www.hillsdalecollegian.com
B3 3 Dec. 2015
By | Kate Patrick City News Editor Joyce Webb has seven children, 29 grandchildren, and 61 great-grandchildren, but they don’t visit often. So Hillsdale College senior Codi Jo Broten adopted Webb as her “grandma” as part of the Adopt-a-Grandparent GOAL program. Broten drives to the Hillsdale County Medical Care Facility and Rehabilitation Center every Monday to play Bingo with Webb. “It seems my children don’t have much time to come out and see me, but Codi comes out every Monday,” Webb said. “She enjoys coming out here and she fits right in with my family. I enjoy her.” As Broten and Webb have grown close,
Webb has made it a priority to make sure Broten — who is from Washington state — always has a place to stay for holidays. “I made sure she was going to have a place for Thanksgiving, I was going to take her out with my family,” Webb said. “If you’re not that far away from home, you don’t know what she’s going through. If she doesn’t have a place for Christmas, I’ll take her home for Christmas. I just enjoy children.” For Broten, visiting Webb is a highlight of the week because she feels that Webb benefits from her company and looks forward to her visits, and Webb always gives her a hug and a kiss when Broten needs to return to campus. “I just lost my last great grandma in September, and I love the stories grandparents can tell you, so that’s why I decided to adopt a grandparent,” Broten said. “I think Joyce is
super great. I think Joyce enjoys my company a lot more because she remembers who I am and looks forward to when I’m coming.” Hanging out with Broten is like having another child, Webb said. When Broten was sick for two weeks, Webb worried about her. “I didn’t know about it and I was worried,” Webb said, “but now i have her phone number so I can call her.” Webb, who described her life as “peopleoriented,” was a foster mother for three years and took in newborns while raising her own four sons and three daughters, so bonding with Broten is second nature. “I was in a ten-room house, so we had room for anyone that needed a home,” Webb said. “My kids had friends and if someone didn’t have a place to go I’d be getting an extra kid for the night. It’s a nice feeling, there was always room for one more. In the
morning I always had to go out and check in the beds, that’s who you cooked for.” Many of the elderly residents at the care facility are lonely, Webb said, and more college students should make an effort to visit them even if they’re not part of the Adopt-aGrandparent program, because the residents love the company. “A lot of people out here have family but they forget them,” Webb said. Even though Broten is graduating in May, she wants to stay in touch with Webb and hopes more students will visit her and the other residents. “I think it would be cute to write her letters,” Broten said. “She’s so cute. You can’t force your kids to come see you, and if you do, you want it to be genuine.”
Hillsdale County Fair boasts impressive singer record By | Stacey Egger Collegian Reporter A square-jawed man in a cowboy hat glowers down from a line of portraits that circles the perimeter of the Hillsdale County Fair office. The picture, “Johnny Cash— 1986,” is nestled in the row following “Ricky Skaggs — 1985” and “June Carter and Sisters — 1986”. The Hillsdale County Fair has hosted some impressive acts over the years. “We had some of the biggest stars in country music,” Hillsdale County Fair Manager Scott Dow said. “It’s amazing when you think that performers like Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, were in their prime when they came, we’re talking 40 years ago.” Dow said that the entertainment industry has changed over the years, and it has made it difficult for small fairs to compete for big acts. But the Hillsdale County Fair has had repeated
successes, recently bringing in acts like Florida Georgia Line and Trace Adkins. “We learn every year,” Dow said. “Music’s changing, the artists are changing. Fairs have to change with the entertainment.” The Fair concerts carry on a great tradition of quality entertainment for both residents and students. Junior Victoria Fassett has gone to the performances for the past two years, and she said she highly values the experience. “Going to the concert has become an annual tradition,” she said. “The names haven’t been as big as Florida Georgia Line in the past few years, but Hillsdale does a great job of bringing in classic country performers. I have always loved country music, and it’s not something that I never expected when I came to Hillsdale — who knew I would be so close to the most popular fair on earth? I hope Hillsdale continues the tradition.”
