Winter 2014
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How to do everything
Mike Danforth ’95, executive producer of NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, now has a popular podcast
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Editor Ellen Modersohn Luther Magazine Volume 47, Number 2, Winter 2014
Managing Editor Kate Frentzel
Published by Luther College for alumni, parents, and friends
Designer Michael Bartels Contributors Sue (Franzen) Drilling ’78
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Alexandra Fitschen ’15 Luisa and Peter Forsgren ’82 Sara Friedl-Putnam Emily Gehlsen ’16 Allison Gieswein ’14 Kirk Johnson ’82 Paige Lobdell ’16 Aaron Lurth ’08 Karen Martin-Schramm Judy Riha Julie (Satre) Shockey ’01 Ann Sponberg Peterson
Luther Alumni Magazine welcomes articles and signed letters to the editor; submissions may be edited for style, clarity, or length. Inquiries and submissions may be sent to the Editor, Luther Alumni Magazine, Luther College, 700 College Drive, Decorah, Iowa 52101-1045; magazine@luther.edu; phone (563) 387-1350. Class Notes submissions and changes of address may be sent to the Alumni Office at the address above. Alumni news may be emailed to the Alumni Office at alumni@ luther.edu. Questions and concerns about the magazine may be emailed to magazine@luther.edu.
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Contents Features Mike Danforth ’95 has a hit NPR podcast 16 Whether it’s how to survive falling off a cruise ship or how to get a species named after you, the former KWLC host finds the answer to arcane and entertaining questions.
Recharged and full of news insights
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In the vanguard of their family, their school
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Distinguished Service Awards
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What keeps good faculty at the top of their game and ready to bring vital knowledge to young learners? One answer is the sabbatical.
Will ’71 and Arlivia (Owens) Williamson ’72 came to Luther in the late 1960s, bringing cultural change to their own lives and to campus.
At Homecoming 2013 the college honored alumni for distinguished service, athletic prowess, and musical accomplishment. Classmates gathered to talk, parade, dance, and simply enjoy reconnecting.
Departments Campus
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Development News............................................ 11 Athletics.............................................................. 14
Alumni
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Class Notes.........................................................48 Marriages............................................................60 Births/Adoptions................................................61 In Memoriam.......................................................62
AARON LURTH ’08
Calendar
inside back
Cover: photo by Aaron Lurth ’08; design by Lurth, Michael Bartels Left: Christmas at Luther 2013, Full of Grace and Truth, was presented Dec. 4–8, 2013, to a full house for each performance in Luther’s Center for Faith and Life. Recordings are available at www.luther.edu/bookshop.
Alumni Office (800) 225-8664; (800) 2 ALUMNI Admissions Office (800) 458-8437; (800) 4 LUTHER Web www.luther.edu www.luthermagazine.com Copyright Luther College 2014
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Campus News Editor’s note
All the news that fits, and a few laughs In my pre-Luther College career, I worked in the media, mostly for daily newspapers, and mostly on the hard-news side. I read the wires, helping to choose which stories to put into the paper—which would help people make informed decisions in their lives, which were simply too interesting to leave out. I debated with other editors in news meetings about whether stories merited front-page display then helped edit the stories, trimming them to fit the layouts and writing headlines to grab readers’ attention. All of this prepared me
well for one of my favorite weekend pastimes: listening to National Public Radio’s weekly news quiz show, Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! I rarely missed a chance to hear host Peter Sagal and his smart-funny panelists spin current events into a comic review that put a new perspective on the week. On Saturday afternoons, not only could I pass the quizzes, but I could laugh at many of the events that had kept me hopping all week long. So when I read Kate Frentzel’s article about Mike Danforth ’95, executive producer of Wait Wait (page 16), I was gratified that he described the show as a way to “lighten the load a little bit” for the people who’d kept up with the news all week on NPR.
Laughing certainly lightened my load. Danforth’s newest venture also enlightens. He cohosts the podcast How to Do Everything, which answers arcane, often incredibly interesting questions (How does IKEA name products? How do you create an alibi? What makes a good dad?). Enlightenment seems to be a theme of this Luther Alumni Magazine issue. Will ’71 and Arlivia (Owens) Williamson ’72 talk about their eye-opening experiences coming from innercity Chicago to attend Luther (page 28) at a time when black students were first making a sociocultural impact on campus. Each year several faculty members contribute to their own—and their classrooms’— enlightenment through sab-
baticals. Last year those projects included topics as diverse as examining the birth of a new nation’s economy and teaching through virtual reality (page 22). And in the interest of keeping the entire Luther community informed about what’s happening on campus, Luther’s website now features a revamped news page, www.luther.edu/ news, the centerpiece of which is a faculty and staff blog about teaching, research, ideas, and more (see opposite). The news page is one-stop reading for anyone who wants to keep up with Luther events. There’s no weekly campus news quiz yet, but you never know, maybe Mike Danforth can give us some pointers. —Ellen Modersohn
connect luther.edu/connect
Social n eNews n Publications n Blogs n Video
Learn about Luther College: n Subscribe to e-newsletters for parents, sports fans, and more n Link to social media n Browse online publications such as the alumni magazine and campus newspaper n Read faculty and student blogs n Tune in to streaming video and radio
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Faculty blog about what’s going on in classrooms, their research, ideas, and creations In fall 2013, Luther faculty and staff began a communal blog, writing about their interactions with students in class, commenting on current events and their own research, and discussing how learning happens here. The blog has developed into a series of discussions as readers respond at the end of each post. Here are excerpts from several of last fall’s blog entries. More voices join the dialogue each week. Check out the full blog at www.luther.edu/ideas-creations-blog.
The future of the book Brad Miller ’86, associate professor of computer science What will change about digital books over the next few years? Of course it’s always difficult to predict where technology will take us. Digital ink on flexible, paper-thin media? Who knows. But I do know that there is a key thing that is missing from today’s ebooks: interactivity. Right here at Luther College, we are making our own contribution to the future of the book by developing an interactive textbook for computer science. My colleague David Ranum ’83 and I are leading Runestone Interactive, an open-source project to develop both tools and books for building interactive textbooks for computer science. You can take a look at this free and open-source resource on our website, http://interactivepython.org. . . . Our experiment is really taking off. Today we have around 4,000 unique students using the textbook each day. . . . An interactive electronic textbook gives us insights into how our students learn that we’ve never imagined before. We are collecting gigabytes of data on how people interact with the book. As a computer science professor, I can replay students’ thought processes as they struggle to get a homework assignment correct. I can recreate their steps as they try one thing and then another until they finally get it right. I can see the most common mistakes, and I can see empirically which concepts and problems are causing them the most trouble. Most importantly, it has given me a new way of thinking about teaching.
Teaching is believing Sheila Radford Hill, executive director of the Diversity Center The greatest contribution to teaching that any of us can make is to believe in our students. … As my daughter and I walked up to an Iowa City restaurant counter to pay our bill, a young woman standing in line in front of our family turned and looked at me. She smiled and said, “I know you!” . . . “You taught a black studies course at the University of Illinois in the mid-1980s.” I nodded, and then she said, “You were my professor!”
. . . I asked her to remind me of her name and nudged my daughter forward. It was during the daughter-former student conversation that we learned something exciting. Both of these African American women were academics. Bridgette is an associate professor in English and Africana Studies at the University of Iowa. My daughter was at the university interviewing for a post-doc at the medical school. Of course, I was proud of the small role I played in both women’s successes but I didn’t expect to hear what Bridgette said next. To explain why she remembered me so vividly, she recounted an incident in my classroom. She said that she was scheduled to do a presentation on one of our assigned books. She admitted that she was unprepared and reminded me that I called her on it. According to her account, I politely interrupted her and rescheduled the presentation. Apparently I simply said, in a compassionate yet firm way, that she had more work to do. As Bridgette remembers it, after class I provided additional information about what was expected and encouraged her. According to her, the second-chance presentation was really much better. She ended this story with the fact that she uses a similar approach with unprepared students in her own classes. When she uses this technique, she lets her students know that being prepared is an important part of what’s required in class and in life. She tells her students that she believes in their ability to perform at their best. . . .
What good is a Ph.D. for reading the Bible? Guy Nave, associate professor of religion My academic study of the Bible has taught me more than I can begin to articulate in this blog post. Most importantly, it has taught me that there has never been one monolithic understanding of God or of Jesus. As a collection of writings spanning hundreds of years and multiple historical contexts, the Bible embraces and promotes a diversity of views. Rather than demonstrating that there is only one way to think about the divine, the Bible demonstrates that there have always been multiple ways of thinking about the divine. Furthermore the canonization of various literary genres, satire, apocalyptic, poetic, psalms, short stories, gospels, letters, history, etc. . . . clearly demonstrate the necessity of multiple reading strategies. Unfortunately, a significant number of students arrive in my Introduction to Biblical Studies course having been taught there is only one way to read and think about the Bible, and when that way of reading is inconsistent with their own experiences, conviction, and/ or beliefs, they are told they are having difficulties accepting the Bible because their “faith” is not strong enough. Faith is presented as what is needed in order to make unbelievable and even unacceptable things both believable and acceptable. However, when these students, who have struggled for so long with their own religious identity, realize they are not “less than” because they read and understand the Bible (and even Christianity) differently, it is as though they are actually experiencing “salvation”—deliverance from oppression. . . .
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Appreciation, understanding, and pho
Music in the headlines
Kate Elliott, assistant professor of art history Every semester, I take my first-year Art 103: Foundations, Circa NOW class to Minneapolis. … It is a chance to do a bit of bonding, eat some great tacos and pho at the Midtown Global Market, but most importantly, to see really challenging art in “its natural environment”—The Museum. … The students have a very specific assignment to complete while at the Walker Art Center or the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a paper I call “I Don’t Get It.” … I ask the students to find one work of art on display at the Walker Art Center that they simply do not “get.” This kind of wide-open assignment is terrifying for some, but it is completely liberating for others. They rush off the bus, sketchbooks and pencils in hand, and move into the galleries. … This past weekend, walking into the Walker’s Painter Painter exhibition, one student seemed to be looking around for me. “Dr. Kate!” she yelled (a bit more loudly than I might in an art gallery, but luckily the guard was amused), “You’ve got to see this!” She was pointing at a turquoise tube about three feet tall, standing in the middle of the gallery. “Dr. Kate,” she said again, “What. Is. This? Is this art? Why is this here?” And then after a moment, “Can I write my paper on this? Because it is making me really mad!” Making students mad doesn’t top my list of hoped-for outcomes generally, but sometimes, it is exactly what they need. Pulling students out of the relative safety of the classroom, forcing them to confront works of art that they might otherwise instantaneously dismiss, makes them examine things that they’ve never really thought about. Perhaps it makes them confront other parts of their lives that lie unexamined and question other assumptions. Because she may be right. Maybe that turquoise tube sitting in the middle of the Walker is crap. But without experiencing and examining it she might not ever question her own assumptions about art. This questioning engages the mind and stretches the student’s ability for higher-order thinking. It helps her move from remembering and understanding to analysis and evaluating. It is a difficult process, but a rewarding one, and the pho helps.
Brooke Joyce, associate professor of music and composer-in-residence … In the music history class I’m teaching this semester, we examined music and art made during Roosevelt’s New Deal. For a brief period in the mid-1930s, the U.S. government actually funded artists, musicians, and writers through various projects associated with the Works Progress Administration. (Taking a page from history, consider that Obama’s stimulus package might have included grants for artists!) Many of the products of these programs were made and forgotten soon after, but some, such as the murals that still appear in many public buildings across the U.S., remind us that artists and their works can leave an indelible mark on our shared culture, and that our lives are the richer for it. Those of us who attend such “decadent” events as orchestra concerts and operas have seen firsthand the transformative power of great art. This week in the music history course mentioned above, we are studying Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 11: The Year of 1905, composed in 1957. Although the piece supposedly commemorates an important event in the Russian revolution, it also spoke to contemporary audiences about Soviet aggression in Hungary and the massive purges that took place under Stalin. This music isn’t diversion, it’s life. Before we decide to continue building sports stadiums while we simultaneously allow arts institutions to fade, let’s consider what we’re giving up, and what we’re willing to do to keep art an essential part of our culture.
President’s house goes solar A 5.3-kW solar photovoltaic system was installed on the roof of the president’s house in August 2013. The $16,000 system was paid for entirely by donations from faculty, staff, and friends of the college as a thank you to president emeritus Rick and Judy Torgerson for their leadership of Luther and their commitment to environmental sustainability over their 14-year tenure at the college. The system was designed by Go Solar in Decorah and qualified for a rebate from Alliant Energy.
Music Department has its own blog, too Know the Score is the official blog of the Luther Music Department. Students, faculty, and staff write about touring, concerts, recitals, and scholarship at www.luther.edu/music/know-the-score. Find even more Luther blogs at www.luther.edu/connect/blogs.
