes that the Midwest Studies initiative will raise the profile of the region and help break the stereotypes other areas have about the Midwest.

Cordery and Witzig also commented on what the Midwest Studies initiative can do for the students. They believe the program makes Monmouth College unique.

An awareness of Midwestern history would set MC graduates apart in the job market because they would better know the area. A business major would know the market better and a teacher would be able to understand the background of his or her students. Employers would recognize this as an advantage.

“Any Southern university will have a Southern Studies Center, or at least a Southern Studies major,” said Cordery.

“Other parts of the country are more historically self aware than the Midwest.”

“Know thyself ” seems to be a lofty charge, but with the help of the Midwest Studies initiative, Monmouth College students will truly understand their background and help shape the future of the Midwest region.  —Melissa Lindsay ’10 monmouth | spring 2010

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First Midwest Studies courses announced in the news conference that launched Monmouth College’s Midwest Studies initiative, President Mauri Ditzler announced that four new courses focusing on Midwest topics have been added to the curriculum.

Following are brief descriptions of those four courses: “Entrepreneurism and Science” will be taught by associate professor of political economy and commerce Don Capener and associate professor of chemistry Laura Moore. It offers an exploration of how entrepreneurism and scientific innovation come together in science-driven ventures and science-related companies in the Midwest.

“Heartland of America” will be taught by assistant professor of history Fred Witzig.

This course explores the religious, social and economic cultures of the Midwestern region and the region’s place in America.

The goal is to use the past to better understand the present and the possibilities for the future, and to share conclusions with the academy and the larger public. Each student will visit a historical site in the region and write an academic paper to be presented at an academic conference or research the history of and produce a history document for a Midwestern business suitable for public distribution.

“Midwest Connections” will be taught by associate professor of history Simon Cordery It takes an interdisciplinary approach to questions of time, space and place.

Specifically, it studies how modes of transportation have defined, and continue to define, the Midwest, and how best to comprehend the roles they can play in the future of the region.

“Monmouth’s Immigrant Communities” will be taught by associate professor of modern foreign languages Heather Brady.

Along with numerous other rural Midwest towns, Monmouth is caught between regional and global identities as it is increasingly defined by the meat processing industry and dependent on migrant labor.

This course uses Monmouth as a laboratory in which students explore pressing contemporary political and cultural issues.

“There is evidence that Monmouth is tapping into significant interest in the challenges and opportunities facing the Midwest in the coming decade,” said vice president for academic affairs, Jane Jakoubek, who said the five faculty who received support for Midwest courses will soon extend an opportunity to other faculty to propose courses involving Midwest Studies.  14

monmouth | spring 2010

monmouth college’s new Midwest Studies initiative has

received a substantial boost with the gift from an anonymous donor of an important collection of Native American artifacts.

Most of the artifacts were found in western Illinois, particularly in Henderson, McDonough and Warren counties. Valued at approximately $50,000, the collection includes arrowheads, ax heads, scrapers and broken pieces of pottery, some of which are as old as 13,000 years.

Larry Conrad, a retired Western Illinois University professor who specializes in local and Native American archaeology, called it “the largest collection from this area that scholars have had access to. We’re very excited.”

Conrad said the collection has numerous “Dalton points,” which date back 10,000 years, as well as a few “Clovis points,” which are more than 3,000 years older. The characteristically-fluted projectile points date to what is called the Paleoindian period and are named after Clovis, N.M., where examples were first found in 1929. Conrad said Clovis points differ from other points, in that they were made for a spear used in thrusting into big game, such as mastodons.

Most of the artifacts range in age from several hundred to several thousand years. Clovis points are on one end of the spectrum, said Conrad, while musket balls and ornamental tinkling cones from the 1800s are on the other.

He also said the collection presents a “rare opportunity” to develop an overview of the prehistory of the region.

“The hundreds of culturally diagnostic artifacts that the collector can place precisely on the landscape and the thousands which can be placed more generally within the region will allow for the first time an understanding of the region. Our understanding will now begin to approach that which has been developed for the west central Illinois counties from Peoria to East St. Louis.”

“This collection will be an invaluable learning resource for Monmouth College students,” said Tom Sienkewicz, the Minnie Billings Capron Professor of Classics and coordinator of the Western Illinois Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

“They will be able to learn about the life and culture of early inhabitants of western Illinois by viewing material culture from that period, but even more valuable will be the opportunities students will have for hands-on work with these artifacts. Students interested in archaeology, history and museum studies will have ample opportunity to catalogue artifacts, put them in cultural context and prepare public displays.”

It is also planned that students will do GPS mapping of the collection sites, which will be further examined to attempt to discover more artifacts.

Assistant professor of history Fred Witzig said he is looking forward to using the collection in his “History of Illinois and the Midwest” course.

“This will be a good link to things I’m doing,” he said. “We’ll be able to bring the artifacts in close and have the students see them, touch them. This gift also enables the Midwest initiative to expand its focus with emphasis on the study of the archaeology of western Illinois.”

Witzig led a team of students who boxed the collection for transport to the college, one of several opportunities that Monmouth students will have to use the collection for educational purposes. Senior Nichole Brants, president of the History Club, was instrumental in assembling the student team.

“The donor is a very interesting person, and he’s led a very interesting life,” said Witzig. “The stories he has about how he found the items and where he found them are fascinating—he has such a remarkable memory.”

Both Witzig and Conrad commented that although there is nothing in the collection that scholars haven’t seen before, it provides “nice examples of things that exist in other places.” An example, Witzig said, is a nutting stone that Conrad has only seen two other times in his half-century of western Illinois archaeology.

The collection will be housed in Hewes Library, where a permanent display area and archaeological research lab are being planned.

“Collections such as this one are widely recognized in the archaeological community as treasure troves of data,” Conrad said. “Unfortunately, it is rare that one is preserved intact or even minimally documented. This gift to Monmouth College is a gift that will keep on giving to everyone who is interested in west central Illinois archaeology for the foreseeable future.” 

MC receives collection of Native American artifacts

midwest matters

Midwestern trio named to board of trustees Dan Cotter ’88, who is married to Ann Stites Cotter ’87, said, “I have traveled a lot in the last several years, and from my perspective, there is just something more friendly and warm about the Midwest region. I also think there is a strong worth ethic and practical approaches to problems here.”

Following his outstanding gridiron career (he was inducted into the M Club Hall of Fame in 2002), Cotter received a postgraduate scholarship that led him to law school. He earned his law degree from John Marshall Law School in 1995, graduating first in his class, and he has continued to achieve at a high level.

In 2001, he was the recipient of Monmouth’s Young Alumnus Award and, three years later, he was named one of “Illinois’ 40 under 40 Attorneys to Watch” by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

“I am very excited to be on the board,” Cotter said. “Monmouth has played an instrumental role in my successes in life and in my personal life. I met Ann there, and most of my closest friendships are from Monmouth. This is an exciting time at Monmouth, with its vibrant student population and plans for the future in terms of housing, the academic curriculum and academic buildings. I think it is headed in the right direction and poised for great things.”

Cotter, who returns to campus often, including for Scots Connection events, also believes that the college’s focus on the Midwest will serve as “a distinguishing factor when future students look at various schools.”

midwest matters

monmouth college’s three newest trustees—Dan Cotter ’88, Jack Schultz and Bob Tucker ’65—are joining the board at an opportune time. With each having strong ties to the region, the trio brings valuable experience to Monmouth’s recently launched Midwest Studies initiative.

Cotter and Tucker both have lifelong connections to the region. Each came to Monmouth from the Chicago area, was an all-conference football player, met his future wife on campus, then stayed in the region after graduating. Cotter is vice president and deputy general counsel for the Argo Group in Chicago. Tucker eventually settled in Dubuque, Iowa, where he has enjoyed a rewarding career as a professor, coach and founder of the nationallyacclaimed Loras College All-Sports Camp, which has now expanded to the MC campus (see inside back cover).

Jack Schultz, the founder and CEO of Agracel, Inc., is a national expert in economic development strongly connected to Midwest issues, as his industrial development firm focuses on developing projects and creating jobs in small, rural towns. “I was thrilled to be asked to join the Monmouth board,” said Schultz, whose son, Joe Schultz, is a junior at MC. “I’m firmly convinced that a broad-based liberal arts education is the best background to prepare young people for jobs and industries that haven’t even been invented yet.

Monmouth’s rich history, faculty and vision for the future has it poised for this very bright future. The fact that the college is taking a leadership role with this new Midwest Studies initiative is another indication of the rising influence of Monmouth College.”

For the past two decades, Schultz has focused on trying to bring higher paying manufacturing and high-tech jobs to rural towns, mostly in the Midwest. That work led to the publication of his book, Boomtown USA: The 7 ½ Keys to Big Success in Small Towns. His Boomtown Speaking Tour began shortly after the book was published in 2004, and he has since spoken to more than 400 communities in 44 states.

“I was born and raised in a small town in southern Illinois, worked overseas for seven years and returned to the Midwest,” said Schultz, who earned an MBA from Harvard University. “I’ve found Midwestern workers to have an exemplary work ethic and with a unique ability to problem solve and innovate in ways not generally found in other parts of the world. It is those characteristics that have kept me anchored back home in the Midwest.”

Bob Tucker ’65, a Hall of Fame inductee at Loras College, was cited for making “a difference in the lives of thousands on the track and football field, in the classroom, through special seminars and summer sports camps.”

He began the All-Sports Camp at Loras in 1983, and it is now his fulltime vocation, a duty he shares with his wife, Judy Hodges Tucker ’65.

Tucker started at Loras in 1981, following the completion of his Ed.D. at Virginia Tech University. He has been head coach of the Duhawks’ men’s and women’s track and cross country teams and an assistant football coach. A high point in his coaching career came in 1989, when he led the men’s track team to top five national finishes indoors and outdoors. Prior to his retirement, Tucker chaired Loras’ department of physical education for 18 years.

“I am honored to serve on the board of trustees,” said Tucker. “It is exciting to see the growth of the student body, the many academic honors of both the faculty and students and the success of the athletic teams.

I believe Monmouth College has a bright future and that we will continue to see growth and improvements in the curricular areas.”

Like the other new trustees, Tucker has fond feelings for the area.

“I have lived most of my life in the Midwest, and eight of my adult years in Monmouth as a student and as a teacher and coach. I enjoy traveling, but I’m always happy to come back to the Midwest. It has been a good environment in which to raise a family because of the quality life it offers. The people are friendly and the communities we have lived in have been very value-oriented.”

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Twomey’s journey brings her full circle

By Barry McNamara

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here’s a lot going on inside and outside the Buchanan Center for the Arts in downtown Monmouth, and Susan Twomey ’76 is a big reason why. Twomey has been the center’s executive director for two years, and she makes sure there are always wonderful exhibits inside, in addition to classes relating to the arts.

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“I saw something other than spray paint,” said Twomey, who posted a note inviting those responsible to work with her on a more productive project. “I heard these kids and saw their potential.”

The result is a colorful mural that has not only brought attention to the Buchanan Center’s south façade, but has helped the young artists in numerous ways.

An article in the local newspaper quoted one youth as saying that Twomey’s steady influence “put me on a general path of what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to do something with my hands.”

Said another, “She is such an awesome person. She actually gave us the opportunity and gave us the paint.” e G “It has been joyful and moving to by o watch them evolve into the responsible ot Ph adults they are becoming,” said Twomey.

“For these kids here, at this young age, to be heard on a pretty wide platform is some“I saw something other than thing that will stay with them—the possibility spray paint.… I heard these that you can have your voice heard.” kids and saw their potential.…

Their voice is being heard not only in It has been joyful and moving Monmouth, but also throughout the state to watch them evolve into the thanks to the Chicago-based PBS show Arts Across Illinois, which came to Monmouth responsible adults they are and shot footage of the project. Twomey becoming.”—Susan Twomey said the film crew interviewed a handful of “It seemed like it would be a good fit for civic leaders, and “they were very positive me and for the skill set I could bring,” in their responses in how it helped shape Twomey said. “I have been fortunate that and change some of these young kids. most of my life’s jobs have had a creative … (The PBS show) is going to show our side.” community as pretty progressive, cohesive Journey Stories is just one example of the and vibrant.” many ties between the Buchanan Center The program aired in late February and and one of Twomey’s alma maters. But is archived at wttw.com. Since the students before detailing those ties, Twomey is perwere profiled, they have since landed haps most proud of an event that occurred another gig, decorating windows on City just outside her building’s walls—on the Hall to promote the 2010 census. wall, as a matter of fact.

The Buchanan Center is certainly one of The Buchanan Center’s south façade the things that makes Monmouth progresmakes up part of an alley just off sive and vibrant, and the relationship Monmouth’s Public Square, and it had between the center and Monmouth College become a frequent target for graffiti, often has flourished since the center’s inception. with inappropriate images. There were cer“I am grateful for the partnerships that tainly reasons to pursue the teenage are developing between us,” Twomey said. vandals as criminals, but Twomey had “I have high hopes for even more events other ideas. that we can do together.” o

in fact, the first exhibit of 2010 created quite a buzz, as Twomey helped Monmouth to be one of the first communities in the nation to receive the Smithsonian’s traveling display, Journey Stories.

The exhibit, which focuses on how our ancestors came to America and the mobile nature of Americans, had Monmouth College ties, as a complementary film series was hosted at the Dahl Chapel and Auditorium.

Associate professor of history Simon Cordery also delivered a Journey Stories talk on the hidden history of the railroad in Illinois.

Twomey has had her own interesting journey. After growing up in Monmouth, she originally chose her hometown college, and enjoyed two years on campus.

“I took with me the lessons and the lifetime friendship of Gib and Catherine Boone,” said Twomey of the faculty members who specialized in East Asian studies.

“Their talents and gifts have been a driving force in my life, and to this day, I treasure that relationship. Monmouth College is one of those rare places where students can form such intimate and important relationships with teachers.”

In 1975, Twomey transferred to the University of Northern Colorado­, explaining, “I wanted to explore new places.” A few years later, while visiting a Monmouth College friend in Washington, D.C., she fell in love with the area and spent 20 years there in a variety of professions, including jewelry designer and goldsmith, caterer and kindergarten teacher.

Twomey returned to Monmouth in 2007 to be closer to family, including her daughter, Claire Chalifoux, who graduated from MC last May, and a niece, Liz Twomey, who just enrolled as a freshman.

“I was reluctant on some levels to come back, because I loved the East Coast,” said Twomey of being back in the Midwest. “But when I came back here, I realized it was exactly where I should be.”

She did not move back for the Buchanan Center position, but it came open soon after her return.

midwest matters

Recent projects have included a joint exhibit by Gary Willhardt ’59 and Fred Wackerle ’61 titled Two Classmates, 50 Years Later; the Monmouth College Art Faculty: Past and Present exhibit; and a national juried exhibition called 64 Arts.

The exhibit’s juror, Preston Jackson, conducted a special workshop for MC students, several of whom came back to campus early from summer vacation to participate.

“We also do quite a bit with the theatre department,” Twomey said.

Those projects include drama classes, a drama camp and joint productions, including A Christmas Carol.

“Susan’s drive, flexibility and creativity has allowed us to find more ways for our students to get the hands-on opportunities they need to extend their classroom experience,” said assistant professor of theatre Janeve West.

“Because Susan is so welcoming of a partnership with MC theatre, we are able to build a bridge between the campus and the community through the arts. There is nothing better than filling the Wells Theater with area youth who are excited to watch their peers on the college stage. For the college students, there is no better classroom than this that brings them in direct contact with the community.”

The BCA and the college often share the stage and, lately, they’ve also shared the screen, Twomey explained.

“Last August, we had a film festival that we co-sponsored in conjunction with the college’s office of intercultural life. It was called Beyond War and Terrorism: Understanding the Muslim World. The films were wonderful and ( faculty members) Farhat Haq and Petra Kuppinger did a great job with the question-and-answer portions.”

Twomey expects the collaboration between the Buchanan Center and MC to continue, saying, “I would love to work with the intercultural office again and bring groups like Tamari Son to our community. It is my dream to someday bring (Native American flute player) Carlos Nakai to Monmouth College’s Dahl Chapel for a performance. I actually showed him Dahl Chapel once. The acoustics there would be perfect.”

Much like the harmony Susan Twomey helps promote between the city of Monmouth’s cultural center and its institution of higher learning.  midwest matters

George Gaulrapp ’81 has an easy answer for why he loves the Midwest.

“It’s the quality of life, the friendliness of the people. It’s not so cutthroat. People want to raise up others with themselves, not climb over them to get to the top. And then there’s the traditional Midwestern work ethic—people work hard for a dollar.”

Finding jobs for those people is the more difficult answer for Gaulrapp these days, but he’s hoping to do something about it.