1958: The Chordettes and Glen Miller 1963: Minnie Pearl 1973: Roy Rogers & Dale Evans 1974: Pat Boone and Family 1975: Dolly Parton 1976: Jim Nabors 1978: Kenny Rogers 1981: Bobby Vinton 1983&’84: Tennessee Ernie Ford 1985: Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs, and Loretta Lynn 1986: Johnny Cash, featuring June Carter and The Carter Family 1987: Waylon Jennings 1990: Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn 1992: Johnny Cash with the Carter Family 1994: Faith Hill & Jesse Hunter 2000: Three Dog Night 2001: Creedence Clearwater Revival 2013: Florida Georgia Line 2015: Trace Adkins A wall at the Hillsdale County Fairground boasts all the singers that have performed at “The Greatest Fair on Earth.” Stacey Egger | Collegian
FROM WANDELING PRESS B4
FROM JAZZ B4
ing in sync with one another, as one musician signals to the group that he’s ending his solo, the next instrument picks up where he left off. “It forces us to be more engaged with the music and the song because you are really listening to the soloist and paying attention to what they’re doing,” Stieren said. This past semester was Woodhouse’s first in a jazz combo, but she said she has already grown to love playing with the combo and “trading fours.” “One person plays four or eight bars and then the next person takes it,” Woodhouse said. “And you can imitate aspects of the other musician’s solo and add new things to it. Sometimes I get lost in my solo, but I know they have my back.” The musicians have to work together to accentuate the sound of each individual
instrument in the midst of the rest of the combo. “The longer you play together, the more you understand how others express themselves musically,” Savas said. For all of their practice, Genuine Draft has only performed twice this semester, but Stieren doesn’t mind because for her, playing jazz is enjoyable in itself. “It’s great to perform, but within the combos, even if we’re not performing, the time that we spend playing music together is valuable and is a worthwhile endeavour and experience in itself,” Stieren said. “Because in it, we’re learning and growing as musicians.”
helping little ones to understand this fact that we are storytellers, and that we are all involved in a story,” Kern said. “It helps them find themselves and sit themselves into their own story, to think sequentially. It sparks their imaginations.” These concepts, and the six convictions listed on their website, manifest themselves in physical form within the books themselves, as art. “Our personal dispositions, as well as what we desire for the press, is not to be kitschy in its educational purposes,” Howard said. “Rather, to be very subtle and discreet. Mostly because we find that our own children select books that are lovely, beautiful to behold, rightly proportioned, a nice size, and not wonky. So when we watch them, we think, ‘that’s the way that we choose books too,’ so why don’t we make it beautiful and full of good content.” This content, they said they believe, should be subtle, nuanced, and delightful to behold, but it should also teach. “It’s not moral teaching like the book of virtues,” Howard said. “Rather, we want work that instructs by participating in it.” Describing her newfound attentiveness to the content and production of children’s books since the birth of her son, William, Kern said she now wants to know what the author’s goal is. “Now I read much more closely because I want to know what they’re getting at,” Kern said. “What are they telling my
Betsy Howard and Laura Kern founded the Wandeling Press, a publishing house through which they’re publishing their first book, “Woolies for Winter.” Here, each with her child, they hold “Wandeling” buttons. Sarah Gerber | Courtesy
child about the world, himself, the created order? Sometimes the illustrator is so desperate to hold the attention of the child that he’s resorted to these very garish tactics, like he’s aware that he’s competing with iPads and iPhones.” Kern said they want to present a piece of work that presents simple beauty and teaches subtlety. “They’re just purely simple, sweet, and lovely and that’s what we want with the illustrations as well,” she said. “They will be light and visually arresting, but in a way that demands participation from the viewer.” Part of the delight for all the people involved with Wandeling, they said, is the experience of working with friends and other great minds with similar visions. “I think the main thing is that this is about creating
something beautiful with friends,” Gerber said. “To put something out there in the world. The opportunity to create something is such a great thing. The process of creating is so natural to being human.” This vision for creation has been conveniently and pleasingly similar for Hoard and Kern, which has allowed for such a unified vision of a publishing house. This vision comes in part from their shared education at Hillsdale. “I think the classical liberal arts obviously informed the way we approach many things — this commitment to beauty, this commitment to truth — not in an overt way, but in a nuanced way,” Howard said. “But we don’t gain it in a way that makes us hoarders, rather, particularly as we transition into this maternal role, we have a great desire to steward what we have received and to
give it to our children, and to give it to them in forms that they can make sense of. I have a negative desire to sit down and to read the Nicomachean Ethics to my child. We invite them to participate with we’ve learned in accordance with their frame.” The common approach to learning, beauty, and the world itself provided a path for the two to a shared goal and mutual encouragement. “We are approaching the same goal from very compatible perspectives,” Kern said. “She has goals from the literary side, and I share those goals from a visual perspective. It’s been so much fun to work together and to encourage each other. We share so much as mothers, as believers, and as Hillsdale grads.”