A green roof was installed on the link between Sampson-Hoffland Laboratories and Valders Hall of Science on Oct. 15, 2013. The roof had been designed to withstand the additional weight of a green roof. According to Luther’s Sustainability staff, green roofs help improve the visual appeal and biodiversity of a building while reducing roof temperatures, absorbing rainwater, providing insulation from the elements and noise pollution, reducing the environmental impact of the structure, and creating habitat for native flora and fauna. Maren Stumme-Diers ’08
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maria da silva ’15
Aaron Zauner ’14
Award-winning authors Anne Lamott and Mark Salzman were featured speakers of the 2013 Luther College Writers Festival on campus, Sept. 27–28. The festival also included readings and book signings with Salzman and Lamott and other writers, workshops, panel discussions on craft, and readings in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Anne Lamott Lamott, a nationally known writer from San Francisco, Calif., is the author of several New York Times bestsellers. She writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her works include Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994), Plan B, and her most recent book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (2012). Salzman is best known for his 1986 memoir, Iron and Silk, a novel about his experiences teaching English in China in the early 1980s. He has written on a variety of subjects, including a novel about a nun’s crisis of faith and a memoir about growing up as a misfit in Connecticut. His novel The Soloist (1994), about a world-famous cellist, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In his keynote presentation for the festival, Salzman discussed his passion behind Mark Salzman writing. “Art invigorates our lives. Everyone writes to make life better in one way or another,” he said. Salzman admitted, however, that his own doubt and frustration almost derailed his career as an author. He discovered a new perspective on writing, focusing on a faith-driven exploration of creativity rather than the constant pressure and demand for results. Salzman told the audience that writing should not be forced, saying, “Success sometimes comes only when you aren’t trying to succeed.” He advised aspiring writers to have patience and wait for moments of spontaneous inspiration. “Moments of writing and moments of nonwriting are not only part of the journey, but a fulfillment of the journey,” he said. Lamott also presented Luther’s Distinguished Lecture, titled “Faith and Writing (and Living).” With playful humor, she mentioned the unique quirks of every individual, “Every single person here is an odd bird, and you all know it,” she said. She encouraged audience members to channel these quirks when sharing their stories. “Write what you’d love to come upon,” she said. Lamott also discouraged the idea of perfectionism and that there is a secret code to writing successfully. “Waste time. Stare off into space. Work doesn’t come from gripping pens and force. It comes from the letting go,” she said. Festival director Nancy K. Barry, Luther professor of English, says that the festival was intended to encourage greater collaboration among local, regional, and national writers whose work has literary, ethical, and spiritual depth. The festival is an outgrowth of the former 2007 and 2010 Lutheran Festivals of Writing.
toby Ziemer ’15
Writers festival brings novelists Anne Lamott and Mark Salzman to campus
Sweeten others’ lives, author Thrity Umrigar tells Opening Convocation crowd A near-capacity audience in the Center for Faith and Life listened as Opening Convocation speaker Thrity Umrigar advised them, “Soon, you will be leaving your own footprints for those who follow you. Make sure those footprints are significant and grand.” Umrigar wrote the 2013 Paideia summer reading, The Space Between Us. She used her sense of wisdom and heritage to inspire the audience to “sweeten” the lives of others during her Sept. 5 address. Umrigar, an Indian-American writer, has written a memoir and five novels. She is a former journalist and was the recipient of the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, among other fellowships. She is an assistant professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Umrigar delivered the speech, “If Today Be Sweet,” to more than 600 new and transfer students, as well as faculty, current students, and community members. She gave the audience a different perspective on a liberal arts education, inspired by her experience writing on global issues, as well as her own Indian heritage. She encouraged students to take advantage of their time at Luther, asserting that they are part of the “global elite,” and only a small number of people have the opportunity to be highly educated. “We still live on a planet where many people have limited access to proper drinking water and sanitation. . . . Here’s my advice—be greedy, suck it all dry, learn everything you can, and then learn some more,” she said. Umrigar also urged the students to benefit others’ lives through sacrifice and selflessness. “I challenge you to take to heart the message of sweetness . . . whether it’s spending time in the library with a friend who was failing a class, or calling home to speak to your mom, just to say ‘hello’ or ‘I love you.’ ” She acknowledged that everyone is human and many times will fail at being selfless. Perfection is not expected, she said. Umrigar dared the audience to go beyond themselves and make sure others around them are accounted for. She emphasized that attempting to sweeten others’ lives as much as possible will surely make a difference in students’ time at Luther and beyond. —Emily Gehlsen ’16
—Paige Lobdell ’16 and Emily Gehlsen ’16
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New tenuretrack faculty in 2013
John Cord, assistant professor of music: Cord holds a bachelor’s degree in music-trumpet performance from the University of Iowa, a master’s degree in musical arts-trumpet performance from Yale University School of Music, and a doctor of musical arts degree in trumpet performance from the University of North Texas. Most recently, he has performed with the Corpus Christi Symphony, Ballet, and Cathedral Orchestras; Stage Door Canteen, U.S.S. Lexington Big Band; South Texas Big Band; Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra; Garland Symphony Orchestra; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Circus Band; and Victoria Symphony Orchestra.
Stephanie Fretham ’05, assistant professor of biology: Fretham holds a bachelor’s degree with majors in biology and psychology from Luther, a doctoral degree in neuroscience from the University of Minnesota, and is working on a postdoctoral fellowship at
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Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. While working on the fellowship, Fretham received a NIH Environmental Toxicology Training Grant for the department of Pediatric Toxicology.
Joseph Madrigal, assistant professor of art: Madrigal holds a bachelor of fine arts degree with concentrations in painting and ceramics from Miami University and a M.F.A. degree from Illinois State University. Madrigal’s teaching experience includes serving as an adjunct instructor in 3-D design at Illinois State University; a visiting assistant professorship of art in ceramics and sculpture at Kalamazoo College; and an assistant professorship of art in sculpture at Manhattanville College. Madrigal’s art, both solo and collaborative, has been featured in galleries worldwide.
LaDonna McGohan ’95, associate professor of nursing: McGohan also serves as the head of the nursing department. A nursing major, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Luther and a master’s degree in science and nursing education and nursing administration at Winona State University. McGohan also
received a doctoral degree in nursing practice from Minnesota State University. A published author and a licensed nurse in Minnesota and Iowa, McGohan earned the Excellence through Teamwork Award from Mayo Clinic in 2004 and 2006.
Gregory Patton, associate professor of management: Patton received a bachelor’s degree in business management at Northwestern College of Iowa. He went on to receive a master’s degree in applied quantitative methods at the University of South Dakota and earned his doctoral degree in human resource management and organizational behavior at the University of Iowa. Before joining Luther’s faculty, Patton was an assistant professor at Beacom School of Business, University of South Dakota. His current research is related to job satisfaction, the ethical challenges of leaders, job performance, entrepreneurs, and downsizing.
Anna Peterson, assistant professor of history: Peterson earned a bachelor’s degree in Scandinavian studies from Concordia (Moorhead) College, a master’s degree in history from the University of North Dakota,
and a doctoral degree in history from The Ohio State University. She has done research on women’s suffrage, was selected as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program alternate in Norway for 2012–13, received an AmericanScandinavian Foundation Fellowship, and served on the Gender Equality Research Group at the University of Oslo. Peterson has done graduate teaching at Ohio State and the University of North Dakota, and while at Ohio State, she was cochair of the Women’s History Workshop.
Jennaya Robison ’96, assistant professor of music: Robison graduated from Luther with a bachelor’s degree majoring in music focused on education and voice performance. She also holds a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico and a doctoral degree from the University of Arizona. Robison recently served as artistic director for Scottsdale (Ariz.) Musical Arts; as director of music for La Casa de Cristo Lutheran Church, Scottsdale; and as secretary and summer conference planner for Arizona American Choral Directors Association. As a conductor, clinician, and soprano, Robison is in demand throughout the United States. From 2002 to 2005, she was a guest alumni lecturer at Luther, teaching voice and conducting Cantorei.
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Syracuse. Savas was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2012, the Summer Award in 2009–12, and the Future Professoriate Award in 2009–10 from Syracuse.
Lindsey Row-Heyveld, assistant professor of English: Row-Heyveld holds a bachelor’s degree from Greenville College, magna cum laude, and master and doctoral degrees from the University of Iowa. She has served as assistant professor of English at Canisius College and as general education literature instructor at the University of Iowa. She is working on a book project called Dissembling Disability in Modern England that explains how she believes fraudulent disability in early modern England helped playwrights interrogate issues of epistemological proof. The book also asks theological questions about charity and virtue and explores the relationship between body and identity.
Gokhan Savas, instructor in sociology: Savas earned a bachelor’s degree from Hacettepe University in Turkey and a master’s degree, a certificate of advanced studies, and a doctoral degree from Syracuse University. He has held positions as a visiting assistant professor and adjunct faculty at the State University of New York College at Cortland, and as part-time instructor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at
Justin Sprung, assistant professor of psychology: Sprung holds a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in psychology from the University of Northern Iowa. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial-organizational psychology from Bowling Green State University. His research has focused on work-family conflict and balance, spirituality in the workplace, agricultural industry, and counterproductive work behavior. He has served as instructor, teaching assistant, and research assistant for the psychology department at Bowling Green State University and was a teaching assistant and research assistant for the Psychology Department at the University of Northern Iowa.
Robert “Bobby” Vrtis, assistant professor of theatre: Vrtis has directed nearly 20 theatre performances and acted in more than a dozen shows. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theatre performance from Longwood University in Farmville, Va., and master’s and doctoral
degrees in theatre arts from the University of Oregon. Vrtis has additional theatre training in clown technique, acting Shakespeare, singing, and stage combat. His research interests lie in contemporary methods of direction, devising, and acting; cognitive studies; theories of affect in relation to theatre arts; Shakespeare in performance and adaption; and postcolonial theory and dramatic literature. Previous teaching experiences include being an adjunct professor and a graduate teaching fellow in theatre arts at the University of Oregon, a teaching assistant in theatre at Longwood University, and a teacher at the Oregon Contemporary Theatre and the University of Oregon’s Summer Enrichment Program.
Alexandra White, assistant professor of management: White holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Virginia and a master of science degree in education with a focus on policy, foundation, and administration from Portland State University. Her most recent teaching experience was with Eastern Washington University as a business communications instructor and at Portland Community College as an adviser and teaching assistant. For the past six years, she has worked at Dell Services Inc., leading process improvement initiatives to streamline operations. As operations manager with Dell, she also served as a financial monitor for internal operations and was responsible for customer survey methodology.
MindTree chairman Subroto Bagchi speaks on leadership Subroto Bagchi, chairman and cofounder of MindTree, one of India’s most prominent software companies, spoke at Luther in October about integrity, globalization, and leadership. His talk, titled “Leading with Integrity in the Global Information Age,” was sponsored by the Economics and Business Department and hosted by Tim Schweitzer, professor of management. Bagchi credited the Internet and the World Wide Web as essential for globalization. He also identified the concept of the “Internet of Things” as an enabler for exciting new possibilities. A particular example he gave was microlending to women in Bangladesh, enabling the proliferation of cell phones and their use in creating businesses. The businesses created with these loans offer the possibility for Bangladesh to break out of a cycle of poverty. In addition to giving an evening talk in the Center for Faith and Life Recital Hall, Bagchi spoke with students in class. Luther College Photo Bureau
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Photo courtesy of Mavis Phiri ’15
Campus News
Mavis Phiri ’15 works with women in her native Zimbabwe to help them develop means to earn their living through raising chickens. Her project was funded by an award from the Davis Projects for Peace.
Mavis Phiri ’15 designs project to help women in Zimbabwe Luther student Mavis Phiri ’15 traveled more than 8,000 miles in summer 2013 to do anything but have a relaxing summer break. She was the recipient of a $10,000 grant from the Davis Projects for Peace to empower women in small poverty-stricken villages in her home country of Zimbabwe. Luther has participated in the Davis Projects for Peace for the past seven years. Colleges around the country encourage students to design projects, often for third-world countries, to affect local change and help create peace. The projects were made possible by Kathryn Wasserman Davis, a scholar of world affairs and philanthropist. In 2007, she celebrated her 100th birthday by committing $1 million to Projects for Peace to fund 100 projects. Davis passed away on April 23, 2013.