The mayor of Freeport, Ill., since 2005, Gaulrapp announced last fall that he is running as a Democrat for a seat in the U.S. Congress in Illinois’ 16th District against incumbent Don Manzullo.

“I love my job as mayor—it’s a great job for me,” he said. “But I have so many people come up to me and say, ‘Mayor, I need a job.’ If I win the election in November, I can better help these people.”

He continued, “You can dial any phone number in town, and the people would say there are four great things about Freeport.

Our park district is second to none, we have terrific hospitals and schools, and the quality of life is tremendous. The concern is employment opportunities. We need to retain all the jobs we currently have, and then we have to go out and find more— investing in technology and green technology.”

Freeport has also experienced the “rural brain drain” that President Mauri Ditzler is hoping to combat with Monmouth College’s Midwest Studies initiative.

“We see the same things,” said Gaulrapp, who has four children. “The best and brightest leave the area and never come back. I had one daughter who went to Northern Illinois University and another who’s at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

One has found work around here and it looks like the other one will, too, but not everyone is as fortunate.”

Like Ditzler, Gaulrapp sees the region’s “agriculture background as a strength. We have an ethanol plant, we have a farmer’s market and a lot of locally-produced food and value-added products. We’re trying to market ourselves as an agricultural corridor between Galena and Chicago.”

He continued, “As we look to create jobs, we’re hopeful those will come in areas such as renewable energies—maybe switchgrass or other similar possibilities—and we’re also looking at rail transportation becoming

more prevalent. We have a company that makes components for trains—both maintenance parts and original parts.”

Gaulrapp’s path to Monmouth College went through Freeport’s Aquin High School, . His sister had dated Mark Bradley ’77, an Aquin football player four years ahead of Gaulrapp, who remembers watching Bradley play in high school and college.

“I followed his football games down at Monmouth, and I eventually followed him there,” said Gaulrapp, who also played for the Fighting Scots. “Monmouth was the farthest I had ever been away from home, but our coach, Bill Reichow, was like a father

Creating jobs is Job One for ’81 grad

By Barry McNamara

figure to me during those years.”

Gaulrapp also his enjoyed a family-like relationship with the brothers of his Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, including Andy Hawley ’80, a former prep rival who became an MC teammate, and Mike (Quagliano) Johnson ’83. Gaulrapp shares a special bond with Johnson, as they married sisters.

Besides Reichow, Gaulrapp also had fond memories of studying business under Rod Lemon ’63.

Gaulrapp said he “didn’t know what to expect,” when he came to Monmouth as a 17-year-old freshman, but he has come to realize “what a great institution” it is, and what a “great value” it offers.

Following graduation, Gaulrapp became a marketing director at a dental laboratory and then, in the late 1990s, got into a completely different occupation with E-Trade, covering a 17-state section of the Midwest.

After returning to the dental field for a short time, Gaulrapp ran for mayor of Freeport in 2005 and was re-elected for a second term in 2009.

Gaulrapp recently returned to campus for a Scots Connection leadership conference, about which he commented, “I had a great time. Monmouth College has never looked so good.”

Asked to contribute a favorite quotation for the event, he repeated one that he has used on the campaign trail: “Thomas Jefferson said, ‘We in America do not have government by the majority.

We have government by the majority who participate.’”

Already an active participant in that process, Gaulrapp is hoping that a win in November’s election will allow him to work more productively for the Midwestern city and region that he is proud to call home.  monmouth | spring 2010

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aron Harris ’02 and Joe Stefani ’04 have a few With the Web 2.0 explosion, I found a niche in social

By Barry McNamara things in common. They graduated from media and have grown tremendously as a blogger.

Monmouth College two years apart, live in medium-sized I pride myself on my reliability as a source of figure skating knowlcities in Illinois and are active in promoting a sport. It’s in their edge and take great responsibility for what I write. With the help sport of choice, however, where their roads diverge. of social media, I’m able to deliver my passion to many and I’ve Stefani is participating in the more traditional Midwestern received overwhelming support.” undertaking, spending the past two years preparing the city of Spending time in Vancouver not only allowed Harris to be at Rockford for the return of a minor league baseball franchise. Harris, figure skating’s epicenter, it also contributed to another of his life’s on the other hand, is a champion for a sport that doesn’t necessar- interests. ily scream “Midwest”—figure skating.

“One of my many other passions includes traveling and visiting From his home base of Galesburg, Harris has been so active in new places and engaging with people from different cultures and covering the figure skating scene that he earned a trip to Vancouver walks of life,” said Harris, who earned a master’s degree in global to cover the 2010 Winter Games up close and personal. policy studies at the University of Illinois.”

Panasonic held a “One Winter, Five Dreams” contest to bring With his wide range of interests, it’s no wonder Harris appreciates together lesser-known Olympic athletes and their supporters from his time at Monmouth. around the world through “Even now, almost eight years blogging. Harris was the only removed from graduation, I still non-Olympic participant among draw upon lessons learned and the winning entrants, which experiences from my time at included skiers, skaters and skeleMonmouth,” he said. “I can’t ton competitors. stress how valuable a liberal arts “I can’t contain my excitement education is. It prepares you for any more—I’m at the Olympics,” challenges in life that you can’t Harris wrote in a blog in early possibly predict or expect.”

February. “It has really set in that Stefani, who lives in Algonquin, I am here. I’ve looked out my hotel window is another alumnus seeking to get the word out several times just to confirm to myself, ‘That about his sport in any way possible. That really is Vancouver out there?’ I’m smiling from included holding a contest to name a new baseear to ear, and this grin probably won’t leave ball franchise that he and a group of investors my face for the next year.” are bringing to Rockford. The team will particiHis triumph in the contest was not due to pate in the Great Plains Baseball League, a dumb luck. Despite living far away from the summer collegiate wood bat league, and will site of most major figure skating competitions, play 27 home games in 2010 at historic Marinelli Harris, who says, “I eat, drink and breathe the Field, starting on Memorial Day weekend. sport,” has written about skating for five years.

More than 400 entrants submitted ideas Aaron Harris is pictured in his official Titled “Axels, Loops and Spins,” his blog has and, ironically, an MC student, senior Mike “Gold Blogger” coat with Olympian Robel received up to 50,000 hits per month.

Diamond, was one of two entrants who sugTeklemariam, a cross country skier from How did Harris become so involved with a gested the winning name, “Foresters.”

Ethiopia who was also a member of the sport not in his own backyard?

“We feel that the Rockford Foresters name “One Winter, Five Dreams” blogging team.

“It was during the Nancy Kerrigan-Tanya and logo represents Rockford being known as Harding knee-whack thing,” he told the Galesburg Register-Mail. the ‘Forest City,’” said Stefani, who is believed to be the youngest “It was the whack heard round the world.” majority owner of a U.S. sports team. “It also represents the fighting During the 2010 Olympics, Harris was the one with a “’roundspirit that many of the citizens of Rockford have and have shown the-world” presence. He blogged regularly from Vancouver, during these tough economic times. We think that we have a forincluding the following dispatch after Evan Lysacek’s gold medal in mula not just for a great baseball team, but for a truly affordable the men’s competition. entertainment option for Rockford and surrounding communities.”

“Last night at Pacific Coliseum an American star was born…In Stefani is serious when he says “affordable.” Single game tickets the free skate, Plushenko and Takahashi were good, but on this start at just $4 and all tickets to Tuesday night games will cost just $2. night Lysacek was great.”

“Baseball is one of those truly Midwest things along with county Harris, an imaging officer coordinator at Galesburg’s OSF St. fairs,” said Stefani. “With the way the economy is, people aren’t able Mary Medical Center, said he entered the contest last fall, then to take those $2,000 vacations. They are more interested in having a “forgot about it.” He learned about winning and receiving an all$25 night out with their family at the ballpark or the fair.” expenses-paid trip to the Games less than two weeks before the Summer collegiate leagues such as the Great Plains have spawned opening ceremony. such current professional stars as Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and “I think they liked how I used social media like Twitter and Nick Swisher, who were all key participants in the 2009 World Facebook,” he told the newspaper. “If it’s social media, I’ll use it.”

Series. Hoping to follow in their footsteps will be current Fighting He continued, “Social media is fantastic. It allows me to stay Scots sophomore Brad Winkler, who will be a catcher on the connected with friends I have in South Korea, China and Germany Foresters this summer. Using staff members with MC ties, Stefani in real time. I know what they are up to and they know what I’m up could almost make his own starting nine. Walker Filip ’09 is the to now, which is cool. We live in a big world, but social media director of sponsorships and public relations, and several current allows us to be very close.” students also have roles. Josh VanSwol is the promotions coordinator, Harris, who majored in political science at Monmouth while Jack Clifford is the graphic designer and Brittney Parker, Joel participating in Chorale, said his blog had a humble beginning.

Shumaker, Ben Morrow and Andrew Farraher are interns.

“A few years ago when I began blogging, it was a way for me to Stefani, a public relations and communication major at just put down in words what I was thinking about figure skating.

Monmouth who has also served as PR director for Chicago’s

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and figure skating

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midwest matters

professional lacrosse team, isn’t finished yet when it comes to promoting the Foresters or exploring other new ventures.

“College students are my heroes,” he told the Rockford Register-Star.

“They have no fears and think they can do anything in the world.

That type of attitude motivates me and keeps me pushing myself.”

When Stefani enrolled at Monmouth, he already had two major projects in the works—a cell phone company and a Greek life apparel business. Juggling those challenges along with MC’s coursework did not make for a successful first semester, and Stefani called his resulting poor grades “a rude awakening.”

He credits his involvement with Sigma Phi Epsilon for helping to restore some discipline and order to his college life, and he also praised MC’s faculty, including Don Capener of the political economy and commerce department. Stefani did impressive work for Capener’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) organization, and their relationship has continued, with Capener inviting Stefani back to speak to his students.

“Those types of projects really built up my skill set,” said Stefani who, among other things, helped a local restaurant computerize its books, significantly cutting its costs.

After graduating from Monmouth—and rallying from that rough start to bring his grades back to a solid 3.0—Stefani attended graduate school at Western Illinois University. He called the difference between the schools “night and day.”

“What’s unique about Monmouth is the hands-on approach of the faculty,” he said. “The faculty always challenges you. I was busy all the time, and not just with course work, but with the fraternity and Student Senate.”

“Busy all the time” is an accurate assessment of Stefani’s life today, too. The Foresters’ on-field debut will be the culmination of 30 months of work by Stefani and his Three Strikes Baseball Corporation. He still has his Greek life apparel business, which carries clothing for 18 fraternities and three sororities, and he’s also looking into other projects, including a retail business in Macomb and, perhaps, another sports team.

Speaking of other teams, Stefani was just finishing up the details of a partnership with the Rockford IceHogs, the city’s No. 1 pro team, when he was contacted for this story. IceHogs and ice blogs—just one more way that sports promoters Joe Stefani and Aaron Harris are connected. 

midwest matters

Longworth features President Ditzler in ‘Midwesterner’ blog

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hree months after serving as the keynote speaker

for Monmouth College’s groundbreaking forum on the Midwest, Richard C. Longworth included President Mauri Ditzler among seven influential individuals in his blog, “The Midwesterner: Blogging the Global Midwest.”

In his introduction to a list of “A Few Good People,” Longworth wrote, “The Midwest is still struggling to redefine itself in the age of globalization, but a lot of good people are engaged in that struggle. As a difficult decade ends and a new, perhaps better, one dawns, it’s a good time to salute a few of these good people. They’re among the leaders who are setting the Midwest’s agenda for the future and who will help guide it into that future.”

Ditzler, wrote Longworth, “made news this past year by setting up the first Midwest Studies Initiative in the region. Astonishingly, until now, no Midwestern college or university even taught a course on the Midwest. In addition, most small colleges like Monmouth seemed to go out of their way to shun the communities around them and to present themselves as not really Midwestern, but as scholarly outposts in flyover territory. Ditzler, an Indiana native (who) still owns a farm near Crawfordsville, is out to change this. His program will focus on the impact of globalization on the region around Monmouth. With luck, his vision will rub off on other Midwestern colleges.”

When Longworth drew up his list, he ended up having many more names than he could initially mention. The seven he did detail are “typical of the good work going on across this region.”

“Anyone traveling around the Midwest quickly learns that the region is loaded with people who clearly see the challenges of this new global era and that the old Midwestern way of doing things doesn’t work anymore,” he wrote. “One of our jobs on the site is to put them in touch with each other, to help them leverage their work and ideas into a regional recovery.”

Also mentioned was another college president, Rob Denson of Des Moines Area Community College, who was praised for leading a campaign to get Midwestern community colleges to work together, especially in regard to training workers for green economy jobs. 

monmouth | spring 2010

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From Midwest to Middle East: Adventures of a Missionary Professor

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arly in the screenplay of George Lucas’s 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, the scene suddenly shifts from a hair-raising adventure in a remote jungle to a peaceful small college campus in the late 1930s.

By Jeff Rankin There, the charismatic professor Indiana Editor Jones stands “at a bookcase near the window and he looks quite different in this setting. His outfit is tweedy, slightly rumpled in the professional style. Part of his attention is focused in a book and he wears glasses to see the fine print. The office is cramped, absolutely inundated with books, maps, etchings and archeological artifacts.”

The scene might just as well have In 1920, during one described the office of a brilliant and of his infrequent intriguing professor who took up residence visits to the United in Monmouth College’s Wallace Hall in the States, the dashing fall of 1937. While he never carried a bullyoung Arch Owen was photographed whip or outwitted Nazi villains, Monmouth at his parents’ College’s legendary English professor Kansas farm.

Charles “Arch” Owen brought a lifetime of adventure to a post he would occupy until his death 14 years later. During that brief span, he would charm the imaginations of hundreds of English majors and non-majors alike.

Like Indiana Jones, Owen’s academic credentials were earned as much in the field as they were in a classroom. For three decades prior to returning to his alma mater, he had labored as a Presbyterian missionary, teaching English at Assiut College in Egypt. There, he had survived dangerous parasites, deadly disease and the atrocities of World War I. Born in 1885 to conservative Presbyterian parents on a farm in Winchester, Kansas, Owen followed in his older brother Arthur’s footsteps and enrolled at Monmouth College in 1903.

A football hero, Arthur was his lifelong idol and closest friend.

Arthur’s decision to leave Monmouth for Yale Medical School would influence Arch to also attend Yale, where he eventually earned his Ph.D. in English.

As a student at Monmouth, Owen immediately showed promise. By his junior year, he was elected captain of the prestigious Philo debate team. Not content to rely on books for information, he prepared for a debate on banking and finance by traveling to Chicago to interview the president of the First National Bank of Chicago. For another debate on immigrant rights, he interviewed Irish and German workers working on the Illinois canal system.

Owen’s greatest talent, however, was writing, and the English major not only excelled on the staff of the student newspaper and yearbook, but also was a prolific composer of poetry and short stories. Aspiring to become a journalist, Owen spent a year after graduation on the staff of the Monmouth Review newspaper.

He was on the verge of returning to Kansas to continue his newspaper career there when fate intervened.

While waiting for a taxi to take him to the train depot, he ran into a good friend, who was preparing to travel to the Presbyterian mission school in Assiut, Egypt, for a three-year stint as an English teacher. Remembering that a classmate of his, Tom Hamilton (later a longtime art professor at MC) was already teaching at that mission, he suddenly determined to apply to the Board of Missions himself, and soon found himself sailing to Egypt, for what he assumed would be a three-year appointment teaching English.

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Arriving at Assiut with $8 in his pocket, Owen probably had mixed feelings when he first surveyed the mission school, which had been founded half a century earlier by the charismatic Scottish missionary John Hogg. In a biography of her father, Rena Hogg noted that from a distance the Egyptian village seemed quite romantic, “…mirrored in the water and glorified by a sunset sky.

But a sordid reality was revealed in their dirt and disorder of poor and ruinous buildings, their reeking odours, and squalid, stagnating life.”

According to his son James, Owen “was a dynamic, enthusiastic, athletic sort of person, throwing himself into anything he decided to do, and crazy about traveling and learning…He was a natural linguist, loving anything to do with language, and worked hard to learn the difficult Arabic language, spoken and written, modern and classical, so that he could communicate with his native students naturally.”

By 1911, however, his three-year obligation was A stereoscopic view of the city of Assiut, as it would up and he returned to have looked when Arch America, where he joined Owen first set foot there his brother at Yale to earn as a young English teacher. his master’s degree. It was during this interlude that he renewed a relationship with his college sweetheart, Margaret Corette, who had enrolled in nursing school in Chicago after graduating from Monmouth.

The couple was married on July 31, 1912, and 10 days later, they set sail for Egypt, where Arch had been offered a full-time position as professor of English at Assiut College.