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Each year, Luther nominates one recipient and one alternate for the grant. The recipient is then decided by the board of Davis Projects for Peace. In 2013, Phiri was granted the $10,000 for a project aimed at empowering women in her native country. After growing up with a single mother and a sister, Phiri was motivated to help women around the village she grew up in become more financially stable and keep structure in their everyday lives. “I used to get really mad when I would see children my age getting pregnant. It made me think . . . there is a deeper issue, and there needs to be something done,” she says. Phiri ended up working last summer with 60 women from two small villages, each with a population of about 100 people. Some women had families, others were divorced, and some were widowed. Phiri’s plan involved giving the women 1,000 chickens to divide among themselves to raise and sell, giving structure to their lives to help them avoid pregnancy at a young age, HIV/AIDS, and
dropping out of school. Phiri dealt with many changes to her initial plan. Executing her project was a bit tricky, Phiri says, because a government election was going on. “I had to make the people understand my motives, for instance, that I was not going to campaign for any political party through the poultry project,” she explains. Her initial plan was to work with three villages, but traveling frequently to the third was difficult because of the distance, so she worked with a smaller number of women from two villages. Phiri’s other challenges included getting clearance and paperwork for her project through the government during election time, initial banking issues, and adjusting group sizes from what she had already planned and estimated. Ultimately, she says, “It helped to do something for the community during election time. Getting people to know about the project and getting people on board was important.” Phiri continued working from Luther to further her project with four women on her
committee from Zimbabwe. She says she would be eager to do another project with a different subject in the future, but would still want to focus on women and children. An accounting and management major and an officer for Luther’s Entrepreneur Club, Food Council, and International Students’ Allies and Alliances, Phiri would like to empower citizens wherever she ends up after Luther. “Our communities need us, and whenever we get these opportunities, we need to grab them so we can go and change lives,” she says. — Emily Gehlsen ’16
Correction Charles Bruer ’13 received the Jenson Medal at the 2013 Commencement ceremony. Jenson was misspelled in the fall 2013 issue of the magazine.
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reserve rooms in the Regents Center; make sure the artists have a place to stay, meals, and anything else they need; book sound and lighting crews and security; and much more. This past fall, Luther held two concerts instead of one because Macklemore & Ryan Lewis had delayed their scheduled spring 2013 concert to the fall. On Sept. 20, singersongwriter Mat Kearney played at Luther, and on Oct. 31, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis per-
formed. Nyenhuis said having the concerts so close together was a nice challenge for the committee: “They really stepped it up. Now we all know what to expect for upcoming concerts.” Tangen, Basche, and Nyenhuis all agree that FUN. and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were definitely the crowd favorites during their time at Luther so far, and they both gave SAC Concerts great experience. “FUN. gave me the best experience possible for what it’s like to
work in the big leagues of this industry. It was an eye opener,” Tangen said. —Emily Gehlsen ’16 Above: Rapper Macklemore gives a Luther Halloween concert. Below: The SAC Concerts Committee gathered for a photo with Macklemore, third from right in the front row, and Ryan Lewis, in the center with his hands up, when the pair played a concert on campus Oct. 31, 2013.
hanna Jensen ’15
How does Luther’s concert committee do it? The past two fall semesters, Luther has welcomed performing artists at the peak of their careers: FUN. played in November 2012, right before winning a Best New Artist Grammy Award in Feb. 2013, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed on Halloween of 2013, after their singles “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us” topped the charts earlier in the year. Like many things at Luther, snagging top concert acts is a democratic process. The concert branch of the Luther College Student Activities Committee is the largest of the group’s nine branches. With more than 200 members, SAC Concerts works hard to provide quality concerts with popular artists every fall and spring. Katherine Tangen ’15, Dani Basche ’15, and Walker Nyenhuis ’15 are the cochairs for SAC Concerts this year. In the fall and spring, the cochairs hold a meeting at which committee members can offer ideas on which performers to bring to the Luther concert stage—sort of pie in the sky. The committee then works with a middle agent who researches the requested artists and presents the best options, considering which artists are on tour, their costs, and availability. Members then vote for their top three out of a list of 10–15 artists. “The committee picks the artists, we (the cochairs) have one vote just like everyone else. The planning starts really early, and that’s the reason we get so many good artists,” Tangen said. Once the artists are booked, the committee immediately starts planning the events. SAC Concerts is in charge of everything: committee members
Luke Hanson ’14
What does it take to snag a great band?
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Watch for these music ensemble tours, from Wisconsin to Texas Nordic Choir Tour Address and ticket details online at www.luther.edu/music/tours Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m. Wartmann Artist Series, Edgerton Performing Arts Center, Edgerton, Wis. Jan. 26, 4 p.m. Lourdes Chapel—Assisi Heights, Rochester, Minn. Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m. Illinois College Fine Arts Series, Rammelkamp Chapel at Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill. Jan. 31, 7 p.m. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tenn. Feb. 1, 7 p.m. Grace Presbyterian Church, Houston, Texas Feb. 2, 8:45 a.m. Church Service, Tallowood Baptist Church, Houston, Texas Feb. 2, 10:50 a.m. Church Service, Christ the King Lutheran Church, Houston, Texas
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February 3, 7:30 p.m. First Baptist Church of San Antonio
March 23, 4 p.m. Wausau East High School Auditorium, Wausau, Wis.
Feb. 27, 4:30 p.m. Sursa Performance Hall, Ball State University, Muncie, Ind.
Feb. 4, 7 p.m. First Baptist Church of Midland, Midland, Texas
March 24, 7 p.m. Hastings High School Auditorium, Hastings, Minn.
April 25, 7:30 p.m. McFarland High School Auditorium, McFarland, Wis.
Feb. 5, 7 p.m. First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth
March 25, 7:30 p.m. Lutheran Church of Hope, West Des Moines, Iowa
Feb. 6, 7 p.m. Preston Meadow Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas
March 26, 7:30 p.m. Concordia University Chicago, Chapel of Our Lord, River Forest, Ill.
April 26, 7 p.m. Calvary Lutheran Church, Golden Valley, Minn. (with Minnesota Symphonic Winds)
Feb. 7, 7:30 p.m. The Kemp Concert Series of First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City, Okla.
March 27, 7:30 p.m. Sun Prairie Performing Arts Center, Sun Prairie, Wis.
Sunday, April 27, 2 p.m. Kennedy High School Auditorium, Fergus Falls, Minn.
Jazz Orchestra
Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. Liberty United Methodist Church, Liberty, Mo.
March 29, 7:30 p.m. Iowa City West High School Auditorium, Iowa City, Iowa
April 10, 7:15 p.m. Atonement Lutheran Church, Barrington, Ill.
Feb. 9, 7 p.m. Colonial Church of Edina, Edina, Minn.
March 30, 4 p.m. Claude C. Deck Performing Arts Center, Onalaska High School, Onalaska, Wis.
April 11, 7:30 p.m. The Mill Restaurant, Iowa City, Iowa
Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. Tour Homecoming Concert, Luther College CFL, Main Hall
Symphony Orchestra March 22, 7 p.m. First English Lutheran Church, North Site, Appleton, Wis.
Concert Band
April 12, 7 p.m. St. John’s Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, Wis.
Feb. 26, 12 p.m. Glenbard West High School Auditorium, Glen Ellyn, Ill.
April 13, 5 p.m. Christus Victor Lutheran Church, Apple Valley, Minn.
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DEVELOPMENT: Donor Spotlight
Karen Julesberg ’60 hopes scholarship lets future students know that Luther alumni care “We grow in confidence when we try new things. I also believe we need to pay attention to what others see in us. I tried new things outside of my comfort hanna Jensen ’15
zone because someone encouraged and believed in me.” —Karen Julesberg ’60
A
lthough Karen Julesberg’s career has taken her in a few different directions, almost everyone who knows her will tell you that she is a born teacher. “The field of education taught me how to work with a variety of people and how to meet the needs of many. Teaching also taught me how to bring out the gifts in others, to listen and observe, to juggle many tasks, and to be organized,” Julesberg says. Beginning her career as an elementary teacher in Wisconsin, Julesberg went on to earn a master’s degree in education at the University of Northern Colorado and later an M.B.A. at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. Her professional opportunities took her from elementary and middle school classrooms, to teaching at Luther College, to becoming a management and marketing consultant, to becoming a fivestate regional director for the Cancer Information Service based at the UW–Madison Comprehensive Cancer Center. On the occasion of her 50year class reunion, Julesberg agreed to serve on the reunion planning committee. She joined a dynamic team of friends who reached out to classmates to
encourage giving to the class gift and returning to campus for the 2010 Homecoming celebration. Through her service on the reunion committee, she was introduced to Jim Anderson, director of gift and estate planning (now retired). “Giving in a substantial way was never at the top of my radar, until later when life slowed down a bit. I took the time to discern what experiences most shaped who I am and who I have become,” Julesberg reflects. “Luther College, I decided, was one of my top influencers, and I began then to work with Jim Anderson to determine how I could give back in ways that fit my values and also would benefit the college.” In celebration of her reunion, Julesberg responded with a generous five-year pledge to the Annual Fund—a pledge that qualified her for the Sesquicentennial Society. At the same time, she also made a planned gift commitment establishing the Karen Julesberg Scholarship, which will benefit future students who need financial assistance and are the first in their families to attend college. In defining her scholarship parameters, Julesberg says she
never really thought about being a first-generation student when she attended Luther. But she does remember how her parents sacrificed to ensure her college success. “My parents could provide little financial support. They paid as much as they could—in fact everything they had to contribute—in my first semester, because they wanted me to get off to a good start and to not have to work extra hours.” She adds, “I hope my scholarship will allow future students to know that Luther alumni care. We want them to become all they wish to be.” Growing in faith and confidence are central values to Julesberg. “It has always been about the whole experience,” she says. “Luther’s Christian values grounded me in my faith, provided me with a quality liberal arts education with faculty who cared and who really challenged me to grow.” Feeling passionately about Student Support Services (SSS) at Luther, Julesberg wishes there had been such a program when she was a student. SSS is a federally funded TRIO program designed to ensure academic success for college students who are eligible based on family
income, first-generation status, or disability status. (TRIO is a term coined for a series of three federal educational opportunity programs.) Though Luther College has always attracted many children of alumni, today the number of first-generation college students usually surpasses the number of alumni children who enroll. “We’re confident that the students enrolled in our SSS program are on their way to creating their own legacy at Luther College,” says Tammy Hove, Student Support Services director. “We’re deeply grateful to donors who recognize the need and give in support of these deserving first-generation students. Further, I might add, one of the great rewards for me in being in this position is meeting and getting to know the number of our Luther faculty who were firstgeneration college students.” Hearing these comments is a further affirmation of what Julesberg hopes her endowed scholarship will provide. Looking back on her Luther days, she has these thoughts for students: “Emulate those you admire. Figure out what it is that you admire about them as people, and see if those are ways in which you can grow as a person. And always remember that doing is important, but being is even more important.” Thank you, Karen Julesberg, for your good gifts, your good words, and your good service to Luther College. —Ann Sponberg Peterson Learn more about giving to Luther at (800) 225-8664 or www.luther.edu/giving.
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Development
Senior
Important changes to the Luther College President’s Council In its February 2013 meeting, Luther’s Board of Regents passed a resolution to increase the threshold for President’s Council membership. The current threshold of $1,000 has been in effect for the past 22 years, since the creation of the President’s Council giving society in 1992. Starting Jan. 1, 2014, all gifts to Luther in a calendar year (January 1–December 31) of $1,500 or more will qualify for recognition in the Luther College President’s Council. Also, to encourage leadership giving among Luther’s most recent graduates, a new membership level of President’s Council, the President’s First-Decade Society, will be established in 2014 to recognize alumni who, in their first decade after graduation, contribute $750 or more in a calendar year. President’s First-Decade Society members will receive the same recognition and acknowledgement as other members of the President’s Council giving society. Alumni from the classes of 2004–14 will be eligible for membership in President’s First-Decade Society beginning in January 2014; alumni from 2005–15 will be eligible in January 2015, and so on. Learn more about giving to Luther at luther.edu/giving, or call (800) 225-8664.
Parents Council meets Luther’s 2013–14 Parents Council held its fall meeting Sept. 21, 2013, during Family Weekend. Parents Council is the representative body of
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Junior
the Luther College Parents Association, to which all parents of Luther students belong. The council, a liaison between parents and the college, is a way for parents to express concerns and suggestions to the college, and to raise money for the Luther College Annual Fund through the Roots and Wings campaign. Council representatives send parents fall and spring letters that provide college news, updates, and contact information for council members. For more information, contact the Development Office at (800) 225-8664 or visit www. luther.edu/parents. Senior parents (top of stairs, clockwise): Kevin ’79 and Kristi (Wahlberg) Josephson ’79, Chris and Jean Nolte, Bob Skelly and Alicia Anderson ’86, Dan and Wende (Bunger) Douglas ’81, Sandy and Peter Cochrane, President David Tiede and Muffy Tiede. Absent: Tim and Pam Alpers.
Sophomore
First year
Junior parents (top of stairs, clockwise): Jeff ’84 and MaryEllen (Palmquist) Anderson ’84, JoBeth Clark, Michael Norderhaug ’77, Tracey Hirst, Linda Norderhaug, Rich ’74 and Mary (Edwards) Steinberg ’76, Absent: Susan Anderson-Nelson, Leofwin Clark, Mary Ann Kliethermes. Sophomore parents (top of stairs, clockwise): Todd and Linda (Larson) Kluge ’84, Kristin Swanson ’80 and Alan Hecht ’80, Bradley and Laura Nielsen, Sandra (Neitzel) ’87 and Jonathan Joppa ’85, Kathy and Phil Pielage. Absent: Jill [Voss] Wachholz ’89. First-year parents (top of stairs, clockwise): Robert ’86 and Peggy (Ganske) Carr ’85, Linda (Rosholt) ’85 and Lee Hash ’84, Michelle and Todd Wildenauer, Todd and Maria (Spieker) Mickelson ’89, Roberta and William Curtis, Terry and Jim Morrill
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2011
2012
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Luther College
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Annual Fund Your Gift. Every Year. Put to work right away, where it is needed most.
Oneota Film Festival to pair with Ethnic Arts celebration For the first time in its five-year history, Oneota Film Festival (OFF) will be held in conjunction with Luther’s Ethnic Arts Festival. Hosted primarily at three venues on the Luther campus, OFF will screen approximately 25 recently released documentaries from around the world Feb. 28–March 2. The Ethnic Arts Festival will be March 1. “Luther explores world cultures when it hosts the annual Ethnic Arts Festival,” says film festival director Erika Kambs ’08. “By pairing the schedule of Oneota Film Festival’s critically acclaimed international films with the Ethnic Arts Festival,
people can attend both and witness an exciting intersection of two extraordinary events.” The Ethnic Arts Festival, which began in the 1980s, features presentations, programs, and displays by Luther’s international students. A highlight of the event is a bazaar of imported handcrafts from cooperative enterprises worldwide. At the time of this publication, OFF, whose mission is to explore the issues of our time, was considering films on social issues, health and wellness, environment, adventure, education, and food. Titles under review included Room to Breathe, a story of transformation as struggling kids in a San Francisco middle school are introduced to the practice of mindfulness meditation, and Blackfish, a thriller
showing how nature can get revenge on humankind when pushed to its limits. Another film being considered was The Dream Share Project, a documentary by two recent college graduates that explores changing attitudes of success in the Millennial Generation. Besides titles selected by the film festival curator, new documentary films are invited from independent filmmakers each year. Submissions are reviewed by a team of judges led by Luther assistant professor of English and OFF board member Andy Hageman. All OFF films, panel discussions, workshops, and receptions are free of charge. Online registration and information are available at www.oneotafilmfestival.org.
Toby Ziemer ’15
givenow.luther.edu
Hlengiwe Maphosa ’16 of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, dances in a performance in the Center for Faith and Life during the 2013 Ethnic Arts Festival.
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ATHLETICS
Wedemeier receives NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship
In October 2013, Tyler Wedemeier ’13 was awarded a National Collegiate Athletics Association Postgraduate Scholarship. The NCAA awarded onetime, nonrenewable educational grants of $7,500 to 58 studentathletes—29 men and 29 women who competed in winter sports. To qualify for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship, a student-athlete must be nominated by his or her athletic department, have an overall grade point average of 3.2 on a 4.0 scale, or its equivalent, and have performed with distinction as a
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Bob Modersohn
Tommy Breen ’16 makes a save during Luther’s game against Central College in the first round of the conference tournament. Luther won the game, 1-0. Breen was named Defender for the Week for the week ending Nov. 3.
member of the varsity team in the sport in which the studentathlete was nominated. The student-athlete also must intend to continue academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree as a full-time or part-time graduate student. Wedemeier, an elementary education major with a middle school endorsement, is a sixthgrade science teacher at Forest City (Iowa) Middle School. During his four years in a Norse uniform, he helped lead Luther to two Iowa Conference championships, as well as an appearance in the 2011 NCAA Division III National Tournament. He was a three-time Iowa Conference selection, which included being named the league’s 2011 Defensive Player of the Year and the league’s Most Valuable Player as a senior. In his senior year he was also named a D3hoops.com all-Central Region player and was selected to the NABC Reese’s Division III College All-Star Game, the first player from the Iowa Conference to be so honored. Statistically, Wedemeier scored 1,161 points, grabbed 769 rebounds, and had 247 blocked
shots. He is one of six players in Luther history to score more than 1,000 points and collect more than 700 rebounds. His 247 blocked shots is a school record. He also holds the school record for career field goal shooting percentage of 57.3 percent (439-766).
Sports recaps Men’s Soccer 6-1, 15-6-1 overall For the second time under head coach Chris Garcia-Prats and the seventh time in program history, the Norse qualified for the national tournament. After defeating Lake Forest College in the first round of nationals, the Norse went on to battle Loras College in the round of 32. After 110 minutes of scoreless soccer, the Luther men lost 3-5 in penalty kicks. Over the course of the season, several Norse received Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Performer of the Week honors: Peter Wright ’15, athlete; Brock Arend ’14, offensive; Martin Stalberger ’15 and Tommy Breen ’16, defender.
James Garcia-Prats ’14 was named to the CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) Academic All-District VIII team. Eight Norse were recognized on the all-conference team, including first-teamers Austin Walther ’14 and GarciaPrats; second-team honorees Arend, Stalberger, Lucas Beato ’16, and JW Slauson ’15; and honorable mention recipients Hollie Gray III ’15 and Breen. Women’s Soccer 5-2, 9-9 overall In his fourth year at the helm of the women’s team, Russell Schouweiler ’05, was named IIAC Coach of the Year. After being named the number two seed heading into the tournament, the Norse fell in the semifinal round of the conference tournament to Dubuque, 0-1, to end their season. Three women were named IIAC Performer of the Week: Elly Arend ’15, athlete; Erin Wilson ’15, defender; and Ellie Bunz ’17, offensive. Seven Norse were recognized on the all-conference team, including first-team honorees Erin Wilson ’15, Elly Arend ’15, and Erika Balk ’16; second-team
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honorees Cydney Haaland ’15, Ellie Bunz ’17, and Melisse Chasse ’17; and honorable mention Maggie Jasper ’14.
Austin Bauer ’14, Alex Rigdon ’13, and Marty Mitchell ’13 run in the All-American Cross Country meet hosted by Luther on Sept. 14, 2013. Men’s Cross Country Third in IIAC, 14th at NCAA Luther made its 28th appearance at the national championships with an at-large berth on Nov. 23. The team ran to a 14th-place finish with a total of 413 points. Individually, Marty Mitchell ’13 earned all-America honors placing 28th from the field of 275 runners (the top-35 runners earn all-America honors). Mitchell covered the 8K course in Hanover, Ind., with a time of 25:16.9. The Norse finished in the top 10 at each meet this season, bringing home a first-place finish at the all-American invite, two second-place and two thirdplace finishes. The men placed third in the IIAC championships and were recognized as a USTFCCCA (U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association) all-academic team, and individually Mitchell and Austin Bauer ’14 were named all-academic honorees by the USTFCCCA in February.
Women’s Cross Country Third in IIAC, 27th at NCAA The Norse made their 14th appearance at the national championship with an at-large berth on Nov. 23. Tricia Serres ’16 became a two-time all-American, placing 32nd. She covered the 6K course in Hanover, Ind., with a time of 21:58.1. The Norse women finished 27th with a team total of 625 points. Serres was named IIAC Performer of the Week and USTFCCCA DIII National Athlete of the Week in October after her fourth consecutive first-place finish of the season. Serres was also named the IIAC Athlete of the Week in November after winning the women’s individual title at the 2013 Iowa Conference Cross Country Championships, where the Norse finished third. Women’s Golf Third in IIAC The Norse linksters finished the season with some of their best performances of the year, ending up third at the IIAC Tournament Sept. 27–28 and Oct. 4–5, just one stroke away from second place. Annika Ring ’15 and Laura Davis ’14
Norse golfer Laura Davis ’14, pictured, was named to the 2013 IIAC all-conference team along with Annika Ring ’15.
were named to the 2013 IIAC all-conference team. Hannah Hagarty ’17, Madeline Petellin ’17, and Isabelle Krogh ’15 rounded out the conference tournament team.
Football 1-6, 2-8 overall After a promising 2-1 start and several close competitions, the Norse finished the season 2-8 under first-year coach Aaron Hafner. The Norse celebrated 100 seasons of Luther football in 2013 with special events and games and were honored to have their Oct. 12 game versus Wartburg televised on KCRG 9.2. Seven footballers were named to the IIAC allconference squad, including first-team honoree Robby Jewell ’14; second-team honorees Josh Vos ’15 and Andrew Waites ’14; and four Norse were named honorable mention: Rich Vickers ’14, Colin White ’14, Andrew Turnacliff ’14, and Aric Elton ’16.
Volleyball 4-3, 16-19 overall Head coach Danielle Lynch was named the IIAC Volleyball Coach of the Year after her third year at Luther. The Norse, seeded fourth in the IIAC tournament, defeated Dubuque in the first round of the tournament, then fell one set away from upsetting number one seed Wartburg in the semifinals. Natalee Johnson ’16 and Hannah Wilson ’15 were named to the IIAC all-conference team. Johnson finished the league schedule ranked third in kills per set (3.20), while Wilson was ranked second for blocks per set (0.96) and fourth for attack percentage (0.311).
Natalee Johnson ’16 at the ACM Volleyball Invitational. She finished the league schedule ranked third for kills per set and was named to the IIAC all-conference team. Women’s Tennis 6-1, 9-3 overall Unfortunately, the IIAC Individual Tournament was canceled this year due to inclement weather. It was disappointing to the Norse, as the Luther squad would have liked another shot at Coe College. Luther’s only loss of the league schedule was a 5-4 decision to the Iowa Conference champions (Coe). The women’s tennis team was named a 2013 ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association) All-Academic Team in July. The Norse have earned this award every year since 2002, adding up to 12 consecutive seasons. Individually, nine members of the team were also recognized as ITA Scholar-Athletes: Elise Allen ’13, Katy Lindstrom ’13, Annie Whiteley ’13, Sarah Christopherson ’14, Adriana DePaolis ’15, Lola White-Baer ’15, Molly Brown ’16, Olivia Heitz ’16, and Hailey Johnson ’16. Named to the all-conference team were Maggie Helms ’16, singles and doubles; Lola White-Baer ’15, singles; Adriana DePaolis ’15, singles; and Caroline Treis ’17, singles. Jenna Myers ’16 was named All-Conference Honorable Mention.
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Danforth has all the answers by Kate Frentzel
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Did you forget your bagged lunch this morning? Mike Danforth ’95 has a tip to make sure that never happens again. Want to condition yourself for a trip into space or start a flea circus? Need to capture a one-ton crocodile or plan a Navy Seal mission? Danforth can tell you how. As executive producer of the NPR comedy quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, Danforth combs the news to find different angles on the stories that you hear throughout the week. But in his latest NPR venture, the How to Do Everything podcast, he shows you a behind-the-curtain universe that you never knew existed, telling you everything you never knew you wanted to know about everything.
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Photos courtesy of Mike Danforth ’95
Danforth has passed the radio bug to his oldest child, 9-year-old Aksel, above, (Danforth and wife Eva Nielsen also have a daughter, Nisse, 7, and another son, Lars, 5). Danforth recently helped Aksel with a school project that involved interviewing a zookeeper (left)—and some pretty quiet gorillas.
Page 16: Danforth records one episode of How to Do Everything from a highpressure hyperbaric chamber. Page 17: Danforth (far right) attends a Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! script read-through with (from left) emcee Carl Cassel, associate producer Eva Wolchover, host Peter Sagal, “benevolent overlord” Doug Berman (Danforth’s predecesor), and podcast cohost Ian Chillag.
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Around the Wait Wait table Danforth joined the public-radio fold in the late 1990s with an internship at Minnesota Public Radio, which turned into a full-time job at A Prairie Home Companion. Danforth says, “At Prairie Home, everything was designed around Garrison Keillor. We were working to support this man who has created an institution. It’s a show beloved by people all around the country. And our job was to make sure Garrison had the tools to do that show every week.” Since 2000, Danforth has hitched his wagon to NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, where the office culture swings to the other extreme. He explains, “Here at Wait Wait, we’re all involved in both the daily operation and the creative generation of the show. Peter Sagal, the host, is very much a member of the staff. I remember within the first week of starting here, he gave me a ride home, and I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t know if Garrison even knew my name.’ It’s a small family, and part of what makes the show work is that the vibe we have in the office
translates on the air. We sit around the table and talk about stories in the news and make jokes and try to make each other laugh.” As executive producer at Wait Wait, Danforth oversees how the show is put together each week. He spends the first three days, along with the rest of the staff, trawling the Internet and news publications for stories and ping-ponging them around the office. By Wednesday, they’ll start writing and editing material, and on Thursday they’ll read through the script with emcee Carl Kassel sitting in and “benevolent overlord” (and former executive producer) Doug Berman on the phone, playing the role of the callers. Danforth is convinced that this ensemble approach benefits the show. “It’s not like when you see a movie that has seven writers, and you think ‘Oh, that must have been a terrible, terrible piece of work to require that many voices behind it.’ ” During taping on Thursday night, Danforth takes a backseat in the control box with senior producer Ian Chillag, who directs the show, but Danforth’s work picks up again in postproduction on Friday, when he helps edit the taping for its Saturday broadcast.