Margaret’s nursing experience couldn’t adequately prepare her for the squalor she would encounter in Egypt. About going to bed during flea season, she wrote, “…we have to go through such a thorough search for fleas when I get in, that he would rather stay up a few minutes longer than to be bitten awake. Last night about 2:00 I got Arch out and we finally found a tiny flea hopping around on my pillow. They never think of coming near him, but they bite me like everything. I just scratch all the time.”

In 1914, the Owens’ first son, John, was born, followed in 1915 by Charles Arch Owen Jr. Tempering the young couple’s joy was the escalating tension of the Great War, as Egyptian rebels began rising against the British, violently attacking British soldiers, then British and American civilians. When two British soldiers were disemboweled and another’s eyes were gouged out in public, Owen himself watched the trial and heard first-hand testimonials. Margaret wrote home that her family was in no immediate danger, but “they say a whole generation of Christians is completely blotted out in Syria by the Turks. Besides slaughtering them by the thousands, they tortured them terribly, and all the women and girls have been taken into harems.”

Early in 1918, Owen was sent to Syria to oversee a library, do bookkeeping and distribute food to refugees. “Some of the cases of the poor refugees we come across,” he wrote, “are most pitiable, people who have come as refugees from captured towns, who tell horrible tales of the Turks and Germans. ‘Huns’, everyone calls monmouthiana

Arch Owen brought a world of experience to Monmouth College’s English Department them. We feed a certain number of genuine needy, and will try to clothe by degrees, the almost naked, so starved looking that I’m afraid winter will hit these folks hard.”

Just as the Owens were welcoming their third son, James, in 1919, tensions were elevating in the area of Assiut. College staff stood on the roof and watched starving natives loot the town. But on a bridge connecting the east and west banks of the Nile, a British machine gun cut all the rebels down.

Following the war, the Owens returned to the United States Margaret and the children went to live with her parents in Washington, Iowa, while her husband returned to Yale to earn his Ph.D., writing his dissertation on a translation of the 12th-century poetry of Abu Sa’id Mansur ibn al-Husein al-Abi. He would become one of the few scholars in the world to specialize in Arabic poetry.

By 1921, the Owens were back in Egypt, where Margaret would give birth to two more children—Richard and Margaret Jane. Following the birth of his daughter, Owen took a sabbatical to work as a Sterling Fellow at Yale.

Returning to Egypt in 1929, the family left the two oldest sons behind in Illinois to complete their schooling. The separation would prove emotionally draining for Margaret, and a year later, she and her other children returned to the United States, leaving Arch alone in Egypt to complete a 25-year tenure at the mission school.

This time it was Arch who was devastated by loneliness. “As yet I can’t realize what it is going to mean to be away from you,” he wrote to Margaret. “I have not suffered much, for I seem just numb. I can’t think of anything but you and the children. But as I get to work, things will be better and time will go faster.”

To pass the time, Owen turned his energies to inventing fabulous tales to entertain the children of the mission, who would flock with their parents each evening to hear his creative cliffhangers.

As the 1930s progressed, the political situation in Egypt became increasingly dangerous and anti-Christian, so that by 1936 Owen faced the difficult decision of leaving the country where he had spent all but four years of his professional life. Despite heartfelt pleas from his students to remain, the 52-year-old professor set his sights on a new career in the States.

Offered a prestigious teaching position at Yale, Owen instead elected to return to his alma mater at Monmouth, where he would be made chair of the English department, following the retirement of Luther Robinson in 1938. He immediately sought to modernize the curriculum, particularly with the introduction of creative writing seminars, which he taught from his home—a comfortable old house on East Archer that would later house the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

With the entry of the United States into World War II, Owen suddenly found himself volunteering to teach cadets in the U.S. Naval Flight Preparatory School on the Monmouth campus. But monmouthiana

instead of Shakespeare and Milton, his lessons were based on the principles of calculus, a subject he had not studied since 1906. An avid gardener, he also started a Victory Garden on the lot next to his house, which would later be the site of Gibson Hall.

Erma Norris Smallwood ’49 remembers the Owen house fondly, having grown up in the neighborhood and the same age as Arch’s daughter, Margaret. Although she later enrolled at Iowa State, where she intended to major in architecture or interior design, she soon discovered she was not cut out for the rigors of a state school with its heavy emphasis on the sciences.

“I decided to transfer to Monmouth and immediately fell in love with the small college,” she explained. “Professor Owen took me under his wing. He was a wise man and made you want to learn.”

Despite bringing with her a long list of partial credits in chemistry and home ec from Iowa State, Smallwood proceeded to become an English major, and eventually a second-grade and special ed teacher.

Another former student, Rachel Buchanan Pollock ’45, recalls Owen’s unique teaching style: “The first day of class he would tell us that we would not pass the course unless we showed appreciation for his puns…Only once did I not look forward to going to one of his classes. It was a day I was not prepared, so I sat as far away as I could from my usual seat near the front.

After asking a question about the lesson, he stood on his desk chair, then onto his desk, shaded his eyes, looked all around, and called on me.”

During Pollock’s senior year, Owen suffered the first of two heart attacks. He soon recovered, however, and was back at his usual routine—teaching, preaching in rural churches on Sundays, working in his garden and even refusing an offer to take an office on a lower floor of Wallace Hall. But congestive heart failure eventually caught up with him and on a Sunday morning in April 1951 when he did not come down to breakfast, Margaret discovered he had died in his sleep. Lying on his dresser were his Arabic New Testament and car keys, ready for his weekly drive to preach at the rural Sugar Tree Grove Presbyterian Church.

A tribute to Owen in the By the late ’40s, Owen had settled in 1950 college yearbook per- comfortably to life on a quiet Midwest campus. It was a far cry from the haps best sums up his remarkable life: “Any words exotic but primitive conditions to he had grown accustomed to that we might use to char- which as a young man in Egypt. acterize Dr. Owen seem somehow insignificant, for he is not only a great teacher, but also a very great man. While teaching English to Monmouth students, he inserts into his courses a basis for a way of life.”  Information for this article was drawn liberally from a biography

by James G. Owen ’40 of his father, and from a research paper on Owen, written by history major Joe O’Neill ’01.

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monmouth | spring 2010

homecoming 2009

M Melissa Krage, a history major from Bloomingdale, Ill., was crowned Homecoming queen.

onmouth College’s third annual President’s Homecoming Gala was one of many highlights of Homecoming Weekend, Oct. 9-11. In addition to hosting a forum on the Midwest’s economy (page 10), veteran NBA sportscaster Joe Tait ’59 was inducted into the Hall of Achievement and four Fighting Scots athletes were welcomed into the M Club Hall of Fame. A free concert featuring the Monmouth Chorale was performed, the play Fat Men in Skirts was staged in Wells Theater and the nationally-ranked football team posted a key victory over its main Midwest Conference rival, St. Norbert.

all monmouth college alumni were invited to return for the weekend, which included reunions for the classes of ’69, ’84 and ’99. A “cluster” reunion was held for alumni who have been out of school for two decades, as the classes of ’88 and ’90 helped their old friends from the class of ’89 celebrate their 20th reunion.

For the second year, Homecoming shirts were available for purchase. The red shirts had a small design on the front with a part of the college seal on the back and the phrase “Thy Glorious Colors Red & White.”

Held in the Huff Athletic Center fieldhouse, the President’s Homecoming Gala included musical entertainment by MC students, a candlelight dinner and an address

by President Mauri Ditzler. Also in the program was the announcement of Tait’s induction into the Hall of Achievement, which is the highest honor Monmouth College bestows upon its graduates.

Tait, who began his broadcasting career in Monmouth calling Fighting Scots games, has been the radio play-by-play announcer for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers for all but two seasons since 1970. He called his 3,000th Cavaliers game in 2008. Tait, who also announced Cleveland Indians games for 15 seasons, has stayed true to his small school roots, calling select high school games and Division III Mount Union College football games despite his “prime time” status.

Others honored at the gala were mathematics professor Marta Tucker, winner of the Hatch Award for Distinguished

Hanging out at the alumni hospitality area before the parade were, from left: Jo Ellen Hamilton Dollinger ’58, Les Dollinger ’58, Kellie Kohler Esters ’86 and Amanda Havens Pilger ’07.

homecoming 2009

Teaching, and four alumni award winners. Key Yang ’50, Bethesda, Md., former chief of the Asian division of the Library of Congress, received the Distinguished Alumnus Award; William Goldsborough ’65, Glen Ellyn, a longtime MC trustee who donated the naming gift for the college’s Gracie Peterson Hall, received the Distinguished Service Award; Eric Hanson ’98, Monmouth’s New inductees into the M Club Hall of Fame were, from left: city administrator, received Christy Hickey Woodard ’97, Dwayne Hughes ’87, Arnold the Young Alumnus Award; Gonzalez ’90 and Michael Blaesing ’96. and the Whiteman family received the Family of the Year Award. Four southpaw standout Arnold Gonzalez ’90, of Frank Whiteman’s children graduated two-sport star Michael Blaesing ’96 and from Monmouth between 1927 and 1930, All-American sprinter Christy Hickey Woodard ’97. and nine more family members have followed. In all, three Whitemans have served The Homecoming parade followed and on the college’s board of trustees, and gifts included the MC Pipe Band and Fighting from the family have funded the Hall of Scots Marching Band. The Homecoming Achievement and the Whiteman Memorial theme “Wild Wild Scots” was reflected in Lecture series. several floats by student organizations.

The gala was followed by the traditional In addition to a variety of athletic events, Homecoming spirit shout at April Zorn which included an alumni volleyball game, Memorial Stadium. The celebration, which an open house was held at Weeks House to featured the introduction of Homecoming thank James Miller ’58 for his gift honoring royalty, including king and queen Matt the late Charles Speel, an MC faculty Bentley ’10 and Melissa Krage ’10, member from 1951 to 1983. concluded with a fireworks display.

Homecoming activities that evening The next day’s events began with the included a free concert by the college’s M Club Hall of Fame ceremony for hardChorale and Concert Choir, which were hitting linebacker Dwayne Hughes ’87, performing for the first time under the direction of Tim Pahel, director of choral and vocal activities. Alumni who are past members of the Chorale were invited to the stage at the end of the concert for the singing of the college song, A Flame of White and Crimson.

Throughout the weekend, Nikki Silver’s Fat Men in Skirts was performed in Wells Theater. The “deliciously dark adult comedy” was the production choice of students in Monmouth’s “Theatre Rep Company” course.

The full schedule of events also included Recent grads Tanesha Hughes ’09 (second an art exhibit by former classmates Gary from right) and Nicole Lynch ’09 (right) enjoy a Willhardt ’59 and Fred Wackerle ’61 at the Homecoming moment with current students Buchanan Center for the Arts in downtown Brittany McCline ’12 (left), Pia White ’12 and Monmouth.  Joshua Williams ’12. monmouth | spring 2010

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The Whiteman family was honored as Family of the Year for its many years of service to Monmouth College. From left are President Ditzler, Harriet Southerlan Whiteman ’65, Dave Whiteman ’66, Don Whiteman ’49, Dick Whiteman ’64, Barbara Whiteman Garland ’49 and Ralph Whiteman ’52.

Other award winners at the President’s Homecoming Gala included (clockwise, from bottom left): Marta Tucker, professor of mathematics and computer science, Hatch Award for Distinguished Teaching; Key Yang ’50, Distinguished Alumnus; William Goldsborough ’65, Distinguished Service; and Eric Hanson ’98, Young Alumnus.

How Perry Como saved the day

“professor fox is the reason I am standing here tonight,” declared Joe Tait ’59 as he

received MC’s highest honor—induction into the Hall of Achievement.

Tait, who pursued a career in sports broadcasting after Monmouth College and has been the radio voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers for 38 years, told the President’s Homecoming Gala audience how radio almost led to his academic undoing at Monmouth, but ultimately saved him, thanks to the intervention of the late classics professor Bernice Fox. “My senior year, I worked full-time at the local radio station,” Tait explained, “and her Greek mythology class started at exactly the time my show went off the air. I needed that class to graduate, but I just couldn’t get there in time.

Longtime Cleveland Cavaliers “I got a note from Miss Fox late in the semester and she said she would like to see me. ‘You broadcaster Joe Tait ’59 (right) is congratulated by President haven’t been in my class all year and you haven’t taken a test,’ she told me. ‘I have to fail you, Ditzler for his induction into and your grades will not be adequate for you to graduate.’ the Hall of Achievement. “’Guilty as charged,’ I admitted. As I was leaving, however, all I could think about was ‘How am I going to tell my father?’

“As I got to the door, she said, ‘There is one thing we may be able to do to save you. I get up at 7 each morning. I go out and get my paper; I brew my cup of tea, and sit at my table to read the paper. What would really make my day is if you could play a Perry Como record on the radio each morning at 7:45. If you do this, I will pass you.’”

Years later, Tait said he was telling this story to then-president Bruce Haywood. Haywood, who knew Fox’s reputation for being demanding professor, was skeptical and told Tait he would ask her about it next time he saw her. Tait, who had promised Fox never to say a word, was horrified. “I didn’t realize she was still alive,” he said.

When Haywood eventually confronted Fox and asked if the story was true, Tait related, she stared him right in the eyes and replied, “Guilty as charged!”

The fieldhouse of Huff Athletic Center was transformed into an elegant dining room for the third annual President’s Homecoming Gala.

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monmouth | spring 2010

homecoming 2009

Members of the Class of 1969 attending their 40th reunion included Sue Ainsworth, Jim Albright, Jim Bedford, Bruce Blomgren, John Elia, John Elliott, Gail Toma Homai, Chet June, Dr. Kenneth Kite, Bill Lee, George Lirakis, Carla Turner Makowski, Richard Nicholls, Bette Van Natta Resis, Leslie Williamson Rumney, Peter Sawyer, Susan Rayniak Schneider, Terry Schneider, Jennifer Barnes Stauth, Mike Stauth and Jeff Steinberger.

Marking a quarter century since leaving MC’s hallowed halls, were these stalwarts from the Class of ’84: Row 1, from left: Tamee Sterett Renwick, Amber Hogan Lipinski, Julie Collins and Jane Stevens Keating. Row 2: Kelly Drafke Radzevich, Tracy Clay Blecha, Kathy Fries Raices, Marcene Holverson Farley and Mark Ferin. Row 3: Deb Blatzer, Robin Jarvis, Leslie Bornberg Purlee, Kelly Niles Schmidt and Leo Bernardi. Row 4: Jeff Miller, Clay Vass, Ken Shank, Heather Anderson Brett, Kathy Roe Willsea and Henry Schmidt.

Alumni back on campus for the annual Homecoming volleyball game were, in front, from left, Colleen Wilkin ’08, Amanda Boonstra ’09, Rachel Leffelman ’09, Crystal Myers ’09 and Anna Damos ’09. In back are, from left, Kari Bailey Shimmin ’97, Samantha Robinson ’09, Lynn Utter Ewing ’98, Shelly Brown Postin ’89, Shelly Coats Merritt ’79, Kendra James ’08 and Tanesha Hughes ’09.

Participating in the “cluster” reunion for the Class of 1989 were, in front, from left, Kurt Fowler ’90, M.E. Westemeier Fowler ’89, Ken Murphy ’88, Lisa Kruse Swanson ’88, Paula Danforth Bowling ’88 and Kendra Turner Cordes ’90. In the second row are Pam Bowman Ide ’89, Michelle Moy ’89, Sherri Williams ’88, Todd Swanson ’88, Jean Peters Witty ’88 and Sandra Johnson MacMillan ’88. In the third row are Rick Schaller ’88, Glen Stout ’88, Anita Fort Ridge ’88, Shelly Brown Postin ’89, Brad Nahrstadt ’89 and Lenny Carlson ’89. In the back row are Dan Cotter ’88, Vicki Martin Mitchell ’88, Juan Mitchell ’90 and John Herman ’89.

homecoming 2009

Members of the Class of 1999 who returned for Homecoming included, in front, from left, Lucy Kellogg Thompson, Joanna Davison Triebel, Tim Mottaz, Mandy Holden Shanks, Camelita Ellis and Katherine Moore Ipjian. In the second row are Chris Triebel, Jessica Zallis and Brooke Cumorich. The third row includes Stephanie Orsi Dare, Jason Dare, Charles Matlock and Seth Klungseth. In back are Matt Hendon, Sheri Polk Beeman, Rebecca Ortiz and Ann McClung Klungseth.

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monmouth | spring 2010

scots sports

Clay Bricker, who landed squarely on his helmet a split second later, gives Monmouth the lead on this first-quarter TD dive in the NCAA playoffs vs. St. Thomas. The Scots would ultimately fall 43–21.

Photo by G eo r ge H a r tmann

scots sports

monmouth | spring 2010

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Junior quarterback Alex Tanney lived up to his “Air It Out� mantra all season, throwing 44 touchdown passes, including the final one of the year (above), a 28-yard strike to Steve Zidow.

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monmouth | spring 2010

scots sports

FALL SPORTS REVIEW: WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY: The defending

Midwest Conference champions fell just short of their goal of a repeat. Only 12 points separated the top four teams at the MWC meet, and Monmouth found itself in third place with 73 points, just two back of runner-up Carroll and only 11 points behind the new champion, Grinnell.

Four Monmouth runners earned all-conference honors, led by junior Mary Kate Beyer and senior Katie Staab, who placed third and fourth, respectively. Also placing in the top 20 were freshman Rachel Bowden and senior Amy Aghababian.

Staab became the first MC female to earn All-MWC honors all four seasons, and Beyer will have a chance to equal that feat next year.

Beyer extended her season to the very end by qualifying for the national meet with a 14th-place finish at the NCAA Midwest Regional. Staab just missed joining her, placing 21st. Their high finishes helped Monmouth place 13th out of 39 teams. Beyer then turned in a 58th-place finish at the national meet, improving on her placement from the year before.

Runners take third in MWC, Beyer reaches nationals 70 games in her career, senior stopper Emily Caron and junior sweeper Brittney Parker.

Sophomore Amy Unzicker led the team with four goals and 11 points, and junior Becca Baur and sophomore Kerry Kost also scored four goals for the Scots, who were 6-11-1 overall.

MEN’S SOCCER: The Scots’ 1-7-1 record in

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY: With three-time All-

MWC runner Clay Staley unable to compete due to injury, the Scots were looking for new leaders. They found one in sophomore Geoff Bird, whose eighth-place finish at the Midwest Conference Championships helped the men place third as a team, just five points out of second.

Two other Scots joined Bird in receiving All-MWC honors, as sophomore Jon Welty placed 10th and freshman Connor Shields was 17th. It was the first all-conference honor for all three runners.

Bird was the first Scot across the finish line in every race until the season-ending Midwest Regional, when he was edged out by freshman Jake Barr.

WOMEN’S SOCCER: An unprecedented num-

ber of injuries effected the Scots’ season, but they were still able to stay in the MWC playoff hunt until the final match, when they were eliminated by a 3-0 loss to Lake Forest to finish fifth with a 4-4-1 mark.

Monmouth was particularly weakened at the forward position and in goal, where both Sarah Wintersteen and Katerina Meletis had strong moments but also missed multiple games due to injuries.

One player who wasn’t absent was junior Hillary Broms, who started all 18 games on defense and received her first All-MWC honor. Other defensive anchors were senior Whitney Ott, who started a record-breaking scots sports

WOMEN’S GOLF: Coach Molly McNamara’s team was relatively solid at the top but lacked the overall depth to challenge for the MWC title.

Playing for the first time at the demanding Aldeen Golf Course in Rockford, Ill., the Scots placed sixth at the conference meet with a three-day total of 1,227. Monmouth posted its average score of 409 on the first day and followed that up with rounds of 411 and 407 to trail fifth-place Illinois College by 21 strokes.

Senior Lynsey Barnard was the bright spot, earning her second All-MWC honor with a 285 total, which was good for a tie for sixth. Barnard led the Scots at all but one meet and shot a season-low 84 on the first day of a 36-hole event at Millikin.

The Scots carded their low team score of 376 in that round, which also included a season-best 86 for junior Kristin Humphrey. Freshman Nicole Hurst was the third Monmouth golfer to break 90 during the fall, posting an 89 on the second day at Millikin.

Megan Creen (15) and Chelsey Widdop emerge from behind Kendra Newlon at the start of a point during the Monmouth College Invitational.

VOLLEYBALL: Already facing a year where

she had to replace three graduated all-conference players, coach Kari Shimmin’s task became that much harder when the team’s remaining All-MWC selection, Alyson Schroeter, went down early on with a season-ending injury.

Forced to rely on a line-up dominated by underclassmen, the Scots never hit a strong rhythm, and that was especially evident during a stretch midway through the season, when the team alternated victories and defeats for 10 consecutive matches.

Ultimately, they finished 13-17 and placed sixth in the MWC with a 4-5 mark.

Freshman outside hitter Chelsey Widdop was the team’s lone all-conference pick. She led the Scots in kills (272) and was second in digs (448) and third in blocks (51). Other team leaders included seniors Sara Schoon in digs (480) and Alexis Keller in assists (624). Sophomore Jenna Bean had 34 aces and freshman Claire Hermie had 99 blocks, while the Scots’ attack also received contributions from sophomores Megan Creen and Kendra Newlon, who had 238 and 181 kills, respectively.

MWC action, which resulted in a ninthplace league finish, doesn’t tell the whole story. A better conference fate was not a pipe dream, as Monmouth lost four of those matches by a single goal, including one in overtime to a Beloit team that ultimately reached the MWC final.

Senior goalkeeper Owen Robinson played a major role in keeping those matches close, and he was rewarded with his second all-conference honor. Robinson finished his outstanding career with 327 saves, good for third on MC’s career list.

What hurt the Scots was a lack of offensive firepower. Sophomore Josh Del Valle was part of a team-best six goals, scoring two and adding four assists to lead the Scots with eight points. Daniel Medina and Lucas Knox combined for 11 points as the Scots finished 2-13-1 overall.

WOMEN’S TENNIS: A young Monmouth team

could not repeat its success from 2008, when the Scots reached the playoffs for the first time in their history.

First-year coach Patrick Montgomery’s team went 2-9 on the season and 1-3 in the MWC’s South Division. At the conference meet, the Scots scored six points, which tied for eighth out of 10 teams.

Amy Unzicker moved up a spot to No. 1 singles, where she posted a solid 12-5 mark.

She tacked on seven more victories playing No. 1 doubles with junior Kimi Wegner, who was 6-10 at No. 2 singles.  monmouth | spring 2010

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Crab People are No. 2

Hughes a Woman of the Year semifinalist last fall, Tanesha

Monmouth’s Frank Wasielewski prepares to block a shot in the national championship game vs. Tufts. Providing defensive support are Andrew Wright (9) and Joe Testolin (16).

the monmouth college water polo

team finished second in the nation at the 2009 Men’s Division III Club Championship, held Nov. 7–8 in Brunswick, Maine.

Known as the Crab People, Monmouth qualified for the eight-team national tourney by going 11–0 during the regular season and winning the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s Heartland Division.

Water polo is a club sport at Monmouth, and it has been a successful one to date.

The Crab People qualified for nationals in their first two seasons in existence in 2007 and 2008, finishing seventh both times.

In their first match of the 2009 tournament, the Crab People ensured a higher finish, defeating former national champion Middlebury College in sudden death to advance to the semi-finals. Sophomore Jeff Skalon had the golden goal. Other heroes of the 7–6 victory included senior Joe Moran, who netted a hat trick, and freshman goalie Frank Wasielewski, who was named the Player of the Game.

Sophomore Josh Dunn added two goals.

In the semi-final, Monmouth again recorded a one-goal victory, with Dunn netting the game-winner with just 40 seconds to play to defeat Washington University (Mo.) 6–5. Dunn, who was named Player of the Game, and junior Tom Pedersen both had two goals.

In the championship match, Monmouth had a two-goal lead on two different occasions but could not hold off Tufts University, which was coming off three consecutive national third-place finishes.

Tufts prevailed 9–6 despite two goals apiece for Moran, Pedersen and Skalon.

“I am very fortunate to see a team I helped start grow from a recreational club to a nationally competitive and recognized team,” said Moran. “We have made it so far for no other reason than the efforts of the entire team. As happy as I am that we came in second at nationals, I am more excited that the team will keep being successful after I’m gone. Monmouth water polo is not done turning heads.”

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monmouth | spring 2010

backgrounds and experiences. Tanesha is a Hughes ’09 became the good representative for Fighting Scots’ Monmouth. She is a second semifinalist for well-rounded and the NCAA’s prestigious gifted individual. Her Woman of the Year work on the court, in award. She was honthe classroom and in ored at a banquet in the community exemIndianapolis last Octoplifies the type of ber, along with the rest student-athlete we of the 30 women who graduate at Monmouth.” had been selected as Monmouth has nomsemifinalists.

Tanesha Hughes is flanked by ESPN Hughes, a three-sport personalities Doris Burke and Steve Bardo inated three women for athlete who competed at the NCAA’s Woman of the Year banquet. the award since 2003 and all three have all four years in volleyadvanced through the first round of the ball, basketball and indoor/outdoor track, selection process. was selected as one of just 10 representa“Tanesha this year, Ashley last year, and tives from Division III for the annual Coach Bittner in 2003, are classic examples Woman of the Year award. Last summer, of the type of student-athlete we try to Hughes, who had just graduated from MC recruit,” said athletic director Roger Haynes with a degree in computer science, was named the Midwest Conference’s represen- ’82. “All three are well-rounded individuals with a variety of interests and athletic skills. tative for the award, given annually to a At Monmouth, we try to nurture that diverfemale athlete who has distinguished herself, not only in the athletic arena, but also sity. The fact that Coach Bittner, and now Tanesha, advanced to the semifinals is a in the classroom and community. She was testament to the job our faculty, coaches the second consecutive nominee from and staff have done to encourage the stuMonmouth to represent the MWC, followdents’ involvement in a wide range of ing Ashley Yeast’s selection in 2008. activities.”

Not only does Hughes make it 2-for-2 in Now a software specialist for an informathe conference competition, she joins her basketball coach, Melissa Jones Bittner ’03 tion system company outside St. Louis, Mo., Hughes earned academic all-conference as a semifinalist. As a student, Bittner was status 10 times at Monmouth and the Illinois state winner in 2003 and a top Scholastic Scholars. During her career at 10 finalist for the national award.

“The experience of meeting women from Monmouth, Hughes was involved in more than 15 volunteer activities, including other NCAA divisions was fascinating,” Special Olympics, Relay for Life and Circle K explained Bittner of her trip to the awards International. in 2003. “It was interesting to compare

Students save on tickets, buy more shirts? it’s very likely that the NCAA playoff game between Monmouth College and the

University of St. Thomas pumped more than $1,000 into the local economy. What it also did was serve as the catalyst for two separate philanthropic efforts of $1,000 or more.

Earl Wilfong, MC’s director of facilities management, and his wife, Brenda, are heroes to students after Wilfong paid the way for many of them to attend the game for free.

Students did not have to pay for home games all season, but NCAA rules stipulated that the college must charge students $4 apiece for a playoff ticket. Wilfong’s $1,000 gift was a pleasant surprise to the first 250 students who went to Poling Hall to buy a ticket.

Wilfong said that as he participated in a staff meeting earlier in the week to go over the logistics for the game, he heard about how the NCAA controls the seating in the stadium and sets the ticket prices. Recognizing that all students should have the opportunity to attend the playoff game and wanting to encourage student participation, he stepped forward with his gift. The tickets were made available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 10 a.m. on a Thursday. By 12:39 p.m., all the donated tickets had been distributed to students.

MC’s Community Service House also used the playoff game as a philanthropic opportunity, selling playoff T-shirts. The group received enough orders that they were able to donate just shy of $1,400 to Monmouth’s Jamieson Community Center for Christmas dinners for families in need, according to junior Cami Johnson, who led the project along with classmate Laura Graff. scots sports

Holt House, s i

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idea was not popular with the years ago, a group fraternity convenof Monmouth tion, as the College students building was covgathered in an ered in overgrown upstairs bedroom weeds, the winof Jacob Holt’s dowpanes were home in cracked, nails Monmouth and were rusted and started the womthe siding was en’s fraternity hanging from the movement. Last walls. fall, another group “Some who had of women paid seen it said it was tribute to those who paved the way Present for the dedication of the historical marker at Pi Beta Phi’s Holt House in Monmouth were, from in too advanced a left, director of philanthropy Ann Shaw, Holt House curator Denise Turnbull, Holt House Committee state of decay to for them. chairman Jeri Simak, committee member Jenny Whittom, fraternity archivist Fran Becque and commiteven contemplate Holt House tee member Cheri Patterson. S TORY BY MATT H U TTON , M O N M O U T H R E V I E W AT L A S . P h oto b y scot t sp i t z e r restoration,” received a historiBecque said. cal marker from “Others thought that the best course of the Illinois State Historical Society to desig- “That second-floor bedroom is action would be to raze it and install a hallowed ground. There on that nate the site where Pi Beta Phi was bronze marker on the site.” founded on April 28, 1867. The building’s April day in 1867, a group of That’s when newspaper publisher Hugh curator, Denise Turnbull, said the Holt Monmouth coeds crowded into Moffet, a next-door neighbor and father of House Committee decided to apply for the that room and not only created a Pi Beta Phi member, became involved. historical marker a year ago and received an organization that is thriving, He purchased the home for $1,000 at a word in July that they had been approved.

“We are thrilled Pi Beta Phi’s founding but they put their fingerprints on delinquent tax auction and offered it to the fraternity. home in Monmouth is being recognized,” the beginnings of the women’s Once a Chicago engineer determined it Turnbull said. “Holt House has played an was structurally sound, the restoration instrumental role throughout Pi Phi’s history fraternity movement. To them, we offer our gratitude, our loyalty efforts began. In 1940, the Holt House and for all Greek women’s organizations.”

Committee was formed.

Pi Beta Phi Fraternity has grown from and our Pi Phi love.”

Holt House retains its 1850s feel today, the small bedroom in Monmouth to 133 —Fran Becque, fraternity archivist even as work is currently under way to active chapters with more than 235,000 improve the kitchen and bathroom. While alumnae. it will offer modern amenities both to the fraternity and to the pubFraternity historian Fran Becque said the women knew they lic—which is able to use the Holt House for meetings and were breaking new ground. gatherings—it will retain much of the original style.

“According to founder Emma Brownlee Kilgore, the founders “It’s quite a transformation,” Turnbull said. “But we’ve got to be knew they were in uncharted territory and it was ‘such a new and wonderful vision to the developing women of that day that it filled mindful of the period.”

Turnbull said Holt House serves as a museum, with many origithem with fear,’” she said. “The founders conquered that fear and nal items owned by the Holt family still in the building. However, used it to lay the groundwork for an organization that would, in those items are not hidden behind a glass case.

1884, survive the closing of the Alpha chapter.”

“Everything is used,” she said. “When (groups) use it, they sit on That occurred when the Monmouth College Senate, bowing to the Holt sofa.” pressure by the Presbyterian Church, declared that all Greek orgaWhile the well-maintained building is a window to the past, nizations would be banned from campus. The policy lasted until both Turnbull and Becque point out it is recognized for the histori1922.

The historical markers program is designed to “recognize sites of cal event that took place there almost a century and a half ago.

“That second-floor bedroom is hallowed ground,” Becque said. national or statewide significance, thereby increasing public awareness and appreciation of the state’s rich historical legacy,” according “There on that April day in 1867, a group of Monmouth coeds to the Illinois State Historical Society. But Holt House almost didn’t crowded into that room and not only created an organization that is thriving, but they put their fingerprints on the beginnings of the survive long enough to see the site honored. women’s fraternity movement. To them, we offer our gratitude, our In 1938, the fraternity considered purchasing the home, which loyalty and our Pi Phi love.”  had been abandoned for some time and was in disrepair. But the campus news

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Weatherly, Bencini inducted T wo members of the M Club Hall

of Fame have been inducted posthumously into the Murphysboro (Ill.) High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

John Weatherly ’32, a charter member of MC’s Hall of Fame in 1984, and Ed “Doc” Bencini ’30 were among seven individuals who made up the inaugural class for Murphysboro’s new hall. Also inducted was the 1947 high school football team that Bencini coached, which was undefeated and unscored upon. Overall, Bencini posted a 57–9–6 record in nine years as the football coach.

Weatherly made his mark at Monmouth as a sprinter and triple jumper. The former high school state 100-yard dash champion posted an MC triple jump record of 47'7 that stood for 75 years, and he was an alternate member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic team.

Clan Notes 1933

Wadia McClure McBride Stewart of Davidson, N.C., celebrated her 100th birthday on May 2, 2009.

1938

Helen Wagner Willey recently drew the attention of CBS news anchor Katie Couric. In a December 2009 blog entry, Couric wrote: “While diplomats in Copenhagen are discussing the future of the world, we just got word it’s about to stop turning … and it has nothing to do with global warming. The word came from CBS—it’s canceling the long-running soap opera As the World Turns.” Couric went on to mention that Wagner, 91, who portrays Nancy Hughes, has been on the show since Day One in 1956 and that it was Wagner who Walter Cronkite interrupted in 1963 to bring the news of President Kennedy’s assassination. The soap opera’s final episode will air in September.