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Listen to Danforth’s podcast at howtodoeverything.org. As entry points, Danforth recommends episodes 88, 100, and 110, which describe how to test-pilot an airplane, win an elementary school talent show, and sequester your smelly workout clothes.
What makes Mike’s list “Syria, what do we want to do about Syria?” Danforth wonders aloud, referring to that country’s use of chemical weapons against its own civilians in August. Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! is a comedy quiz show, but it’s also a news quiz show, so there’s a drive to include stories that loom large, even while they may not be upbeat. “We’ll see if there’s a funny angle we can put on a darker story like that,” he explains. “With Syria, it’s a real struggle. There are stories that everybody’s talking about that are easy, like Anthony Weiner. With Syria, it’s like, oh my god, that’s horrible. What are we gonna do? We need an angle. Maybe we can talk about John Kerry. The reason we’re not attacking Syria is because of a mistake that John Kerry made. He just pulled this idea out of a hat, and it was like improv—that’s what he was doing. So we put that in the list of ideas, and it made the show because Mo Rocca, a panelist that week, picked it up and went with it. “It provided a way to talk about a very serious story with a lot of tragedy involved in it. If you listen to NPR during the week, you’re inundated with that stuff. And one of the things we used to say about the show is that Wait Wait is your reward at the end of the week for listening to NPR. You listen to NPR Monday through Friday, and then here it is, here’s a chance to get a different perspective on all that stuff and hopefully
lighten your load a little bit.” Of course, taking comedic chances with sensitive material can sometimes backfire, but Danforth and company welcome the feedback. “We get these boo laughs, or blaughs, when we say something that’s so on the edge of funny and offensive. It’s great. We’ll do a joke, and the audience provides this instant feedback. So if you’re at home, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe they said that,’ and then you hear the audience go Boo, we think it’s great. Because, you know, you’re probably still gonna send us a letter, but at least you know we just got chastised by the 500 people in the audience.”
Everybody likes Mike As a Luther student, Danforth cohosted a KWLC program with Jim Francis ’94 called The Articulate Spine, which borrows its name from choreographer Merce Cunningham’s idea that the joints of the spine should be as fully articulated as any of the limbs. Danforth says, “It was Thursday nights at ten. Not many people listened to it, because why would you? But we had so much fun. We did skits, we recorded these little theatrical radio things, and there was this character, Tommy, who was a spine, and he would do things.” “The Articulate Spine—whoever would come up with a title like that has to be a little bit off, a little bit wacko,” station man-
ager Jennifer Cantine recalls fondly. “He was just creative, quirky, and impish. There was the same charm about him then as there is about him now.” Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal also has no shortage of kind words for Danforth. “I should say right off the bat that he is especially good at his job, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the success of Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! As to why, there are a lot of reasons. One of them is that he has this amazing gift of being firmly in charge without being a jerk about it, which is really hard to do. In other words, he’s the kind of person who will make the decisions and get people to do what needs to be done, but he never orders people around, and he never makes them feel bad, and he never throws his weight around. He’s one of those people who asserts authority just by doing his job really well. So therefore everybody defers to him, because they know they’ll be better off and the show will be better off if they do.” While Sagal admires the way Danforth fully stepped up to the role of senior (now executive) producer during a time when they were short-staffed, he continues to marvel over his amiability. “I’ve never met a person whom he rubs the wrong way. Nobody has ever said to me—and I’ve been working with this guy for more than a decade—‘That Mike, man, whatta . . .’ Everybody who meets him, no matter what their character, their personality, their needs, everybody likes him, which is remarkable.” Winter 2014 Luther Alumni Magazine
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safe for television. Take a listen to this last one (episode 112), so that next time you’re lazing on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and hear Samuel L. Jackson yell, “I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!” or John Goodman threaten, “See what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?” you’ll have some appreciation for the linguistic gymnastics that made that network-approved movie possible.
Location, location, location
Danforth (left) and cohost Chillag explore how to make gin in an episode of How to Do Everything.
Dear Mike is not Dear Abby A couple of years ago, when NPR was looking to create some new programming, Danforth and Wait Wait senior producer Ian Chillag were asked to pitch an advice show. They approached it with a pioneering attitude. “What if the kind of advice we gave wasn’t relationship advice or work advice, but was also, like, how to defend yourself in case of bear attack, or how to survive without water, or how to date a coworker?” Danforth says. Initially, the duo planned to produce the show and leave the on-air hosting to an expert. But after auditioning someone they thought would be perfect, they realized that most hosts wouldn’t exude the excitement and curiosity that they themselves felt over how to judge a photo finish, for example, or make fake snow, or get your word in the dictionary, so they gave it a whirl. Almost three years and half a million downloads per month later, it seems to be working. Listening to How to Do Everything is like hanging out with two of your lovably nutty, really smart friends, and the rapport that Danforth and Chillag have with each other and their listeners is palpable. In detailing
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his radio influences, Danforth cites the Car Talk brothers, Tom and Ray Magliozzi. “I really admire the way they treat their callers. They’re so warm and so generous—even when they’re poking fun at them, they’re hugging them at the same time, you know? They never make the people feel bad, they’re always making you feel like you’re part of their fun, always trying to draw you into their circle. I think that’s important: you don’t want to have a wall between you and the people listening.” Says Sagal, “They tend to do funny stunt stuff, which I enjoy—sometimes I’m the subject of it—but I think they’re actually really great at doing interviews with people and getting tremendously funny or insightful stuff out of people. It’s a skill that I am constantly working on for myself, and they do it really well.” In the course of interviewing, Danforth introduces listeners to lots of quirky characters, like the mushing mortician who rescued one of his sled dogs during the Iditarod, the stuntman who once lived in Burt Reynolds’s poolhouse and was paid $25,000 to be the very first living crash-test dummy, and a sound editor whose job it is to substitute dialogue for swear words to make movies
Working at Chicago’s WBEZ studios has its perks, especially for a start-up podcast. Danforth explains, “Sometimes people will be in the station here, and we’ll just grab them. Like Dave Foley from the comedy group Kids in the Hall was here a couple weeks ago, and we’re like, ‘Crap that’s Dave Foley!’ ” They nabbed Project Runway’s Tim Gunn the same way. But their biggest coup was Supreme Court justice Sonya Sotomayor. When she was in the WBEZ studios doing an interview, Danforth and Chillag had their producer loiter outside the doors. When the justice emerged, Danforth says, “We said, ‘Hey, we want to talk to you about being a baseball fan’ (we knew she was a baseball fan). So we did the interview, and at the very end of it, she said, ‘Oh, this is the most fun I’ve had all year’ or something like that. And we stupidly, stupidly had already pushed stop on the tape.” On the sidewalk, Sotomayor may not have been as willing to go on the record with a couple of strangers, but the NPR badge gets Danforth access to certain closed doors. “That’s one of the greatest things we have going for us as a production,” he says. “We have the NPR name, so when we call somebody, that gives us some credibility and they stay on the phone 10 seconds longer than they would otherwise.” Danforth and Chillag have been able to land a bevy of high-profile guests, including James Cameron, Fred Armison, Patrick Stewart, and Barry Manilow. Working in the WBEZ studios gives the hosts access to more than just guests. Danforth explains, “Ian and I have been in radio for over 10 years each, so we have a lot of contacts in the industry. We can ask folks at NPR in Washington who’d be good to talk to, and a reporter might say, ‘You need to talk to this guy, he’s the former head of the CIA—he’d be great to talk to about your piece on Secret Service nicknames.’ And he is great, and it works.”
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Danforth receives Luther’s Eittreim Award for Excellence in Broadcast Media at the KWLC Alumni Homecoming Luncheon in October 2011.
So does it really tell you how to do everything? The name of Danforth’s podcast does not overreach. Topics run the gamut from etiquette—how to spit out food covertly, politely end a text chat, or get out of a book club—to the pragmatic—how to remove a bumper sticker, open a stubborn bag of chips, or spread cold butter on toast (use a cheese grater)—to the interpersonal—how to deal with a smelly roommate, face down a heckler, or be a good dad—to the theoretical—how to calculate the Christmas Singularity (the year in which advertising for next year’s Christmas will begin before this year’s Christmas ends)—to the outrageously specific—how to perform a Roman Catholic exorcism, become a member of the Blue Man Group, or film a movie with live cheetahs. Danforth says, “We’re lucky in that we can do only the stuff we want to do. Hopefully our interest is conveyed and makes you interested if you’re listening at home.” While the show’s topics are impossible to inventory, if one looks hard enough, subtle patterns emerge. Take names, for example. There are episodes on how to name things: car models, softball teams, scandals, pharmaceuticals, IKEA products, and sitcoms (did you know that Friends was almost named Across the Hall?). How to get names is also a trope, with episodes on how to come up with a good nickname, get a Secret Service code-
name, and have a species named after you. How to pronounce names is another recurrent theme: podcast guests have included broadcasters who could pronounce Janice “Lokelani” Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele, the Hawaii woman who couldn’t get her full name printed on her driver’s license, as well as the name of a 63-letter German law that deals with beef labeling. Or maybe survival is more your thing. In addition to telling you how to avoid bee stings, catch a catfish with your bare hands, and throw a charging rhino off your track, various episodes of How to Do Everything teach you how to survive if you can’t find water, fall overboard a cruise ship, or enter piranha-infested waters. Other episodes detail how to survive a called-off wedding or the VP vetting process (the takeaway is that anyone who’s had a colonoscopy can understand what it’s like—there’s nothing left unexplored). Contemplating a life of crime? Learn how to forge a signature, commit a million-dollar art heist, smuggle money across the border, create an alibi, escape from prison, disappear without a trace, and pack a suitcase, too. The format of the show is squirrely, zigzagging here and there without a rigid framework. Sometimes Danforth and Chillag conduct traditional interviews, and sometimes,
as Sagal notes, they go for “funny stunt stuff,” like taste testing mineral water or spending time in an altitude-simulating CVAC pod. “One thing we really want to do right now is this story about Dennis Rodman going to North Korea,” Danforth says. “He’s gonna help create a new basketball league there, but with totally different rules. The way it works is that free throws are each worth one point, but if you miss it, it’s minus one—you lose a point. And three pointers are worth three points, but if it’s a swish, it’s worth four points. So one of the things we want to do is go to a basketball court here in Chicago and play a game with those rules and see how the players react to it. It’s just a matter of finding the time.” Danforth’s curiosity does not discriminate, which is what imbues the show with such a strong sense of wonder. After explaining to a reporter how you can learn which side of a rental car the gas tank is on by looking at the dashboard, Danforth says, “Did you know that the first lyric ever said in ‘Another One Bites the Dust’—the first word, the first lyric, the first thing that is ever said in the song—is the name Steve? I feel like that’s just as life-changing as the gas-tank thing.”
Danforth’s podcast involves a lot of field research. Here, he and Chillag (right) test out their “how not to spill coffee” technique while producer Blythe Haaga (center) records.
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On Sabbaticals Teaching in virtual reality and participating in the birth of a new economy are just two of the ways Luther professors enlightened themselves and their classrooms through long-term projects at home and abroad. by Kate Frentzel
PHOTOS THIS PAGE AND NEXT, AMY WELDON
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very college claims that it has the best and brightest—the true intellectual heavyweights and innovators—at the head of the classroom. But what keeps good faculty at the top of their game, batteries charged and ready to bring fresh, vital insights to young learners? One answer is the sabbatical. Kevin Kraus, Luther vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, says the purpose of a sabbatical is to give faculty a break from the overcrowded schedule and routine of teaching and allow them to shift their focus to scholarly pursuits that will impact their teaching over the next several years. Some faculty delve deeply into research, others take time to chase creative projects, and still others spend their leave working in the professional world to keep abreast of changes in their field. For instance, Craig Rabe, associate professor of accounting and management, spent his sabbatical working a 9-to-5 job in the financial sector of an electronics corporation, while Todd Pedlar, associate professor of physics, took a position as a visiting research scientist in the Radiation and Nuclear Sciences section of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Keeping a toe in the work world allows professors to maintain currency within their professions, and this translates into students who graduate with relevant, up-to-date knowledge in their majors. But what about sabbaticals that are more esoteric, that don’t connect so obviously to building a better professor? How do these enrich classroom learning?