1941

Earl Carwile of Quincy, Ill., celebrated his 90th birthday on May 12, 2009. He and Ruth “Kak” Finley Carwile ’42 have been married 68 years.

1944

Barbara Irvine Walls of San Diego, Calif., and her husband celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on July 30, 2009.

1952

Wayne Keller is alive and well, but that’s not stopping him from being the guest of honor at a “Celebration of Life Memorial” in Puyallup, Wash., on May 22. He cordially invites classmates and other members of the MC community to the event.

Ralph Whiteman of Monmouth was honored at the Monmouth-Roseville Hall of Achievement Awards Ceremony with a Special Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his dedication to the students and teachers in the public schools. Whiteman also participated in the Senior Olympics in Palo Alto, Calif., where he was one of the flagbearers for the Illinois contingent during the closing ceremonies.

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1957

1970

Charles Courtney ’57 is shown reading an excerpt from MC chaplain Kathleen Fannin’s book, Reverence and Revelry: Remembering God at College. He read her meditation on commitment during a Fourth World Movement event.

Fourth World Movement is a network of people in poverty and those from other backgrounds who work in partnership toward overcoming the exclusion and injustice of persistent poverty. Courtney, a retired professor of philosophy and religion at Drew University, is president of the organization’s board of directors.

David Meyersburg of Clifton Park, N.Y., is chief of exhibits at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. He has been with the park service for more than 23 years.

1963

Bill “Flash” Flanagan of Peoria, Ill., a former Division I assistant coach, remains active in the world of basketball, running a scouting service, writing articles and making a number of guest appearances on TV and radio. His Web site is www.flashshoops.com.

1965

Richard Hessel received his fourth Emmy Award in 2009 during the annual Chicago Emmy Awards program. He was one of the technical producers for NBC 5’s coverage of the 2008 Chicago Marathon, and the award was in Outstanding Achievement for Individual Excellence Off Camera: Technical Achievement.

Hessel retired from the network in 2001 after a 38-year career but has been called back numerous times as a consultant and project manager.

1967 Larry Bowden of Lynchburg, Va., retired after 30 years as chaplain and professor of religion and culture at Randolph Macon Woman’s College.

Kennedy Reed, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., was presented a prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering Mentoring. Reed is a theoretical physicist researching atomic collisions in high-temperature plasmas.

1968

David Curd, president of the College of the Humanities and Sciences at Harrison Middleton University, received a Distinguished Recognition Award from the Distance Education and Training Council. The award is given to individuals for their outstanding work on special projects that have contributed to the advancement of distance education.

Kathy Neal O’Brien of Aledo, Ill., has retired after a 40-year teaching career, including 26 years at Black Hawk College’s Aledo Learning Center. During that time, she helped more than 500 students—ages 16 to 86—obtain their GED. Making her accomplishments stand out even more is the fact that she is legally blind, a hurdle she has had to overcome for the past 30 years. However, she used the obstacle to form even tighter relationships. “It really bonded me to the students,” she said. “They’ve helped me and been patient with me.”

Another member of the Class of 1970, Barb Pearson of Monmouth, is also involved in alternative education. The executive director of PASS Adult Education School in Monmouth, Pearson’s most recent graduating class was made up of 47 students. The ceremony was held at Monmouth College.

1972 Barbara Helmick and her partner of 19 years, Tiana Robison, were married on Sept. 19, 2009, becoming the first same gender marriage registered in Iowa’s Louisa County. The ceremony was held near the farm where Helmick grew up.

Monmouth alumni in attendance included ’72 classmates Nancy Shaw Bohn, Tony Kauzlarich Hesseltine and Rick Williams, as well as Bill Hesseltine ’71, Donna Czajka Williams ’73 and Craig Helmick ’74. The organization One Iowa covered the event, and information is available at bit.ly/G4Umr. The couple resides in Washington, D.C., where Helmick is active in marriage equality efforts.

Susan Covic Ware of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., retired after a 23-year career as a kindergarten and first grade teacher in Lake Tahoe.

1973 Rabbi Michael Matuson completed his 13th year in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, and is currently at Beth El, The Beaches Synagogue, in Ponte Vedra Beach. Membership there has nearly doubled since Matuson became the synagogue’s new spiritual leader. He is an outspoken advocate for social justice and recently served as chair of the board of directors of the National Conference for Community & Justice, Jacksonville Region.

1976 Paul Rickey, who lives in Monmouth and farms in nearby Seaton, was on live television in

Calling all members of MC’s Class of 1970 Several life-long friends and Kappa Kappa Gamma members from the Class of 1970 plan to attend Homecoming on Oct. 15–17, and they hope many of their friends will join them for the 40th reunion of their class.

Pictured from left are Pam Marshburn Morgan, Alison Dolezal Dawson, Andi Hinman Elia, Nancy Johnson Manougian, Sue Holland Murley and Kathy Camp. Others who plan to attend are Sandy Snyder Blomgren, Cindy Greenhalgh Torelli and Jane Kaski Hamilton.

clan notes

December on the RFD network, which is billed as a 24-hour television network for rural America. Rickey, who is married to Kathy Savino Rickey ’76, traveled to Nashville, Tenn., to be part of a panel discussing Genuity Smartstax trait technology, a genetically-modified technology for corn. He is a fifth-generation farmer who is part of a 142-year-old farming operation on nearly 1,000 acres. Earlier this year, Rickey spoke on production agriculture in Professor Craig Watson’s “Sustainable Agriculture” class.

1977 Linda Cook of Davenport, Iowa, earned first place honors for her movie reviews in the 2009 Iowa Press Women Communications contest.

Her reviews appear weekly in the Quad City Times. Cook is a full-time professor of criminal justice at Kaplan University.

Martha Giles of Virginia Beach, Va., is a dulcimist and children’s music teacher. She recently returned to Monmouth and played the hammered dulcimer during a program at the Buchanan Center for the Arts. Giles is a frequent soloist for weddings, receptions and other special events.

Heather Fottler Mangian of Savoy, Ill., has returned to graduate school in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois.

Last year, she earned the Harry M. Vars Award and the Promising Investigator Award for research in support of her doctoral degree.

1980 Carl Forkner of Prattville, Ala., reports he is staying on another two years at Air University, where he teaches several courses and directs the college’s language program. In his “spare” time, he runs a “Generation Gap” bowling league, bringing youth and adult keglers together for 13 weeks of teamwork.

1982 Johan Ewalt lives in Galesburg, Ill., in the Fahnestock House, which recently earned a Preservation for Voluntary Efforts in Restoration award and was featured in the book, The Queen Anne House—America’s Victorian Vernacular.

Now a bed and breakfast, the home was built and named for 19th century railroad executive John Fahnestock. Ewalt is also a co-owner of Galesburg’s popular Innkeeper’s Coffee.

1983 Lance Zedric of Peoria, Ill., has published The Last Rubicon, a political/ historical novel that takes place in China and the U.S. More information is available at www.lancezedric.com.

1984 Marcene Holverson Farley teaches Latin at Pekin (Ill.) High School, where she regularly leads student trips to Italy.

She also enjoys collecting autographs and included in her extensive array of celebrity signatures are the autographs of 27 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Aziz “Jit” Murad lives in Malaysia and is one of Southeast Asia’s most talented playwrights. He also acts, does stand-up comedy and is a “raconteur, philosopher and social commentator.”

Nierenberg working to make a better world one of the first newspaper articles that Danielle Nierenberg

By Barry ’95 wrote created quite a buzz. In her weekly “On the Environment” McNamara column for Monmouth’s Daily Review Atlas, where she interned as a college student, Nierenberg wrote about the cons of meat production. All well and good, but not exactly what many people from the land of the Prime Beef Festival, whose major industry is pork production, wanted to read.

An ensuing column mentioned “the antagonism that has developed between this environmental writer and the local farming community.”

Commenting on a cordial suggestion by the local Farm Bureau president to “walk a day in each other’s shoes,” she supported the idea, adding “It’s time for all of us to work together to make the world—and Danielle Nierenberg will spend much of 2010 in Africa, researching innovations in agriculture as part of a project the future—better for titled “Nourishing the Planet.” She is shown here everyone.” interviewing livestock keepers in Maralal, Kenya.

Seventeen years later, that last sentiment is the major mission of Nierenberg’s life. One way she accomplishes that is by writing, but on a much larger scale than the Monmouth paper. She recently co-authored an op-ed piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and her blogs, including “Nourishing the Planet” (blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet) and “Border Jumpers” (www.borderjumpers.org) are gaining considerable attention throughout the world.

Nierenberg is currently doing her writing from Africa, where she is researching innovations in agriculture as part of a project titled “Nourishing the Planet.”

Subtitled “Evaluating Environmentally Sustainable Solutions to Reduce Global Hunger and Rural Poverty,” the Worldwatch Institute project is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Worldwatch Institute, for which Nierenberg is a senior researcher, is a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research organization.

The project emphasizes on-the-ground research, and Nierenberg, its co-director, is traveling throughout sub-Saharan Africa for the rest of the year, meeting with farmers, farmers groups, local government representatives, funders and NGOs. “The trip has been surprising in a lot of different ways,” Nierenberg observed.

“While we’ve seen extreme poverty and environmental degradation during our trip, we’ve also been impressed by the level of knowledge about things like hunger, climate change and other issues from the farmers we meet. The people in many of these countries know better than anyone how to solve the problems they’re facing. They just need attention—and support—from the international community. In Africa, maybe more than anywhere else we’ve traveled, a little funding can go a long way.”

“Nourishing the Planet” aims to inform global efforts to eradicate hunger and to raise the profile of these efforts. It will also assess the state of agricultural innovations, with an emphasis on sustainability, diversity and ecosystem health, as well as productivity. The project will culminate in the release of State of the World 2011, a comprehensive report that will focus on agriculture.

Nierenberg and her co-author, Brian Halweil, propose four ideas for combating world hunger in their Post-Dispatch piece. Titled Beyond Band-Aids for Hunger, they note that it’s been 25 years since Bob Geldof ’s Band-Aid raised millions of dollars and immeasurable awareness for the issue, with the compelling chorus of “Feed the world” in the song Do They Know It’s Christmas?

“Global interest in those hungry people has plummeted in the last two decades, if the barometer is international investment in agriculture,” they point out. “The United Nations reported recently that the number of hungry people worldwide has crested 1 billion.” continued on page 43

continued on page 34 clan notes

monmouth | spring 2010

33

Laura Epley Selken has moved to Santa Maria, Calif., where she reports she is “semi-actively looking for work.”

1985

Lopez sworn in as assistant state’s attorney

Tony Wash’s Choose Your Own Adventure horror movie, It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To, is now available for purchase through amazon. com. “It really brings back some of the fun of the ’80s monster movies,” wrote one reviewer.

Doug Gibb of Galesburg, Ill., just completed his 10th year as director of the biannual Children’s Grief Camp, which has gained state and national coverage. He is director of bereavement for Community Hospices of America.

2003

1986

Mike Ranallo of Morris, Ill., works for Boombah, Inc., a fast-growing five-year-old company that sells sports apparel and equipment.

Rebecca Novak of Portland, Ore., is director of corporate foundation relations at Providence Medical Foundation.

1988

Joseph Droke has been living in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the past year, working to open an HIV/AIDS clinic.

1989

Jennifer Stevenson Humphreys of Racine, Wis., has returned to full-time teaching at Case High School and is chair of the history department.

She completed her master’s degree in history a year ago and found herself “a bit nostalgic for all the Spitz and Urban history classes at Monmouth.”

Alexander Lawson of Springfield, Ill., was promoted to lieutenant colonel in December of 2008 and deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was responsible for overall communications and network operations for more than 8,000 soldiers.

1990

Bruce Beuttel of Jackson, Wis., is a quality systems manager for Kleen Test Products in Port Washington, Wis.

1995

Mark Shrader of Monmouth was named District 16 Coach of the Year by the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association after leading his seventh grade team at Monmouth-Roseville Junior High School to an undefeated state championship in 2009. The team finished 23-0.

1997 After teaching high school English for 10 years, Melissa Scholes Young of Carbondale, Ill., is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University. Her work has recently appeared in several literary magazines, and she won the Editor’s Award for her story Guinea Pig from New Plains Review. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

1998

Jennifer Goedke, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), was selected to serve as a member of the Stennis Congressional Staff Fellows Program. The bipartisan, bicameral experience for 30 senior-level staff of the U.S. Congress has become the premier leadership development program for staff leaders on Capitol Hill.

1999

Mark Foulkes of Sugar Grove, Ill., has stepped down as baseball coach at St. Charles East High School to become one of nine team leaders for Wredling Middle School in St. Charles.

Rebecca Ortiz of East Peoria, Ill., has opened her first medical practice at the EastPort Commercial Plaza. The internist completed her medical residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria.

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monmouth | spring 2010

Pacific Northwest to fully immerse himself in its running culture, and he has his sights set on qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Trials, which would require a time of 2:19 or better.

Laura Lopez ’06 (right) was sworn in as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney in December of 2009. Lopez received her law degree from DePaul University School of Law earlier in the year. She is pictured with state’s attorney Anita Alvarez, who told Lopez and her fellow new prosecutors, “You are beginning a very special profession as an advocate and a voice for the citizens of our county who have become victims of crime.”

Anna Dybis Reiff of Westchester, Ill., is a Latin teacher at Stagg High School. She completed her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at Concordia University in 2007.

Thomas Siegel is a new partner in the Monmouth law firm previously known as Stansell, Whitman and Baber. He joined the firm as an associate in 2002 after graduating from Northern Illinois University Law School.

2000 Michele Fishburn of Galesburg, Ill., is director of community health improvement for the Knox County Health Department.

Heidi Gengenbacher of Galesburg, Ill., is the new principal at Monmouth’s Harding Primary School.

2001

Matt Fotis is the executive director of Shantz Theatre, which staged its fourth holiday production, A Silent Night: Grandma Got Run Over Without Healthcare. The topical production, which touched on the health care debate in Congress, swine flu, the economy and Bernie Madoff, starred Vicki Kunz ’02 as part of a fouractor cast.

Mary Beth McGregor has moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where she works as a senior benefit specialist in pensions with Freeport-McMoRan and Gold, Inc.

Alexis Vitale of Manhattan Beach, Calif., is a regional sales manager, clothing designer and cancer survivor. She has established Hopes Song (www.hopessong.com), a social networking site for people with cancer, their family and friends and health professionals. “I always say, ‘I would never give my cancer back,’ because it’s made me live in a more positive way—to live more, love more,” said Vitale.

2004 Joshua Spencer of Amston, Conn., received a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois in 2009.

2005 Scott DePue of Arlington, Va., works for the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. His military career was cut short by a shrapnel wound when his base in Iraq was struck by a missile in 2007. DePue received a Purple Heart for his injuries. “The work I do now directly correlates to the work I performed in the U.S. Army,” he said.

Christine Del Re Kane completed her specialist degree in school psychology at Western Illinois University last May.

2007 Natasha Kemmerling received her master’s degree in public relations and communications from Northern Illinois University last May and accepted a position with Westwood College in Calumet City, Ill., as an admissions administrator.

Michelle Anstett Sherman has started a new job as director of the Maquon (Ill.) Public Library.

2008 Teri Edwards of Chicago has published a novel, Double Take, which is available through Barnes & Noble.

2009 Newlyweds Justin ’07 and Hillary Leary Martin live in Monmouth, where Justin is an associate real estate appraiser for First Farm Credit Services and Hillary is the fiscal officer at West Central Head Start.

Katie Murray of Chicago, Ill., has started a new job as an early elementary science partnership educator at Lincoln Park Zoo. Also an adjunct professor at Kendall College, Murray’s new position calls for her to work in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools, local universities and several area museums.

2002

Charlie Sunderlage is 1-for-1 in the world of marathons—not merely completing them, but winning them. He topped a field of nearly 1,500 runners to win the 2009 Seattle Marathon in a time of 2:32.26. Sunderlage has moved to the

clan notes

Weddings 1972 1986 1990 1993 1999 2001 2002

2003

2004 2005 2006

2007

2008 2009 MC

Barbara Helmick and Tiana Robison

September 19, 2009

Paula Kessel and Brent Sharer March 28, 2009 Danette Forbes and Eric Colclasure October 11, 2009 Michelle Butler and David Sparks May 23, 2009 Anna Dybis and Peder Reiff October 13, 2007 Heather Mabee and Eric Kappell

September 19, 2009

Rebecca Harger and Matthew Moser

June 20, 2009

Meghan Roese and Luke Jackson May 23, 2009 Christine Stenson and Aaron Wright

June 20, 2009

Erika Bill and Chris Miller August 8, 2009 Jessie Taylor and Simon Joaquin August 8, 2009 Jamie Blaine and Chad Mammen October 18, 2008 Christine Del Re and Erick Kane

June 13, 2009

Ann Shortridge and Chris Walljasper ’07 September 12, 2009 Heather Weber and Alex Lebron

July 25, 2009

Kila Cox and Nicholaus Harwick

April 25, 2009

Heather Mabee ’01 and Eric Kappell were married on Sept. 19, 2009. MC alumni in attendance included, in front, Chris Hauri Austin ’01 and Megan Griffith Willhite ’01. In back are, from left, Grace Aiton ’02, the bride, Matt Schaub ’99, Wendy Wilhelm Schaub ’00, Shelly Orwig Mabee ’03 and Matt Mabee ’03.

Andrea Emery and Scott Stevenson ’06 June 13, 2009 Kristin Wilson and Jared Wilkes

September 13, 2008

Hilary Lee and Justin Martin ’07

July 25, 2009

Susan Inskeep and Alex Clark October 4, 2009

Jessie Taylor and Simon Joaquin

Kristin Wilson and Jared Wilkes

Several members of the Class of 2007 were in the wedding party of classmates Kila Cox and Nick Harwick. Pictured from left are Ashley Gaul ’07, Tyson Klinedinst, Jacquie Ouart ’07, Darcy Brun, Brittany Scott, Kitra Cox, Kila Cox Harwick ’07, Nick Harwick ’07, Evan Haffner ’07, Doug Harwick, Zack Krulack, Ryan Smith, Doug Middendorf ’07 and Ken Stachorek ’07.

Hilary Lee and Justin Martin

Meghan Roese and Luke Jackson

Alex Lebron and Heather Weber

clan notes

Andrea Emery and Scott Stevenson

monmouth | spring 2010

35

Births

Beckett Maher

1994 1995

1998

Sawyer Fenton

Symon Fordyce

Amelia Pilger

a daughter, Mullen Grace

July 2009

Nicki Bertelsen Phelps and Rodney

a daughter, Nora Dayle

June 21, 2009

Julie Crisco Ricketts and Dudley

a son, Blake David

December 29, 2008

Heather Furrow-Herchenroder and Corey triplet daughters, Grace Elizabeth Ella Christine and Taylor Catherine

February 19, 2009

Courtney Bonnett Maher and Bob

September 7, 2009

1999 Abram Krier

Jessica Bunch Butcher and Chris

a son, Beckett Robert Joseph

Heather Funk Schar and Ben

a son, Jackson Ross August 14, 2009

Stephanie Orsi Dare and Jason ’00

twins Carson Andrew and Vivian Orsi October 20, 2009

Sara Kubica Kahlenberg and Andy

twin daughters, Lauren Riley and Avery Wood

Anna Dybis Reiff and Peder

a daughter, Colette November 26, 2009

2000 2001 2002 2003

2004

2005 2007 2008

MC

February 10, 2009

Jannette Pinter Welch and Luke

a son, Tanner Floyd

December 10, 2008

Lindsey Sandage Hale and Rob

a son, Griffin David

January 2009

Christina Bennett Fenton and Justin ’04

a son, Sawyer Graham

July 4, 2009

Jaime Courtelyou DeCrane and Adam ’02

a son, Colten

January 5, 2009

Shanda Symonds Fordyce and Chris

a son, Symon Christopher October 5, 2009

Katie Mitchell Ranallo and Mike

a son, Tyler Michael August 2, 2009

Michelle Flaar Carlson and Adam

a son, Tyler David October 22, 2009

Brandi Helvick Hawk and Daniel

a son, Max Alan April 23, 2009

Lena Orlandini Krier and Brian ’05 – Kimberly Stroops Reynolds and Justin

a son, Abram Richard May 13, 2009 a son, Zachary Daniel March 16, 2009

Beth McKenna Welty and Anthony ’06

a son, Ryan

December 29, 2008

Amanda Havens Pilger and Joe ’08

a daughter, Amelia Grace

December 31, 2009

Pamella Bess

a daughter, Brooklynne October 16, 2008

Allison Henry Olsen and T.C. ’10

a daughter, Kaylee Rae

Lauren and Dave Ragone assistant football coach; men’s golf coach

a son, Anthony David November 11, 2009

January 5, 2009

Tyler Ranallo

Lauren and Avery Kahlenberg Grace, Ella and Taylor Herchenroder

Colette Reiff

Ryan Welty Griffin Hale

Send us your news, announcements, and photos!

Clan Notes is a section written for and about Monmouth College alumni. We welcome your submission of news and photos related to

your career, awards, reunions or travel with your MC friends, and any other information of interest to your classmates or alumni. We also welcome announcements and photos of alumni weddings, civil unions and births, as well as alumni obituaries. Digital photos should have a minimum resolution of 300 pixels per inch. Include a photo caption with full names that clearly match faces, class years, date and location.

Please submit news and photos online at www2.monm.edu/alumni/newsletter/, by e-mail to alumni@monm.edu, or to Monmouth College Magazine, Attn: Terry Hanson, 700 East Broadway, Monmouth IL 61462-1998. We reserve the right to reject images for any reason, especially those with low resolution and those that require purchase from a photo gallery Web site. Submissions will be printed on a space-available basis.

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monmouth | spring 2010

clan notes

Deaths 1930

Rotha Young Slagel, 102, of Flanagan, Ill., died July 26, 2009. She majored in English and was a National Collegiate Player and a member of Crimson Masque. Slagel taught in the Flanagan area for 40 years, during which time she received her master’s degree from Illinois State University.

1932 Evelyn Peters Kyle, 98, of Pasadena, Calif., died Oct. 9, 2009. She majored in languages and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. For her service to her women’s fraternity, which included work at the local, regional and international level, as well as her involvement with philanthropic and civic service organizations, she received MC’s Distinguished Service Award in 1967. She was preceded in death by her husband, Stanley Kyle ’34.

Francis Dennis Motter, 99, of Knoxville, Ill., died Nov. 1, 2009. She was a homemaker and bookkeeper for Kelly’s Shell Service Station, which she and her husband owned and operated.

1936 Martha Randles Pogue, 94, of Warren, Ohio, died July 5, 2009. She graduated with a degree in mathematics and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She was preceded in death by her husband of 60 years, Lawrence Pogue ’36, and a sister, Janet Randles Laxson ’35.

1937 Malcolm Laing, 93, of Amarillo, Texas, died Oct. 27, 2009. He graduated with a degree in history and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon, serving as its president his senior year. He was also a member of the swimming, track and football teams. Laing served in the U.S. Army for the final two years of World War II, seeing combat in the Philippines and Okinawa. In 1946, he moved to Amarillo, where he was employed as an accountant and head of the tax department for Southwestern Public Service until his retirement in 1981. He was preceded in death by his wife, Ruth Wagner Laing ’37.

Helen Scott Tinker, 94, of Westminster, Colo., died Nov. 8, 2009. She completed her studies in elementary education at Western Illinois University and taught in Monmouth and Roseville until the age of 72. She was preceded in death by her husband of 63 years, Eugene Tinker ’34.

1938 Ruth Nelson Howe, 93, of Salado, Texas, died Nov. 21, 2009. She majored in French and was a member of Alpha Xi Delta. She was preceded in death by her husband, F.E. “Pete” Howe ’39.

1939 Margaret Virtue Armstrong, 94, of Hanover, Ill., died Nov. 29, 2009. Before teaching for two years, she studied elementary education and was a member of Kappa Delta. She later farmed with her late husband, Wilfred Armstrong ’34.

Mary Beal DeYoung, 93, of Schaumburg, Ill., died Oct. 6, 2009. The Alpha Xi Delta member graduated with a degree in sociology before teaching in Chicago for 20 years. She was preceded in death by her husband of 52 years.

William Merriam Jr. of Newville, Pa., died March 24, 2009. He majored in philosophy and is survived by his wife of 66 years, Ila Porter Merriam ’41.

clan notes

In Memoriam: David Fleming ’46 a longtime MC administrator and trustee, died Dec. 14, 2009, at the age of 86. world war ii interrupted Fleming’s undergraduate

studies at Monmouth. He served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant in the Air Corps from 1942 to 1945, seeing action in Europe as a B-17 navigator. Later, he was in the Illinois National Guard’s 44th Infantry Division from 1948 to 1959, reaching the rank of captain, with a two-year active duty tour during the Korean War. At Monmouth, Fleming was active in football—starting, he was fond of saying, on the Scots’ undefeated team in 1945 (they went 2–0)—the Oracle and Tau Kappa Epsilon. After graduating with a degree in mathematics, he went to work for his alma mater in admissions and later served as director of development and assistant to the president. In all, he either did official work for or at least provided valuable advice to nine of Monmouth’s 13 presidents.

Fleming also served the college on its board of trustees from 1990 to 1997. He received its Distinguished Service Award in 1971 and an honorary doctor of letters degree in 1998. In 2006, the college constructed and dedicated Fleming Plaza, adjacent to Wallace Hall.

In 1972, Fleming left the college and went to work for Galesburg Cottage Hospital as its vice president for development and community relations, retiring in 1985.

Fleming then served as president of the Mellinger Educational Foundation in Monmouth for 20 years, “re-retiring” in 2005 The Mellinger Foundation has helped approximately students 11,000 students attend Monmouth and other colleges and universities. During Fleming’s association with the foundation, it provided significant contributions to the college, most notably the naming gift for the Mellinger Teaching and Learning Center, which opened in 1999, and a major grant to prepare the initial architectural plans for the college’s proposed center for the sciences and business. Ironically, it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its incorporation as a foundation on the date of Fleming’s death.

At a memorial service held in January at the college’s Dahl Chapel and Auditorium, five men with strong ties to the college, including three former or current college presidents, spoke about Fleming’s impact, character and humor.

“His enthusiasm for the college was infectious, as strong in his last years as it was when I first knew him 20 years ago,” said president emeritus Bruce Haywood.

“One of his greatest services to the college was his wise and knowledgeable counsel.

Nobody profited more from that service than did I … I am very much in his debt.”

Concurred former vice president Dick Valentine, now president at CulverStockton College, “Dave always provided some really sound advice to me … He was the second person I called when I accepted the president’s position. The first was my mother.”

Fleming was also very active in many Monmouth civic organizations, including the Rotary Club and the Warren County United Way. He was named Citizen of the Year in 1993 by the Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce.

Survivors include his wife of 62 years, former MC instructor Mary Fleming, three children, including former MC staff member Joel Fleming, and a sister, Barbara Fleming Harris ’43.

1940 Ila Dingwell Blakeney of Ridge Farm, Ill., died May 25, 2009. She majored in history and was preceded in death by her husband, Wayne Blakeney ’39.

1941 Raymond Powell, 90, of Anchorage, Alaska, died Dec. 27, 2009. After studying Spanish at Monmouth, he served in the U.S. Navy as a seabee. Powell moved to Alaska in 1950 and was an ironworker for 15 years. He then built and operated a car wash until his retirement in the late 1980s. He also served as a private pilot, logging well over 4,000 flight hours. “Ray’s

greatest passion was flying,” said a family member. “He took hundreds of people on their first, or most memorable, plane rides.” As a “blast from the past,” Powell recently told the college that he and a fellow student were the pair responsible for stealing a tug boat whistle and installing it as the new whistle for the college’s heating plant.

Ross Young, 89, of DeKalb, Ill., died April 19, 2009. He graduated with a degree in philosophy and was a member of the swim team.

Young was drafted one month after graduation and served in combat infantry in Italy during World War II, receiving a Purple Heart with cluster. The retired YMCA executive is survived by his sister, Anna Young Caldwell ’39.

monmouth | spring 2010

37

In Memoriam: James Christie Shields ’49, who donated the Shields

Collection of Art and Antiquities to his alma mater in 1999, died on Sept. 20, 2009, in Media, Pa. “i truly have learned, and I have been

excited,” said Shields at the time of his donation.

“Now I think others can learn from these artifacts … I wanted it to go somewhere where it would have more importance and more usefulness, and Monmouth College just made more sense (than a New York museum).”

The original collection, pieced together over several decades, contained more than 600 objects from Egypt, the Mediterranean, the Near East, India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia, as well as Africa and pre-Columbian America. It recently grew by approximately 70 pieces, according to Mary Phillips, curator of college art collections.

“The works in this last bequest may be called his treasures, I believe, as these were his favorite pieces, which he kept in his own apartment, and represented acquisitions over his lifetime,” she said. “They reflect his knowledge and appreciation of many different cultures, particularly those around the Mediterranean Sea, so much a part of his life and devotion.”

Phillips said the latest pieces hold “a very special place for me. When they were given to us, I knew that Mr. Shields was leaving his cherished New York City, and that he wished his treasures to be given to and cared for by his beloved alma mater.”

The son of Presbyterian missionaries, Shields was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopa, grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and studied at the Schutz American School in Egypt.

His family returned to the U.S. in 1942 and, after a few years at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, Shields joined the U.S. Naval Reserves for the duration of World War II. He served as a hospital corpsman with the U.S. Marine Third Division in the Pacific Theater, taking part in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns and the Guam battle aftermath.

Back in the U.S. once again in 1946, Shields studied biology at Monmouth and participated in choir, Crimson Masque and Theta Chi. He earned a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and also studied at Yale University for three years.

Shields was an English instructor at the University of Hawaii and Middlebury College before joining the English department of the Collegiate School in New York City in 1963. Eight years later, he was named head of the department, a position he held for the next 18 years. He retired in 1991.

Bruce Breimer, Collegiate’s college adviser, wrote, “First and foremost a teacher extraordinaire of literature and letters, Jim deserves the lion’s share of the credit for cultivating Collegiate’s widely recognized stature as a ‘writers’ school.” In 1987, Shields was one of 30 teachers named among the most outstanding in the U.S. The next year, Monmouth College conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Since his retirement, Shields studied and wrote in the field of Egyptology. At the time of his death, several items from Monmouth’s Shields Collection were on loan to the University of Missouri for an exhibit titled The Sacred Feminine.

1943 Harold McConnell Jr., 88, of New Bern, N.C., died Dec. 14, 2009. He followed his parents, 1916 graduates H.H. and Margaretta Gardiner McConnell, to Monmouth, where he majored in government and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and the football team. He earned a theology degree from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary in 1945. He served Presbyterian congregations in five states, including seven in Pennsylvania. McConnell, who retired as colonel from the Pennsylvania Army National Guard after 35 years of duty, was a military chaplain during World War II and the Korea War. “Few people have ever epitomized all that we could hope to be in character as a human being and, in particular, an ambassador for Monmouth

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College,” said John Garrett ’86 of McConnell, who received an honorary degree from Monmouth in 1964. “He influenced countless lives.” Monmouth alumni preceding him in death included his parents and a twin brother, James McConnell ’46. Survivors include a son, Robert “Cam” McConnell ’72.

1944 Eva “Ione” Ketzle Gobble, 85, of Mesa, Ariz., died Aug. 24, 2009. She graduated with a degree in business administration, was a member of Alpha Xi Delta and participated in several musical productions. She retired from teaching when she moved to Arizona in 1970, but started a 15-year library career. Survivors include her husband of 64 years.

Helen Goddard Rehn, 86, of Monmouth, died Aug. 24, 2009. She studied elementary education and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. Her three sisters attended Monmouth—Kathryn Goddard Fritz ’50, and the late Evelyn Goddard Linman ’40 and Dorothy Goddard Peterson ’49.

1945 The Rev. Robb McLaughlin, 85, of Millersburg, Ohio, died May 6, 2009. He majored in Greek and was a member of the track team before earning his M. Div. degree from PittsburghXenia Theological Seminary. McLaughlin spent more than 40 years in mission service with the Presbyterian Church in Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya before retiring in 1988. His wife of 59 years preceded him in death two months earlier.

1947 Marilyn Thompson Roney, 84, of Monmouth, died Aug. 6, 2009. The Alpha Xi Delta member graduated with a degree in English. She is survived by her husband of 61 years.

Vivian Knauss Van Dyke of Park Forest, Ill., died April 9, 2008. She majored in mathematics and is survived by her husband of 60 years, Ray Van Dyke ’49.

1948 Rev. Harold Kurtz of Portland, Ore., died Dec. 18, 2009. His college education was interrupted by World War II, as he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. At Monmouth, he majored in chemistry and was involved in several organizations, including Crimson Masque, Student Association, Octopus Club, Theta Chi and the swimming and track teams. After graduating, he earned a master of divinity degree from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Kurtz accepted a call to a church in his native state of Oregon and, from there, served in the mission field in Ethiopia for 22 years, during which time he had “marvelous and harrowing adventures.” He returned to Portland in 1977, retiring as pastor of Kenton Presbyterian Church in 1989 to work as one of the founders and directors of Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. That endeavor took him around the world to places such as Siberia, India and Ethiopia. Said one former associate from Ethiopia, “Mr. Kurtz is a giant in the Presbyterian mission work in Ethiopia. His footprints are engraved everywhere in this country.” Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Polly Huxley Kurtz ’50, and daughters Caroline Kurtz ’72 and Jane Kurtz ’73.