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The writing sabbatical is perhaps the most iconic,
and, like many colleges, Luther encourages its star creative writers to put pen to paper— or keystrokes to screen, as the case may be. This very distinction, between the physical world and the technical-virtual one, is what professor of English Amy Weldon focused on during her fall 2012 sabbatical. Her work-in-progress Amy Weldon manuscript, HandsOn Life: How to Wake Yourself Up and Save the World, is a sort of how-to about living in a world where, Weldon says, “technology is numbing us and our ability to connect.” She explains, “My main concern is that our students are becoming incapable of distinguishing between the mental states created by our tools”—like an iPhone or the Internet—“and what we’re capable of creat-
ing on our own. . . . Are we going to be able to develop the best of ourselves where we are, here and now, together, or are we going to be continually siphoned away into some sort of other-world, not-here type of place?” Weldon’s manuscript is closely related to her teaching, and she’s writing scenes from the classroom into her book. She begins with a conversation from one of her Paideia classes during which she posed the question, is technology good for us or not? Weldon, who teaches two or three writing classes per semester, in addition to acting as an adviser, attending meetings, writing letters of recommendation, answering student emails, and grading papers, says that these responsibilities “tend to fragment your time, and when I have a lot of student work to grade, it can draw from the same pool of energy as writing does, even as teaching also feeds that.” She continues, “I guess the biggest energy drain is the feeling of being ‘on’ and having your mental satellite dish turned out. With the sabbatical, you get to turn the satellite dish back in a little bit.”
Weldon calls a clothesline a “permanent fixture” of her writing process. Above right, Weldon often cuts out, rearranges, and tapes together pieces of her manuscripts. Below, a color-coded “quilt” of a manuscript allows her to see sections of her novel-in-progress at a glance. Opposite: Weldon’s home office.
In the National Archives of India, Brian Caton, associate professor of history, saw a man holding a rope. On the other
end of the rope was a Hanuman langur monkey. It was there to chase out the rhesus macaques. It sounds like the ghost of a zoologist’s joke, but it was fitting that Caton shared the library with animals—after all, he was there to research animals, specifically to piece together a history of animal-breeding programs and veterinary medicine in colonial India. Caton focused on the Government Cattle Farm, Hassir, an endeavor by the colonial government to improve local breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, and camels, all of which could be inducted into the military or be auctioned at local markets, where Indian officers or farmers could purchase them. The project, he says, improved his understanding of the larger context of colonial bureaucracies: “I knew very little about the military side of the British government in India before, and now I have a much more detailed appreciation of how sprawling the military enterprise was.” He explains further, “The ways in which scholars have broken up the world into
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Brian Caton, associate professor of history, teaches a class on primary sources in fall 2013.
digestible pieces can cloud the way we understand how people actually moved through the world in other places and times. Certainly students will have to produce research papers on specific places, but ultimately they need to know how those places fit into the larger networks of the colonial world.” While one might expect wild monkeys to be the biggest challenge of working in India, Caton also struggled with the tortoise-like pace of Indian bureaucracy—and his finicky toddler’s despair at the lack of bathtubs. “He simply could not resign himself to not being in a tub for a bath,” sighs Caton, who, since returning stateside, is no doubt the father of a cleaner three-year-old.
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During her sabbatical, Jayme (Rutledge) Nelson ’87, associate professor of nursing, looked into buying Luther an island—the Ameri-
can Cancer Society and Mayo Clinic both have one—but it was too expensive, so she settled for a house. Before you run to your real estate agent to ask about a magically affordable archipelago where nonprofits and college professors snap up real estate, take note: the house that Nelson bought isn’t a physical one. It’s in the online, three-dimensional virtual reality called Second Life. Nelson has had a longstanding interest in virtual reality as a teaching tool, and she
Luther College Photo Bureau
had taken students on virtual “field trips” to approximate what it might be like to have PTSD or schizophrenic hallucinations. She had also led students on virtual, three-dimenJayme Nelson sional tours into the testes and the human genome, as well as into a professional operating room, where they learned how to position patients, especially those with hip injuries. When Nelson was encouraged to take a research sabbatical, she knew that she wanted to explore Second Life as an outreach site and a training ground for student nurses. She noticed early on that Second Life is a haven for people with disabilities, many of whom are homebound or paralyzed and use the virtual community as an invaluable socializing tool. Nelson formed relationships with a few
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denizens of Virtual Ability Island, which is populated by disabled-rights activists, and they asked her to run a virtual workshop about the Affordable Care Act and to be the keynote speaker at an international mental health symposium. While Nelson and her attendees all used avatars to attend the workshop, they communicated out loud in real time via computer microphones and speakers. In addition, the PowerPoint presentation that Nelson delivered in Second Life was set up for the hearing impaired, so it utilized closed captioning on the side, which she read by teleprompter. The workshop also included posters made by several of her student research assistants. “The technology blew me away,” Nelson marvels, but she also admits that “it took more technical work than I thought to lay the foundation” in Second Life, and this included making her avatar look professional. The free, non-customized models available to newcomers are usually scantily clad and . . . for mature audiences only (in fact, the entire community is accessible only to those aged 18 or older). Nelson spent some of her own money, she says, “to make myself present-
able,” which included outfitting herself in hospital scrubs and glasses and giving herself an ID badge. Last summer, Nelson presented herself in person, along with student Bridget Rouse ’13, at the International Nursing Resource Centers Conference in Las Vegas, where she spoke—in real life—about her teaching and collaborative experiences in virtual reality. For now, the Luther flagship home on Virtual Ability Island awaits student houseguests, who Nelson hopes will visit during future nursing courses.
Steve Holland, associate professor of economics, loves the edges of markets, where things
don’t always work properly, where people turn to innovation or collective action to settle hiccups in fringe or local economies. He is also a former practicing attorney with a
keen interest in public policy. So it’s no surprise that, when he decided to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship, he zeroed in on the fledgling country of Montenegro, which became independent from Serbia in 2006 and is, he explains, “still trying to figure out the rules Steve Holland of law, what the constitution is going to look like, what the legal and economic systems are going to look like. I thought it would be really interesting to see that while it was still in flux—in addition to the fact that it is just breathtakingly gorgeous. “ The Fulbright that Holland was awarded required him to teach at two universities, but he still found time to travel with his wife and three daughters to 11 countries in the region, including all of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. One thing that Holland’s travels really underscored was just how much hinges on history. About half of the area he traversed
During her sabbatical, Jayme Nelson presented a conference on the Affordable Care Act to the Second Life community.
Image courtesy Jayme Nelson ’87
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was part of the Austrian Empire, and the other half was in the Ottoman Empire. He says, “There were places where you could actually see where the line was. In Sarajevo, for instance, there’s a street where you look left and it’s Austrian, you look right and it’s Turkish. Those institutions and the architecture and the people and the religions—every development is such a product of history. I always knew that before, but I don’t think I really appreciated it until I was able to stand in the middle of it last year.” Holland’s travel was in part a scouting trip for a possible study-away program. “The history of that region was mindboggling. … I think if I were to take students back, that would be the theme of the course. It would be economics-based but would have to do with that big question of how history shapes our economic institutions today.” The other lesson that Holland’s experience made palpable is that people are different around the world. “I’m teaching an international-trade course this semester, and it’s very natural to teach that course from a U.S. perspective—we’re a huge part of the international economy. But having been in a small country, I’m more sensitive to the fact that things we talk about in class don’t apply to everybody. What might be true for the U.S. might not be true for Montenegro, and to think about those differences is worthwhile.”
John and Virginia Strauss, professors of music, have been haunting archives, libraries, and monasteries in central Europe for 30 years. “It’s quite fun sleuthing, Virginia says, “You never know where interesting manuscripts will turn up.” “Our period is the late Viennese classical,” John explains. “It’s a very rich period, there were an enormous number of composers active in the Hapsburg Empire, employed by nobility and the church, and an astonishing quantity of first-rate music was written. We’ve tried to focus on composers that were a little bit off the beaten track. At this stage, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven have been
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exhaustively researched, and so we’re digging a level down, you might say.” The Strausses’ research started—five sabbaticals ago—because they were looking for music to perform, but they’ve since turned their focus to publishing, working in a collaborative manner that sees John researching a piece’s history, negotiating with publishers, and writing prefaces, while Virginia handles the theory—correcting wrong notes, for instance—and the typesetting. “Entering the notes is about 10 percent of the work,” Virginia says in an aside. “When we were first told this, we didn’t believe it, but it’s true. The real work is all the tiny adjustments that one has to make to make it not just accurate but also readable and aesthetically pleasing.” Together, the Strausses test the music. “We proofread by protocol,” John says, “by which I mean by violin part, cello part, right-hand piano part, left-hand part, just the notes, just the dynamics, just the slurs, page and measure numbers, et cetera. Another protocol is the various Italian words like allegro—are they in the right font? Are they in the right place? So you go through maybe 15 protocols, and we each do every protocol because it’s so easy to miss something.” While work of this type seems highly academic, it holds real value for the students who study under the Strausses. “When you’re teaching applied music, trying to come up with a historically informed interpretation of a particular piece, the first thing you start with is choosing a good edition,” John says. “And the second thing is interpreting that edition. And our experience as researchers and music editors gives us an informed perspective on that whole question. So there is a real sense in which this work is part of what we do everyday when we teach.” “And then guiding a student on the violin, for instance,” Virginia says. “A classical phrase ending sounds so natural when you hear it performed in Vienna, but just to look at the page, you don’t know to do that—you have to learn that by first understanding notation and then by imitating a well-trained musician.” “To a large extent,” John says, “musical tradition has always been passed on as a kind of apprenticeship between teacher and student. . . . Our sabbaticals and our research allow us to have a more authentic understanding of the past, which we then transmit to our own students.”
On why a campus pastor would take a sabbatical, Amy Zalk Larson ’96 says, “In an academic setting, there are higher levels of expectation behind what you offer; people want research behind what you preach.” One of Larson’s areas of interest is spiritual formation and what she calls “a contemplative way of being.” During her year’s leave, she chose to focus on this in conjunction with busyness, which can be an oppressive force in our modern lifestyles. She exAmy Zalk Larson plains, “The contemplative way of being—entering silence, meditating, having a set-aside time for quiet— seems out of reach for people who are busy, but it also seems really important when dealing with the busyness of life. But it can’t be just another demand—‘You have to be silent,’ ‘You have to meditate.’ So my project, From Busyness to Openness: Holy Invitations for Hurried People, is trying to help people see that this way of being is not out of reach, that God is always working to invite us into this way of openness and being present, being attentive, and spiritual practice can help that. Spiritual practices are not an end in themselves, but they can help us to be more aware of God’s presence all the time.” Larson has identified seven “holy invitations” into the contemplative way of being: yearn, pause, empty, attend, stretch, yield, and welcome. She’s planning several retreats centered on these practices, and she’s also submitted a book proposal that explores them in more detail. In addition, this year’s J-term Chapel sessions, which are historically more experiential, will each focus on one, and this spring’s Chapel sessions will include a series that invites campus members to speak on the topic of busyness. Larson and her fellow pastors are keenly sensitive to the notion that they should bring something back from sabbatical to their campus community, and she wants to impart the idea that while she’s grateful to have had the luxury of a year’s reflection, “You don’t have to have a whole year . . . we already have what we need. God is within and beyond us, calling us from busyness into openness.”
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During their sabbaticals, Virginia and John Strauss work as a team to uncover and publish music manuscripts from the late Viennese classical period. Aaron Lurth ’08
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The Williamsons: Leading by example
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For a city-dwelling African American teenager in the 1960s who’d grown up in the shadow of Jim Crow and “colored-only” restrooms, the prospect of boarding a bus to attend a predominantly white college in rural Iowa might have been daunting. But that’s precisely what Will ’71 and Arlivia (Owens) Williamson ’72 did— and it turned out so well for them that two sons, two nieces, and a nephew decided to follow in their footsteps. by Kate Frentzel
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PhotoS Courtesy of Will Williamson ’71
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Will Williamson was born in Oklahoma and raised in Chicago’s Robert Taylor housing project, where success stories were few and far between. But both of Will’s parents were high school valedictorians, and his mother earned a scholarship to Northwestern University. Education was clearly valued in their household. When Will was in high school, filling out a United Negro College Fund questionnaire about college, he indicated his religion—Lutheran—and how far he’d be willing to travel for college—300 miles. “Well, Luther is exactly 300 miles from Chicago,” he says wryly. “Of course, I didn’t know anything about Luther College, and I certainly didn’t know anything about Decorah, Iowa,” he continues, “but the recruiting officer at the time sent me a blue reservation card for the bus that was going to be picking up kids from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.” Though his parents had concerns about the cost of the college, they let him board the bus. On the ride, he says, “I got to know several of the African American students and some of the other students from the suburbs that I’d never been in contact with. We got into a great conversation.” On campus, he bunked with two Luther students whom he describes as “kind of crazy and fun,” and, underscoring the exoticism of bluff country for someone coming from the flatlands of Chicago, he marvels, “I went outside and saw the stars at night and saw the lights on 52 coming down, and I thought they were airplanes, it was at such a slope.” On the ride back to the Robert Taylor project, Will made an I’ll-go-if-you-go pact with a few of the other African American students. Once he was accepted, he says,
Left: Arlivia ’72 and Will Williamson ’71 make regular trips back to Decorah, attending Luther Homecomings and Commencements and enjoying the Trout Run Trail.
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“My parents got very excited about me going away to school, and later on, when I’d come home, other individuals got very excited too, because at that time it was a very big thing in each building that someone was going away to school.” Arlivia, who was born in Florida and raised in Chicago, is the daughter of two college graduates. “They went to school in the days when”—she stops to think for a moment—“I think in Iowa you could go to school, but you couldn’t stay in the dorms.” When she says this, she’s referring specifically to African American students. “Trust me, we came out of Jim Crow,” she explains. “We went home to visit relatives where Jim Crow was king. You weren’t going to the washroom unless it was the coloredonly washroom.” “No, you weren’t going to stay in somebody’s hotel,” Will adds. “That’s why my father drove 1,000 miles straight, her father drove 1,000 miles straight.” “We would leave Chicago after my daddy got home from work and drive all the way, because there wasn’t a hotel that took coloreds from here to Jacksonville, Florida,” Arlivia remembers. “Or from here to Oklahoma,” Will says. “To have somebody tell you that you’re inadequate or inferior, and then you have parents . . .” He gathers his thoughts. “My parents were no dummies, and her parents were no dummies, so, you know, I don’t stomach very well when someone’s trying, because of color, class, or title . . . My way of being is that this person doesn’t know me and obviously doesn’t know people, and therefore is not really—” “King spoke it well,” Arlivia interjects. “Rise above and be the best that you can be. And treat people right. You don’t always succeed, but you do try.”
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hen asked how they met, Arlivia answers, “It was hard not to know everybody who’s here, you know? But how did we connect? We really didn’t at first!” Will agrees, then explains, “As students, we would all sit down and talk about the challenges of being black here at Luther College, the challenges of the classes, the challenge of being isolated, and the challenges of the things that were not on campus, like hot sauce and hair products for African Americans. But probably the way we really met was through photography: she was the first person I really photographed as a model.” “It took a while,” Arlivia says, “because I didn’t like him. I really didn’t! He told the stupidest jokes, and he thought they were so funny. But eventually I started to laugh because they were so funny. He grew on me.” The Williamsons’ relationship and a black sociocultural presence on campus flourished in tandem. While the school’s first black student, Asibong Okon of Nigeria, was admitted in 1951, it wasn’t until 1964, the civil rights movement, and President Elwin Farwell that recruiting efforts started to focus on American blacks. “When we were here,” Arlivia recalls, “they had a Black Cultural Center, and they had a Black Student Union house, and that was a first. I remember me and a few other students going downtown to the Decorah furniture store with someone from the school, and they said, ‘We need you to pick out some furniture,’ and I’m like, ‘What do I know about picking out furniture?’ We’re all looking at each other like . . .” She raises her eyebrows in illustration. “But we worked to make it something that we could be proud of.” It’s worth noting that the building that housed the Black Cultural Center and the BSU was razed in the early 2000s to accommodate the Center for the Arts. More recently, according to Sheila Radford-Hill, executive director of Luther’s Diversity Center, the BSU as an organization faced significant leadership turnover that caused it to lapse, but, she says, it is currently being revived. Casting her memory back a few decades, Arlivia muses, “I think that the experience of us being here was a way for us to grow and develop and immerse ourselves in things and learn things about other people that we didn’t know, and vice versa. I think other people learned things because we were here.”
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Will continues, “We learned because of what was missing and made requests, such as about music and who was performing.” While the Williamsons were at Luther, students from the BSU worked with the Student Activities Council to bring such bands as the Temptations, the Fifth Dimension, Oscar Peterson, and the Friends of Distinction to campus. Music was a particularly salient cultural difference for young black students attending college in rural Iowa, where tastes favored Simon and Garfunkel over Sam and Dave. Will remembers the male BSU students escorting their female friends back to their residence halls at night, then stopping by the listening room at the Union on the way back. “We would bring our best LP and have the LP played for us. And then, from there, we migrated down to what at that time was Dante’s, and on the jukebox at Dante’s, there was no African American music, and so we started making requests: Can you put on some James Brown? Can you put on some music that relates to where we come from? Then many of the students on this campus began to say, ‘Oh, this is good stuff!’ So our relationship,” Will says, bringing the conversation back full circle, “is a combination of not only our dealings with each other, but our dealings with other students. “This was a particular period in the ’60s and ’70s when there were some real challenges of, okay, we’re coming out of Jim Crow laws, we’re coming out of segregation, we’re coming out of talking about access to major universities.
And because of BSU, this became a major location for other schools to come to have the conversation about black studies, which also came out of us making a request to start that department.” The prompting of BSU students encouraged Luther’s faculty senate to approve a Department of Black Studies—now called Africana Studies—in 1970. It was inaugurated in 1971. “This was a time when there was a thrust
to be more inclusive,” Arlivia adds, “and as a result, people like me took a chance and said, ‘Okay, I’ll try it.’ And I came to college to learn the things that I probably could not have learned at home, and I tried to challenge myself.” Will puts a fine and poignant point on things when he says, “You’re always going to come to an environment, no matter what color or class or race or whatever you are, when you struggle with self-doubt because something’s not your thing. You’re walking into somebody else’s house. However, once you understand the rules and etiquette—now we’re Luther grads, our sons are Luther grads, so I expect to be treated like a Luther grad, because I’ve been in the same house, I’ve eaten from the same table, I’ve gone through the same rituals, so therefore I do not suffer lightly when individuals do not give me the respect that I’ve earned by going through the same thing that everybody else has gone through. And that’s one of the things that we try to communicate to our kids: This is what you should expect, to be treated like a Luther graduate.”
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oth Will and Arlivia are emphatic that a liberal arts education allowed them flexibility in their careers. Arlivia, who has been a teacher in Chicago’s ethnically diverse school system for the past 38 years, explains, “Someone wise once said, education is what you know once you forget everything you learned. You walk into a classroom your first year, and you’re on your own. Whatever you read in a book about this, that, or the other thing means nothing. You have to take all the things that you forgot and pull it all together and make it work. And if, as a student, you really got the wide range of things, you’re going to be able to do it in a heartbeat.” She also credits her broad Luther learning as the reason she was able, when a colleague retired, to transition to teaching science without any official accreditation. (She has since earned science certification.) Will, an amateur radio operator from an early age, had thought about studying engineering, but at Luther he turned his attention to history and political science. (Growing up in the climate of the 1960s in the politically loaded city of Chicago would make political creatures out of anyone.
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As Arlivia says, “The country was changing—we had no choice but to be involved.”) Graduating into a tight job market, Will took his father’s suggestion to seek employment at the Illinois Bell Telephone Company. While staffer after staffer there repeated the “We’re not hiring” mantra, each ushered him through to the next stage of the hiring process until he finally found himself at the Bismarck Hotel at what he thought was going to be a gentle ultimate letdown.
“We have a problem,” the man across the table said. “I know—you’re not hiring,” Will replied. “No, our problem is that two departments want you!” the man rejoined. And so, after graduating with a history/ political science major and completing intensive training at the Bell System Center of Technical Education, Will found himself working his dream job, as a telecommunication engineer. He also served on the board of the National Technical Association of Scientists and Engineers for 14 years, eventually assuming presidency. While serving on this board, he interacted with individuals at NASA and other high-profile entities. And after 20 years, he transitioned careers to work in financial services with the Lutheran Brotherhood and other organizations. Will and Arlivia are now semiretired.
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hile Will and Arlivia were trailblazers at Luther, they’ve since become vanguards of a different sort: two of their sons (Eli ’02 and Eliot ’06), two nieces (Taylor ’12 and Christie Owens ’16), and a nephew (Mark Spurlin ’04) have all attended Luther in their wake. In addition, Arlivia enumerates, “Our son Eli came here with three of his buddies, and our son Elliot took a fellow with him.” Will and Arlivia swear that they don’t proselytize on behalf of the college, but it’s clear why it would hold attraction for the
Gathered for the graduation of Eliot Williamson ’06 are, front row (left to right), Laura Dignani Williamson, Angela Brown, Nina Cooper, Joshua Wharton, Juliet Wharton, Noah Wharton, Candace Bush, Dylan Garrett. Back row: William Owens, Jade Maze, Arlivia Williamson ’72, Eliot, Ivan Williamson, Willard Williamson ’71, Ian Williamson. next generation. Will uses a metaphor to explain: “We did a very simple thing. If you want to see what it’s like to live in a mansion, just take a kid to a mansion. And you don’t have to tell them anything, they’ll just see, ‘Oh, this is bigger than my house.’ Because that’s what happened when I was a kid—I remember going to a mansion on the Gold Coast of Chicago. To this day, I remember the baby grand piano, I remember the crystal bowl with the fresh fruit in it, I remember the kitchen, I remember the kids’ rooms, which were gigantic to me.” Will’s metaphor is a way of saying that exposure to different ways of living made a profound impression on him, and that, rather than evangelizing about a college education, the liberal arts, or the value of exposing yourself to situations outside your comfort zone, the Williamsons have led by example. While their example may not have been a vocal one, when their young relatives took inventory of the life that two Luther graduates built, it must have struck a chord. Their son Eliot, who just obtained a master’s degree in international relations from the Brussels campus of the University of Kent, echoes Will’s sentiment: “I think
everything in life is what you’re exposed to, and my parents tried to give us the greatest exposure to as many things as possible.” On this point, Arlivia notes that while she and Will didn’t travel abroad until well into adulthood, all four of their sons and one of their godsons, whom they helped raise, have already traveled internationally and all, like their parents, are college graduates. Niece Christie Owens ’16, who watched a half dozen of her relatives graduate from Luther, says, “I honestly thought when I was much younger that Luther was predominantly African American, because all my relatives are black!” A visit to the college while her cousin Taylor was a student convinced her to apply. “We went to see places in town, and everyone seemed to have a connection with my family,” she says with awe. A theatre major and music minor, Owens is following in the footsteps of her aunt Arlivia, who also sang jazz at Luther and even staged a jazz performance in the Storre Theatre as part of a J-term project. And with two of her cousins having married spouses with Luther connections—in addition to Will and Arlivia’s marriage—she laughs and says, “Guess the pressure’s on!”
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Kirk Johnson ’82
Alumni honored for service
Distinguished Award winners, left to right: Kirk Stapleton ’78, Greg Hager ’83, Mike Kust ’78, Curt Wollan ’73, Joan (Catlin) Totten ’63, Joel Ludvigsen ’88, Namupa (Kafidi) Nengola ’98, Brenda (Landsgard) Carlson ’73, Dave Carlson ’63, and Selmer Norland ’38.
Recipients of the 2013 Luther Distinguished Service Awards david ’63 and brenda (Landsgard) carlson ’73
Family and friends are important to Dave Carlson ’63 and Brenda (Landsgard) Carlson ’73. Equally important to them are their faith, their church, and their community—and in Decorah, that means places like Luther College and Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. While a long list of volunteer, leadership, and philanthropic roles could be shared about the Carlsons, we respect their request to simply share the following Bible verse and their message. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” —Joshua 24:15
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We have been blessed with God’s many gifts: • our loving parents, six wonderful children, and 16 precious grandchildren • a home in a caring, diverse, small, healthy community • many special friends here in Decorah and some far away • time and resources to be able to volunteer and serve our church and community as we are able • a loving church family • a relationship with Luther College that continues to nourish our minds and hearts • and most importantly, God’s gift of His son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. Soli Deo Gloria—To God alone the glory! —excerpted from citation by Keith Christensen ’80, Luther vice president for development
Greg hager ’83
Since majoring in computer science and mathematics at Luther and earning a Ph.D. in computer science, Greg Hager ’83 has been doing cutting-edge research where the disciplines of computer science and robotics meet. He is now chair of the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. From the early use of stereo cameras and sonar sensors to the development of laser-guided robots and digital 3-D guidance systems, Hager has been a pioneer in developing working robots as well as research methods that are used by other scientists worldwide. His research interests include time-series analysis of image
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President David L. Tiede presented the Luther Distinguished Service Award to 10 alumni during Homecoming in October 2013. The award is given in recognition of success and achievements in professional fields, service to society, contributions to community, and loyalty and service to Luther.
data, image-guided robotics, medical applications in robotics, and human-computer interaction. He is the author of more than 280 peer-reviewed research articles and books in the area of robotics and computer vision, and in 2006 he was named fellow of the IEEE for his contributions in vision-based robotics. Hager believes that robotics will create new job opportunities, buoy the economy, and improve working conditions for humans, particularly those who do dangerous or repetitive tasks that result in injuries. They will make us more productive and much more competitive in the world economy.