Amelita Meier Mason, 85, of Cincinnati, Ohio, died Sept. 11, 2009. She majored in Spanish and is survived by her sister, Audrey Meier ’49.

1949 Margaret Orr, 83, of Ames, Iowa, died July 19, 2009. After graduating with a degree in English, she earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin. Most of her career in that field was spent at Parks Library at Iowa State University.

Lawrence “Pete” Moore, 88, of Alexis, Ill., died Aug. 20, 2009. After attending Monmouth and playing football, he served for four years during World War II. Moore was a ball turret gunner and flew 25 missions over Europe and 20 over the Pacific, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals. He worked for 21 years as a mechanic and 20 years as a lineman for the Alexis Telephone Company and GTE.

clan notes

1950 Janet Hogue Barber of Los Gatos, Calif., died April 30, 2008. She majored in religion and music and was a member of Kappa Delta before earning a master’s degree from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary.

In Memoriam: M Club Hall of Fame athlete Jud Kruidenier ’50, who

Wayne Brodd of Raleigh, N.C., died Oct. 29, 2009. He was a member of the baseball team and Sigma Phi Epsilon. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn Rogers Brodd ’51.

and athletes in the Monmouth area, Kruidenier spent much of his 43-year teaching and coaching career at Central Junior High School in Monmouth. He later coached Monmouth College women’s basketball from 1982 to 1990, compiling a record of 88-86. He also coached MC cross country for nine years, including both the men’s and women’s programs from 1981 to 1987, and he directed the women’s track program from 1981 to 1988.

Kruidenier’s time as a student at Monmouth was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army during World War II. Upon his return to campus, he led the track team in points from 1947 to 49, and he also earned a letter in cross country.

The physical education major was the Midwest indoor champion in the 60-yard low hurdles at a meet held at North Central College in 1948 and was the Central Region AAU 440-yard hurdles champion in 1950. His starring efforts helped Monmouth establish its well-deserved reputation as a track power in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

As a coach at Central, he took seven teams to the state tournament. In all, he coached four state championship teams at Monmouth High School and CJHS. Along with Betty, his wife of nearly 60 years, he did janitorial jobs for banks in his retirement years and also participated in Senior Olympics events throughout the country.

Other survivors include daughters Kim Kruidenier Samms ’77 and Kathy Kruidenier Cox ’82.

Charlotte Gibson, 80, of Morning Sun, Iowa, died Oct. 20, 2009. She graduated with a degree in music and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She taught school in Turkey and Holland, as well as Utah and California, before becoming involved in early childhood development. She received her Ph.D. in that field from the University of Southern California.

Her parents, Leroy ’14 and Gertrude Kauffman Pierce ’13, both graduated from Monmouth, as did a brother, Leroy Pierce ’48, who survives.

Robert Leiper, 82, of Estes Park, Colo., died Oct. 10, 2009. He followed his parents—the Rev. Charles Leiper ’20 and Elizabeth McClenahan Leiper ’22—to Monmouth and graduated with a degree in physics. His engineering career was spent in five states—Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, California and Illinois—and even more positions, including manager of applications engineering with Fansteel Electrometals in North Chicago, Ill. He also formed Chugai, U.S.A. in Waukegan, Ill., to supply Ford and its suppliers with electric contact for switch devices.

Survivors include his wife of 57 years.

Pauline Wicall Vinson, 81, of Bloomington, Ill., died Dec. 7, 2009. After attending Monmouth for years, she studied at Brown’s Business College. For many years, she co-owned and operated Vinson’s Café in Gibson City with her late husband of 51 years.

Joan Davis Volkmar of El Cajon, Calif., died July 30, 2008. The Kappa Kappa Gamma member had retired from Eastman Kodak’s San Diego Labs.

1951 Gene Behnke, 82, of Monmouth, died Nov. 19, 2009. Prior to enrolling at Monmouth, where he majored in physical education, Behnke served in the U.S. Army in the military police from 1945 to 1947. He earned a master’s degree in education and administration from the University of Colorado. Behnke had a long career in teaching, coaching and administration, retiring as an elementary school principal in Monmouth.

Surivors include his wife of 58 years, Dorothy Kern Behnke ’49, and a daughter, Janie Behnke ’83.

Milton Sage, 80, of Swissvale, Pa., died June 18, 2009. He graduated with a degree in English and was a member of the swim team before earning two degrees nearly 30 years apart from the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary.

After working in the mission field in Egypt, he taught at Muskingum College, served churches in New York and Pennsylvania and was a personal counselor. Survivors include his wife of 53 years.

1952 Bronald “Bud” Alden, 78, of Galesburg, Ill., died May 1, 2009. He attended both Iowa State University and Monmouth, where he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. Alden served in the U.S. Army during the Korea War and, upon

clan notes

also served as a coach at his alma mater, died Aug. 17, 2009, in Osage Beach, Mo. The longtime resident of Monmouth was 83. known as “coach k” to multiple generations of students

his return, farmed in Avon, Ill., until 1994.

Survivors include his wife of nearly 50 years and a daughter, Erin Alden Davis ’94.

1953 Gretchen Guin Zillman of Danville, Ill., died July 31, 2009. She studied elementary education and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Roy Wehmhoefer, 77, of Homewood, Ill., died Sept. 14, 2009. After graduating with a degree in history, he received his master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1958. His 41-year career in education spanned from teacher to superintendent, and he was named administrator of the year in 1989 by the South Suburban Educational Office Personnel Organization, which is comprised of more than 50 school districts.

1954 James Gavin, 77, of Monmouth, died Nov. 1, 2009. He attended Monmouth for two years, then worked until 1978 as a mechanic for his father at Monmouth’s Gavin Motors. He later did maintenance work for the Galesburg school district. Survivors include his wife of 57 years.

Marilyn DeBok Sharp, 77, of Des Moines, Iowa, died Oct. 18, 2009. The member of Pi Beta Phi was a longtime secretary in Moline, Ill.

1955 William “Toiler” Cook, 76, of Brookfield, Wis., died July 29, 2009. He graduated with degrees in economics and business administration and was a member of the baseball team and Alpha Tau Omega. Cook, who served in the U.S. Navy for two years, was a preceded in death by his wife, Shirley Batten Cook ’56.

1956

Ronald Williams, 75, of Brea, Calif., died Sept.

12, 2009. He majored in physical education, was on the football, baseball and track teams and was a member of the Octopus Club. After serving in the U.S. Army for two years, he moved to California, where he worked for more than 35 years in the electrical industry as an award-winning sales representative. Survivors include a brother, Larry Williams ’62.

1957

William Durham, 74, of Palm Springs, Calif., died April 29, 2009. He graduated with a degree in speech, communication and theater and was involved in Crimson Masque and Theta Chi. He received a master’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado and was a teacher for 35 years, including the last 24 at Guilford High School in Rockford, Ill. He and his partner operated Home Place Antiques in Belvidere, Ill., for 14 years.

Fred Hill of Williamsburg, Va., died April 13, 2009. He majored in chemistry and was a member of the cross country, track and basketball teams, as well as Sigma Phi Epsilon. Hill was a retired vice president/general manager for Florida Sugar Marketing/Molasses Exchange in Singer Island, Fla. Rev. Thomas Lane, 74, of Bellingham, Wash., died Aug. 25, 2009. He graduated with a degree in sociology and was a member of the golf, swim and synchronized swimming teams, as well as Theta Chi. He graduated from Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1960 in his childhood home of Prairie Village, Kansas.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years.

continued on page 43 monmouth | spring 2010

39

In Remembrance:

Richard“

”Kieft

A eulogy given by Craig Watson for his longtime friend and colleague to an overflow crowd at Monmouth’s Faith United Presbyterian Church in Monmouth. there are so many good photographs many photos of former students’ weddings

out there. In the last few months, people have been sharing photographs of happy times with Doc Kieft: photos cherished as expressive of the man and his joy in life, and of pride in having known him. Those pictures mailed or posted on Facebook or sent to him during his illness were intended as reminders we hoped he would see.

I will mention a few. In one, taken very early one morning at a party (surprise), Doc is on the floor wrestling a bear rug, a silvertipped grizzly. He has on his head a Viking helmet with two curved horns. The bear is snarling; Doc looks comfortable and pleased.

In another picture taken at another party, he’s wearing a lampshade and dancing with a whole room of friends to what I’m sure is Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. There are of course a few obligatory pictures of human pyramids (circa 1980) in which Doc is type-cast on the foundation level. In another photo Doc is hanging on a clothesline his third, sweat-soaked T-shirt of the workday. He’s been cutting the front lawn.

There are photos of Doc loading Pete Loomis’s infamous potato gun for a shot into the alien corn. In several pictures, Doc is girding his loins in what looks like a vending machine swimsuit as he emerges from the motel pool where alumni and their kids have gathered, or from a hot tub where he’s been entertaining those kids with an uncanny, Donald Duck imitation, drawn from a jazz saxophonist’s deep pocket in his cheek. And he’s landing on the beach of frigid Lake Michigan in June, standing in the steaming waves of the Bay of Bengal, relaxing on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Same swimsuit. But he’s always among friends.

There are many other group shots with ZBT brothers, taken over 25 years of advising the fraternity. And it’s only fair to mention how many smiling photos place Kieft among an admiring crowd of sorority women sitting on a couch at a ZBT party, happily wrapped in small talk and friendly flirtation.

There are also photos of Doc on Shaftsbury Street in London with the Monmouth theatre crowd, and in Aruba with a college basketball team, in Kandithankulum and Tirunevelli, and in Agra standing in a group before the Taj Mahal. Shots at campus barbecues, football games, baseball games, men’s and women’s basketball games. Happily, there are so

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that they fill an album of his own.

Any number of photos taken over the years find Doc lecturing in a chemistry class, reminding me that when Dean Wright was asked to recommend Doc for tenure many years ago, Wright claimed credibly that he had heard every word of all of Kieft’s lectures— half a floor away, from behind Wright’s closed office door.

In albums or boxes or in the mind’s eye there are: • pictures of Doc and his students in makeup lab sessions at 11 at night; • pictures of him building a house with Dale and Donna Buss (his utterly loyal and untiring friends and caretakers through the summer days that were his last); • photos of him digging into nests of carpenter ants for a porch foundation on a cabin in the U.P.; • photos of the departmental chair in conference with his colleagues; • of Doc presiding at table with children at Faith Church’s “Wednesday Night Live” and in a church elders’ meeting; clan notes

• and among conversationalists at almost every session of the Wednesday night “Great Decisions” series.

Doc is on the chair’s side of the table at Faculty Senate, running a stressful meeting in the college’s “starving times.” And there are several pictures of him standing on the tee of every golf course in western Illinois, Biloxi, Miss. and Palm Springs, where the trustees who made him a college trustee overlooked his habitual duck hook and sought his good council about the college.

Someone recently commented to me that Doc has been bigger than life around these parts. He swelled every surround.

Brothers, former students, college presidents and vice presidents, colleagues of a generation now in retirement, staff—so many life-long friends—will not say otherwise. A couple of his best friends noticed in these last few months how many different groups of people, people who don’t necessarily know each other well or have ever cared to, place Doc at the center of their circles and themselves among his closest friends. The observation is important. He was the

center of several circles scribed by his largesse, his appetite for life, his generosity of spirit.

In mentioning all the photographs, I am assuming, of course, we know that we are here not to mourn, as we sometimes must, an unlived or regretful life, one whose promise went unrealized. Instead, we know

we are here to celebrate a full, rich life: rich in humor, experience, discipline and knowledge, authority and influence in those different circles

Richard “Doc” Kieft, 64, a full-time member of MC’s chemistry department from 1975 to 2006 and a member of MC’s board of trustees, died September 16, 2009, following a short bout with pancreatic cancer. He is pictured above with Craig Watson.

More recently, there are many photos of his extended walking tour with his brother, John, in the Rockies this last year, a great trip Doc loved to talk about, etc. etc.

You have some of these photos and your own albums. We will no doubt spend time in the years ahead telling stories about the pictures. The many photos are now stilledlife shots that remind us of bigger than life stories about someone who figured largely in our lives. clan notes

he centered. We’re here to celebrate the joy he gave and took. Because in a very real sense Doc took almost as much as he gave, and for that we are grateful and feel connected, as when in the middle of the best conversation we have had in a long time, we realize suddenly we want it never to end.

In a time of remembrance, it seems important to try to explain at least a bit of the Doc phenomenon: to figure the diagram in which he centered so many circles.

Among other things, one that drew us in was that Doc Kieft lived a life securely centered in three time zones of his own consciousness: the past, present and future.

For 20 years he and I spent a week or two opening my family’s cabins on the Garden Peninsula of Michigan. Usually each June. That meant a day of cutting fallen trees, cleaning and stocking the cabins, cutting and raking out high grass, changing pump gaskets, changing T-shirts. Then there was always a major project: roofing leaky dormers, replacing window frames, and for four summers, sometimes with Ken Cramer’s help, we put up a screened porch where we thenceforth drank wine, ate whitefish from the dock, argued politics and listened to music as it got dark.

The place reminded Doc of his childhood summers spent on the opposite shore of

Lake Michigan. He spoke at length and reverently about long beach days with his family, about his father and mother, his brothers John and Jim . . . their routines, work, play. His affection for those

times came with a clear sense of his indebtedness to his upbringing for the work ethic he valued, for the doctrine of deferred gratification he espoused with students, for a simple way of life he cherished, and for his calling in life as a chemistry professor

at a small, liberal arts college. His father was the first “Doc” Kieft, remembered as such in Bucknell College bulletins and news clippings that Dick sometimes brought to Michigan to talk about. The past informed everything in his personal life, and in his life as a teacher at Monmouth College. As

the years went on, it became clear that Doc could recall most, if not all, of his former students’ names, their years at Monmouth, their lives here and in the world beyond graduation, even their children’s names and achievements.

His sense of living in the moment, living richly in the present, we have all shared, confirmed and celebrated in letters, photographs and in what we say. It remains to mention his abiding and steadfast attention to the future, to posterity, that strangely quaint word these days.

Some of us have walked around the Monmouth campus as Kieft pointed to places where trees should be planted, or a new building sited, trees and buildings that would outlive and outlast him, as he well knew. Many of us know what an investment he made in the futures of not just every student he met, but of young faculty members new on campus. My own family’s experience is shared by many faculty through generations. When I was newly hired and came with my family from Chicago to look at Monmouth College, we wandered aimlessly around an apparently deserted campus in June, finding it hard to size up the place, finding the college quiet and unspoken. Out of HT came Kieft on an errand about chemistry journal subscriptions to the library, and seeing us, he grinned up for the tour.

For the next hour we were welcomed, invited in, inspired, aligned, accepted. It was the only orientation to Monmouth College monmouth | spring 2010

41

that has ever mattered. For us at the time, and perhaps for many others subsequently, the tour seemed an entitlement. Now I know it was exceptional devotion.

Posterity. Doc planned hard and

happily with his colleagues for the future of the department he knew he would leave on bridge retirement, equally hard for the new science/business building now on the college horizon. He took the long view and that made him an invaluable resource, a true trustee and steward of the college.

He was a great teacher. He was tough, exacting, generously rewarding with all his students, but he was especially good in turning kids around who were on the edge of blowing it off. His special gift was to

model hard work and hard play in such a way as to utterly convince wayward kids that they had a future in a world of meaningful work, and work for others. That’s what the pictures of late-night, unscheduled, make-up labs have to tell.

On a terrible day early this summer Doc received from specialists who lacked his human touch the verdict of his diagnosis.

As we drove away from the hospital along Lake Shore Drive to his good friends’ apartment where he was staying, he called his brothers on the cell phone, giving them the news in understated terms, asking for their prayers, lucidly planning the best timing for the visits they would make. When he hung up, he turned to me to say exactly this, “It’s time for me to think about what I need to give away.”

Of course, he had been thinking about that much of his adult life. The statement was as perfectly characteristic of Kieft as any of the signature photos we will use to revisit the past and invoke his presence again. It was a statement about the future.

Doc lived comfortably on the first floor of his house a long time. And he lived well in the world. He never read a menu he didn’t like. He never until the end left a party early. He traveled widely and well, with friends. But he was frugal, too. Doc liked that his home’s taxes and insurance were paid annually by upstairs rent. He liked his upstairs renters, helped them in and out, counseled them, forgave them payments. But he often confided, he liked living at home mostly free.

On the other hand, Doc was besieged in every decade at home by perplexing, unset-

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tling and expensive questions: Why don’t you renovate your downstairs? Why don’t you sell this and buy a cool house in the country? You could afford to buy this whole block. What about some good furniture?

Why not trade in those tan, generic demos and get something racy. Pressed hard, Doc occasionally obliged, opened a checkbook that looked always new . . . but in over 30 years not that much changed.

“What people don’t understand,” he said more than once, “is that I have everything I need.”

And with that conclusion, what he accumulated and invested shrewdly, a sizable estate, he has donated to the college he loved. There was never a question about that. He saved early and often for posterity.

In the last few months some of us watched him withdraw and grow quiet, particularly after the diagnosis and the pain settled in. I respected that turn inward, once I got used to not having the other Doc around. You would have too, if you had watched it, even if you wanted more from him.

Part of it was that he wanted people to remember him as he had been in the days and stories the photos sponsor. The other part was simply enough a concentrated, determined struggle with the terms of his dying, which he took on with a chemist’s calculations and extraordinary courage.

His fixed attention on the disease robbing him and us of his life (though not of who he was) kept his answers short, sometimes sardonic, always real. He was exhausted finally, stoical and introspective on his own terms. He sought and received solace from his faith and those who ministered to him so well. But what one realized, was that he had always been, against the evidence of garrulous photographs, against all the evidence of dancing lampshades, also a very private person who kept his own counsel.

So if you didn’t receive replies to your letters, hundreds of them, or get the response you had hoped for and perhaps expected, or get a chance to say goodbye in person, that’s why. And I came to see his withdrawal, as I think he always understood it,

as a way he was saving us something for posterity.

One more thing, and I leave it to last, because I think it has been so important to many of us who cared about Doc. He had integrity, meaning wholeness, completeness, moral substance. He earned our confidence because when he received our confidences, he kept them. He never rumored, or dishonored. He never capitalized on an opportunity that diminished others. In situations where politics could be both vicious and trivial, he didn’t pass his pain along, or anyone else’s either. He inspired trust because past, present and future were exceptionally well integrated in his way of life and fixed him as solid and central, axial in our circles, but equally because we trusted him with complaints, confidences, exaggerations, screw ups. To

know a person both as alive as he was and utterly trustworthy, steadfast, is indeed a privilege that we have all recognized.

President Ditzler said at Doc’s retirement ceremony that in his experience every good college community has someone like Doc to center its existence and mission— by my edit, to make manifest and inviolable its soul. You will all want to add that there was no one quite like Doc, here or anywhere, and that all the separate circles he centered at this college and in the places he will be remembered become something approaching a unified community when one looks through the lens of his life.

That is a legacy worthy of celebration. And it is the source of our grief, too, no matter how much we know we are here to celebrate a rich life. What we would celebrate

competes with what we mourn: the loss of that life still in full swing, the loss of what has made the wheels turn in our different circles, more often than not circles of his own making. 

Top: Kieft took his role of faculty marshal at commencement seriously. For 20 years, he helped keep the procession running smoothly. The other photo is of Kieft’s retirement celebration in 2006. editor’s note: Craig Watson, professor of English, joined the faculty in 1986.

clan notes

Deaths continued from page 39

1961 William Jahn, 69, of Dillsburg, Pa., died March 1, 2009. He majored in speech, communication and theater, was a National Collegiate Player and was a member of Crimson Masque and Theta Chi. He was retired from the Navy Ships Parts Control Center in Mechanicsburg, Pa. Susan Mathews Rickey of Henry, Ill., died April 14, 2009. She graduated with a degree in sociology and was a member of Alpha Xi Delta.

1962 Edward Bain, 70, of Brookhaven, N.Y., died May 28, 2009, of lung disease. He graduated with a degree in physics and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He was the owner and operator of Bain Company, an HVAC service and installation company.

Richard Rossen of Mexico Beach, Fla., died Sept. 29, 2009. He majored in psychology and was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

1963 Rebecca Rawson Troup, 63, of Camp Hill, Pa., died Aug. 18, 2009. After studying at Monmouth, she completed her degree at Colorado Women’s College. She had more than 27 years of state service and retired as assistant secretary treasurer with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

1964 Carl “Whitey” Beisser, 67, of North Port, Fla., died July 2, 2009. He majored in English and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon. Beisser served in the U.S. Army Reserve in Fond du Lac, Wis., from 1966 to 1972 and was employed in management by A.C. Nielsen Marketing Research from 1965 to 1992 in four locations. He most recently worked for the Tournament Players Club at Prestancia in Sarasota, Fla., for 10 years as a foreman and pesticide spray technician.

Jerry Norgart, 68, of Peoria, Ill., died Nov. 28, 2009. After graduating with a degree in education, he received a master’s degree from Illinois State University in 1972. Norgart taught at Northmoor Elementary School in Peoria for more than 30 years and, at the time of his death, was co-owner of a swim and tennis club.

1965 Janet Larson Newton, 66, of Aurora, Ill., died Nov. 2, 2009. She majored in religious studies and was a member of Crimson Masque. She worked at the St. Charles (Ill.) Public Library for nearly 20 years.

Mary Jo Melvin, 73, of Stronghurst, Ill., died June 16, 2009. A non-traditional student, she majored in English and then earned a master’s degree in linguistics from Western Illinois University in 1971. She taught at area schools for several years and also worked for 21 years at Admiral and Maytag in Galesburg. She was preceded in death by her husband of 51 years.

1972 Clark Brownfield, 60, of Gardner, Kansas, died June 20, 2009, of brain cancer. He graduated with a degree in English.

1973 Stephen Salvato, 57, of North Oaks, Minn., died July 16, 2009. He majored in sociology and is survived by his wife, Jacquelyn Grier Salvato ’73.

clan notes

1974

Gregory “Pete” Ball, 57, of Monmouth, Ill., died Nov. 25, 2009. He majored in geology and was a member of the swim team and Alpha Tau Omega. Ball worked for Johnson & Johnson in sales and marketing for a number of years. He was preceded in death by his father, longtime faculty member Elwood “Woody” Ball. Survivors include sisters Janis Ball Durr ’69 and Pamela Ball Gustafson ’77.

1976

George Gossett, 62, of Roseville, Ill., died Dec. 7, 2009. Prior to attending Monmouth, where he took classes in religious studies, he served in the U.S. Army for three years. He worked at Farm King in Monmouth and Roseville Village Hardware. Survivors include his wife, Barbara Hagginjos Gossett ’79.

1980 David Nimmo, 51, of Hanna City, Ill., died July 23, 2009. He majored in business and economics and was a member of the wrestling and football teams and Tau Kappa Epsilon. He was owner/operator of Nimmo Hardware, Inc. for many years before going to work for Born Paint Company in Peoria, Ill., in 2005.

1981

Mary Boyle Paquette, 50, of Center Point, Texas, died Sept. 27, 2009. She was a member of Crimson Masque and Kappa Delta and completed her nursing degree at Rush University College of Nursing. She later earned a master’s degree in the field from St. Xavier University.

1988

John Bruning, 46, of Lake Forest, Ill., died Sept.

21, 2009. He majored in business administration and was a member of Zeta Beta Tau.

Marc Gustafson, 43, of Naperville, Ill., died Nov. 2, 2009. He graduated with a degree in accounting and was a member of the football and track teams. Gustafson worked for the U.S. Air Force as a civilian auditor for 11 years and for the Department of Health and Human Services since 1999.

Word has also been received of the following deaths: Helen Knight, 82, of Roseville, Ill., former custodian, died Dec. 10, 2009. She worked at the college from 1978 to 1990, retiring as custodian for Liedman Hall.

Emma Janis Speel, 92 (left) of Alexandria, Va., widow of longtime faculty member Charles Speel, died Nov. 5, 2009. She lived in Monmouth from 1951 to 2000.

1932: Kenneth Mead, 98, of Port Richey, Fla., died Aug. 2, 2009.

1946: John Giffin, 84, of Farmington Hills, Mich., died Aug. 14, 2009.

1946: Donna Peterson Smock of Rossville, Ill., died Dec. 21, 2008.

1967: Owen Gaede of Tallahassee, Fla., died Oct. 28, 2006, after a long bout with cancer. Gaede, who previously taught in the Monmouth area, had been at Florida State University since 1992.

1968: Sara Shellman Lyons of Longmont, Colo., died Dec. 2, 2006. She studied English and received a master’s degree in library science from Denver University.

Nierenberg continued from page 33 “We have four recommendations for farmers, agribusiness, politicians and other agricultural decision-makers.”

Those include moving beyond seeds, cutting the slack in the system, going local and positioning farms on the front line of climate change.

“All of these measures hold untapped potential for boosting global food production, strengthening rural communities, rebuilding ecosystems and reducing poverty and hunger,” they conclude.

“And in contrast to ‘Band-Aid’ shipments, the lasting solutions will involve farmers and food communities working together to feed themselves.”

Nierenberg’s recent op-ed is by no means her first encounter with major media markets. Her knowledge of sustainable agriculture issues, in particular factory farming and its global spread, has been cited widely in The New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and other media. She appeared in the 2008 documentary Meat the Truth, discussing the impact of livestock production on climate change, and her work has been televised on Voice of America and local television and radio stations around the world. Nierenberg has also presented to international audiences, university students, policymakers, farmers and chefs.

After graduating with a degree in environmental policy, Nierenberg served two years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. She also earned a master’s degree in agriculture, food and environment from the School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

In 2003, Monmouth recognized her dedication to environmental causes by naming her its Young Alumnus Award recipient.

While the average person might easily become discouraged in discussing solutions to world hunger, Nierenberg remains upbeat.

“We’ve made a point during this trip to focus on stories of hope and success in agriculture,” she said. “Most of what Americans hear about Africa is famine, conflict and HIV/AIDS, and we wanted to highlight the things that are going well on the continent. There’s a lot of hope out here—a lot of individuals and organizations doing terrific work—but that doesn’t necessarily translate into them receiving resources or funding. We hope to create a roadmap for funders and the donor community and shine a big spotlight on the projects and innovations that seem to be working, so that they can be scaled up or replicated in other places.”  monmouth | spring 2010

43

The Last Word

After reading the 47th headline about someone’s Best of the Decade list… i decided to give in and fulfill

Gracie Peterson’s amazing Rivoli shows were a thing of the past before what has apparently become a journal 1. New Dorms/Record Enrollment I was even born but, thanks to her istic duty. Whatever we ultimately 2. Huff Athletic Center/$10 Million Gift longevity, I was able to see the legenddecide to call the past decade—The 3. New Curriculum ary music instructor’s final extravaZeroes, The Aughts, The 2000s— 4. President Ditzler Inaugurated ganza. Held at Galesburg’s Orpheum Monmouth College will remember it as Theatre days before her 100th birthday one of tremendous transformation. In 5. Library/Chapel Renovations in 2002, the show had been booked by terms of facilities, the decade rivals 6. Other Athletic Facilities Constructed Rotary Club members 10 years earlier. and perhaps surpasses the three-year 7. President Bush at Commencement “She played the Orpheum with the span a century ago which saw the 8. Athletic Success/Football-Track same flair she displayed throughout tragic loss of Old Main followed by the her career and brought the capacity construction of Wallace Hall, Poling 9. Sesquicentennial Celebrated crowd to its feet more than once,” Hall and McMichael Academic Hall, wrote Fleming, who helped create the buildings that stand side-by-side to event. “On this memorable night, she was once again the star of this day. But the college experienced more than physical change in the past decade; it rode a wave a positive momentum that was not the show.”

Fleming took the opposite approach to Gracie in his substantial even derailed by the sudden economic downturn in 2008. impact on his alma mater. It was the work he did behind the While Monmouth has its sights set firmly on continuing that scenes—as official and unofficial adviser to MC’s presidents and as momentum into the next decade, the box above offers a look back president of the Mellinger Educational Foundation—that helped at the headlines that made news in the decade of transformation. shape the college for more than half a century (see page 37).

On a related note to Monmouth’s top stories, one of my assignUnfortunately, Gracie-like longevity was not in the cards for ments is to help increase Monmouth’s regional and national visibility. That is easier said than done in a nation with hundreds of emeritus chemistry professor Doc Kieft, who died of pancreatic cancer in September at the age of 64. But his 34 years at Monmouth colleges and universities, but it’s always exciting when a story relating to Monmouth gets on the national radar. Two such stories were indeed special. I was privileged to hear an account of those years in his eulogy, which was delivered by his longtime faculty from the past decade were history professor Stacy Cordery’s biogcolleague, Craig Watson (a full version appears on pages 41). raphy of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Bob Jornlin’s amazing “A couple of his best friends noticed in these last few months voyage. how many different groups of people place Doc at the center of Cordery’s Alice appeared on The New York Times bestseller list their circles and themselves among his closest friends,” said Watson. for historical biographies, and she went on a national book tour, “The observation is important. He was the center of several circles part of which was televised on C-SPAN. scribed by his largesse, his appetite for life, his generosity of spirit.”

“I claim that (Alice) was the first celebrity in American history, I’ve been on the edge of a lot of circles in my decade at Monmouth, going on Daniel Boorstin’s definition of ‘celebrity,’” said Cordery in and I’m happy that I was able to get a little deeper into Stafford an interview several years before the book was actually published.

Weeks’ circle before he passed away in early 2009. That entrance “She was the first person to be known for her well-knownness.” occurred a year before, shortly after it was announced that an Monmouth College also seeks to be well-known, and Cordery— estate gift would be used to name the new home of MC’s philosowho is a sought-after source on First Ladies—has definitely done phy and religious studies department in his honor. Stafford had a her part to put Monmouth on the map. way about him—a pleasant calmness, to paraphrase one alumAs for Jornlin’s voyage, I’m honestly a little surprised we haven’t nus—and I very much enjoyed our talk, as he took me through his seen a movie about it yet (think Space Cowboys on the water). life and his years at the college, which included stints as professor, Jornlin, a member of MC’s Class of 1961, captained the World War chaplain and academic dean.

II-era LST-325 on its transatlantic voyage nine years ago. The ship The interview had ended, I’d put away my pen and paper, and a had a crew of 29 Navy veterans with an average age of 72, and they brought the ship back to the U.S. from Greece to serve as a floating light snow had started to fall as we carefully walked down the slippery steps of the newly-named Weeks House. As we reached the museum. Media that reported on the event included NBC Nightly sidewalk, he turned to me and said, with that familiar twinkle in News, WNPR Radio and the Associated Press. his eye, “This is a nice thing to have happen to you.”

Jornlin commented on the ship’s reception in Mobile, Ala.: That frozen moment is how I’ll remember Stafford, and the “Whistles were blowing, and people were lining the docks, waving memory carries a lesson. I’ll be out there in the next decade worktheir flags. You could see that we had touched a lot of people with ing hard to cover and record Monmouth College’s news. But so feelings for World War II and patriotism. People said we could never do it, but we made it into Mobile an hour ahead of schedule.” often, it’s when the pens are put away and the college is simply “experienced” that our most memorable You might notice that the list of major news stories above only moments—of this, or any, decade—occur.  includes nine entries. No list about Monmouth College would be complete without a focus on its people. In the past decade, the editor’s note: Barry McNamara, associate college has lost several members of its family—too many to name director of college communications, joined the here. Although the following four family members made the majorstaff in 1999, but it was not his first exposure to ity of their campus news in the 20th century, Gracie Peterson, Monmouth College. The son of English professor Dave Fleming, Richard “Doc” Kieft and Stafford Weeks were still Jeremy McNamara, he grew up across the street in the news in this decade and, sadly, they were not with us to from Gibson Hall and remembers Fighting Scots finish it out. basketball games from the pre-Glasgow era.

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monmouth | spring 2010

last word

Monmouth

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a lasting tribute •

illiam C. Pine ’39 of Beaverton, Ore., recently made a bond gift to Monmouth College

valued at more than $80,000. He made the gift to honor his friend and mentor, Dick Petrie ’29, who was the business manager for Monmouth College and was instrumental in making sure Pine made it through college through encouragement, advice and helping him secure employment to be able to afford college expenses. They remained lifelong friends.

William C. Pine ’39

Pine’s gift will go toward the the First Floor Counseling Laboratory in the new Integrated Learning Center.

“Anything with the word counseling in it would be appropriate to honor Dick, because he was indeed a good counselor to many people,” said Pine, who originally came to Monmouth from Canton, Ill. Pine and his wife raised three children while he enjoyed a career working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He also worked in the academic world, starting with a job in the MC admissions department. Pine later served as vice president for alumni, public relations and development at Lake Forest College and led the Ford Motor Company Scholarship Fund for 10 years.

For more information about planned giving opportunities, contact a senior development officer at 888-827-8268.

The late Richard Petrie ’29 served the college in various capacities between 1929 and 1953: as professor of economics, director of public relations, director of admissions and business manager.