Kirk Johnson ’82
—with excerpts from citation by David Ranum ’83, Luther professor of computer science Mike kust ’78
After graduating from Luther with majors in speech communication and English, Mike Kust ’78 worked as a general manager and faculty adviser at KWLC Radio and as a Luther admissions counselor until 1984. He and his wife, Amy (Kiesler) Kust ’78, are members of President’s Council and Presidentsråd and cohost a variety of Luther events in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. He has served on the Alumni Council for 14 years and was the first two-term president of the council, centering its initiatives on the theme Connections That Count. The council expanded programs for young alumni to get them more engaged with one another and with the college, and Kust’s strong belief that a rich, liberal arts education serves as a terrific launching pad for success led him to connect the Alumni Council with Luther’s Career Center to establish a very successful externship program. His professional career spans event and sports marketing, public relations, digitalpublishing industries, and loyalty marketing. He is now chief marketing officer and managing director, Global Brand at Aimia. Kust has been honored for charitable work he has done in partnership with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA and
MaxiFund for Juvenile Diabetes. Along with his mother, Mary, and brothers Dave ’80, Dan ’82, and Jeep ’84, he established the Robert R. Kust Memorial Scholarship in 2011 in honor of their father. —with excerpts from citation by Douglas Eckheart, Luther professor emeritus of art
manager for Asia Alternatives, a $4 billion fund evaluating private investment opportunities in Asia. —with excerpts from citation by Uwe Rudolf, Luther emeritus professor of accounting and management namupa (kafidi) nengola ’98
Joel ludvigsen ’88
Joel Ludvigsen ’88 majored in accounting, economics, and Spanish at Luther, helping to set himself up for a varied and creative career. After graduation, he worked for KPMG Peat Marwick, one of the world’s premier accounting firms. He was sent to Mexico and later Madrid, Spain, where he cofounded an audit information technology group and became a computer fraud specialist. Next he earned an M.B.A. at Harvard Graduate School and became a strategic management consultant with Bain & Company. While working on a merger of ship builders in Belgium, he met his future spouse, Laurence, whom he followed to Chicago, where she was completing her M.B.A. In Chicago, he joined uBid.com, a leading online retailer of electronics that grew from 20 employees to 450 in less than two years with annual revenues of half a billion dollars. He led the company’s expansion to Australia and Europe, but on realizing that the company’s rapid growth required it to refocus and that the expansion into Europe was premature, Ludvigsen fired himself by shutting down operations in Europe. This led him to a six-year stint as director of marketing at SWIFT, a private Internet system handling money transfers for more than 8,000 financial institutions in 208 countries and territories. The entrepreneur in him felt the need for more challenges, so in 2008, he and two other investors acquired INDUFLEX, a leading manufacturer of laminated products for the cable industry with markets in over 30 countries. He currently serves as CEO of INDUFLEX. Ludvigsen is also the country
For Namupa (Kafidi) Nengola ’98, growing up in Namibia, fear was a daily experience. The Namibian War for Independence from the South African apartheid government (1966–88) was all around her as a child. She was one of 11 children in her family, growing up in the village of Ongenga, near the border with Angola. After graduating from Ongwediva Teachers College, Namupa taught math and English at the secondary school in Oshakati for nine years. While there, she married a “very nice and exceptionally helpful” science teacher named Mathias Nengola. In March of 1990, Namibia became a free nation, and the world began to open up for the Nengolas. That spring they were introduced to former Luther Board of Regents chair Orv Johnson and his wife, Kathy, who were in Namibia visiting their son Kent ’83. He was working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, assisting with the resettlement of Namibian citizens as they returned from exile. Within four years, and through the help of the Johnsons, Namupa and her husband, Matty, enrolled at Waldorf College and subsequently Luther College. With two children in tow, they managed college life as 28- and 38-year-old undergraduates. Namupa majored in mathematics and Matty in interdisciplinary studies. Namupa Nengola earned an M.B.A. at the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2007. She has taught math and science, has served as chief for party for the Namibian Education Technology Alliance, and is a partner and Internet marketing consultant with We Simplify Internet.
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G.V. Suos ’15
She became the project coordinator of the University of Namibia’s University of Central Consultancy Bureau in 2008 and has been chief of Public Education and Corruption Prevention at Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission since 2009. Speaking to students, teachers, and school administrators throughout her country on effective methods for avoiding and reporting corruption, she also travels extensively internationally reporting on Namibia’s progress as a young, progressive, and democratic nation. —with excerpts from citation by Gregory Peterson ’83, Luther associate professor of music
in 1974. He then worked as a tax preparer. Norland’s work in WWII and with the NSA earned him significant recognition. For example, in 1946 the British ambassador to the United States conferred upon him recognition as an honorary member of the military division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 2002, he received the Knowlton Award from the Military Intelligence Corps Association, which recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to the promotion of military intelligence, demonstrate the highest standards of integrity and moral character, display outstanding professional competence, and serve the Military Intelligence Corps with distinction.
Selmer norland ’38
Some suggest that the intelligence gathered by the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Bletchley Park, U.K., may have shortened World War II by two to four years, and many believe that the outcome of the war might have been uncertain without it. Selmer Norland ’38 was an officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1943 to 1945, serving as a member of the team of cryptologists at Bletchley Park that exploited the breaking of the German “Enigma” cipher. Norland majored in history and English and minored in German at Luther. Afterward, he taught high school, earned his M.A. in history, and probably would have gone on to earn a Ph.D., but, as happened with so many of his contemporaries, WWII changed his plans dramatically. Norland served with the Army Security Agency in occupied Germany from 1945 to 1946. Instead of returning to civilian life as a teacher, he served as a cryptological linguist with the National Security Agency in Arlington, Va., in which he would spend the rest of his career. His work took him abroad, first as an attaché to the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Norway, and later as a liaison officer in the U.S. embassy in London, U.K. Following his time in London, he was a cryptologist and deputy chief of A6, NSA, Fort Meade, Maryland, until his retirement from government service
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—excerpted from citation by Marvin Slind, Luther professor emeritus of history kirk stapleton ’78
Life and death decisions aren’t made only in operating or emergency rooms. They are just as often made in decisions regarding funding and access. It is through these avenues that Kirk Stapleton ’78 saves lives. Stapleton has more than 30 years of experience working in health care delivery systems. After graduating from Luther with a management major, he earned a master’s degree in health administration and planning. His work with transplant patients started in the late 1980s, when he founded, designed, developed, and managed an organ and tissue transplant network for United HealthCare. His company managed more than 3,000 transplant cases annually, resulting in improved transplant survival rates as well as leading the market in cost savings. Throughout Stapleton’s career, he has worked with companies to develop viable payment models, growth models, and integrated delivery systems with a particular emphasis at times on specialty networks (transplant, cardiac, and oncology). He is currently working as a general partner and consultant for the Inglewood Group, where he advises new revenue and business development, strategies, product design,
Hall of Fame inductees, left to right: Garrett Kurth ’03, Brian Hawes ’88, Katherine Shaner ’98, Chris Cinnamo ’98, and Trish (Price) Nelson ’83
financial modeling, sales, and business development adapted for legacy health business. He also serves on the boards of directors for INRange Systems, a company that provides in-home managed pharmaceutical delivery technology, and the Neighborhood Improvement Program, a not-for-profit volunteer medical home health service in Minneapolis. —with excerpts from citation by Jayme (Rutledge) Nelson ’87, Luther associate professor of nursing joan (catlin) totten ’63
Joan (Catlin) Totten ’63 graduated from Luther with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and completed coursework in gerontology at Madonna University in Detroit, Mich. Her career has centered on social work, and she served for several years as a caseworker in military hospitals with the American Red Cross. In 1990, she began working as a geriatric social worker in private practice in Farmington Hills, Mich. A major goal of her work was to keep seniors at home, in a safe environment, for as long as possible before going to a nursing home. Her biggest challenge came in 2000 as a social worker for the Marquette Apartments in downtown Milwaukee. About half of the residents of the 85-unit high-rise were elderly, and the other half suffered from varying degrees of mental illness. Prior to Totten’s arrival, there were no support services at the Marquette Apartments. With a small group of volunteers and the support of the building’s owner, Totten set out to create a supportive culture, one where community residents were charged with helping people help each other. Totten is a lifetime member of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. She has held volunteer leadership positions throughout her years there, including congregation president. She was also chair of the Refugee Resettlement Committee of Lutheran Social Services and now volunteers at the Aging and Disability Resource Center in Waukesha County, Wis. Along with her husband, David Totten, she
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Kirk Johnson ’82
established the Catlin-Totten Scholarship at Luther College in October 2003. —with excerpts from Britt (Hellgren) Rhodes ’96, Luther associate professor of social work
Five inducted into Athletic Hall of Fame Five Luther alumni were inducted into the Luther Athletic Hall of Fame during Homecoming 2013.
curt wollan ’73
In the complex, often divisive, and frequently confusing world that we inhabit, there is a fundamental need to find moments of release, relaxation, and healthy humor. One place to find this is the theatre, a space that Curt Wollan ’73 has inhabited his entire professional life. Within that space, he has played many parts, including director, designer, actor, publicist, stage carpenter, tour manager, producer, seamstress, writer, agent, and fundraiser. In short, Wollan is a theatrical renaissance person. The name of the company he founded 27 years ago, Troupe America, captures the philosophy that continues to drive him: providing opportunities for actors, designers, musicians, and a host of other theatre artists and practitioners to join him in engaging audiences from Texas to North Dakota, Iowa to Alabama. In addition, since 1988, the Plymouth Playhouse has been the home of numerous long-running Twin City hit musicals directed and/or produced by Wollan. He also serves as the director of Dollywood Entertainment and is the owner and producing artistic director of Stage West Entertainment. He has received many awards for his direction and productions, among them the Minneapolis Theatre Critics’ Kudos Award for best director in 1981 for Diamond Studs, and the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Award for best large production in 2006 of Babes in Toyland. Wollan’s production of the musical revue Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash was performed as part of Luther’s Center Stage Series in September 2013. —with excerpts from citation by Jeff Dintaman and Robert Larson, professors of theatre
to graduating from Luther College with a double major in mathematics and management. Kurth was named the IIAC Most Valuable Wrestler in 2001 and has already been inducted into the NCAA Division III National Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
garrett kurth ’03
The bigger the wrestling match, the harder time Garrett Kurth ’03 had keeping the grin off his face as he warmed up. He was a gamer, a competitor who stalked the good guys on the mat and attacked with great explosion when the opening arose. Always calm, cool, and relaxed. In his first trip to the National Collegiate Athletic Aassociation championships his junior year at Luther, Kurth upset the second seed of the tournament from Augustana 5-3 with two late takedowns in the quarterfinals, guaranteeing he would secure all-America honors. In the semis, he wrestled an unorthodox wrestler from John Carroll, just barely avoiding getting pinned by the kid’s “chest crusher” move. He won the match, advancing into the NCAA finals. As a team, Luther had secured four all-America honors and was in sixth place, one point behind Wartburg and four and a half points behind the College of New Jersey. If Kurth won his finals match, Luther would place fifth ahead of Wartburg at the NCAA Championships. After a short injury time-out early in the first period, Kurth hit a reshot on his opponent from Messiah, put him on his back, and pinned him less than a minute and a half into the match. The fans in Young Arena in Waterloo, Iowa, went crazy. The pin not only catapulted Luther ahead of Wartburg, but it moved Luther into fourth place, ahead of the College of New Jersey, meaning Kurth’s win had earned Luther wrestling its first trophy at the NCAA Championship. Kurth reached the NCAA Championship match two more times. When the dust had settled, he had earned three all-America honors and was a three-time NCAA finalist, placing first, second, and second. He also earned Scholar All-America honors en route
—excerpted from citation by Dave Mitchell, Luther head wrestling coach katherine shaner ’98
While running cross country for Luther, Kat Shaner ’98 was the champion of the Luther All-American Invitational twice and she was a three-time All-Iowa Conference runner. In her senior season, Shaner trained much of the fall in the pool due to a recurring lower leg injury yet still was able to lead her team to an Iowa Conference championship and to qualify for and compete in the national championship meet, placing 44th. In track and field, Shaner primarily raced in the 3,000- and 5,000-meter runs, and after all these years in such a storied program, Shaner still ranks as the fourth all-time best in the indoor 5K and fifth all-time in the outdoor 5K with an outstanding time of 17:42. Among her highlights, Shaner mentions running a personal record in the 5K in the prelims at the National Outdoor Championships in 1996. In the finals of that race, she was just a few places shy of being an all-American. While at Luther, Shaner eloquently exemplified the true student-athlete. She was a double major in English and German, graduating summa cum laude and earning a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Heidelberg. She went on to earn her master of divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School and in 2012 was awarded a doctor of theology degree in New Testament and early Christian history from Harvard Divinity. After teaching for several years at Harvard, Shaner has recently taken a tenuretrack position as assistant professor of New Testament at Wake Forest University, School of Divinity, teaching graduate-level courses.
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Christine Magnuson, competition swimmer and Olympic medalist, joined a group of possible future Luther swimmers and divers—grandchildren of David ’64 and Patricia Miller—at the dedication of the new Luther Aquatic Center during Homecoming. The Millers committed a $500,000 challenge gift during the college’s fundraising campaign for the aquatic center. Zach Stottler ’15
She has been an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 2007. To stay physically fit and increase her strength in recent years, she was a student of the Trapeze School of New York City and Boston. She may be the only Lutheran pastor you’ve ever known who is not only an accomplished academician but a trapeze artist as well. — excerpted from citation by Betsy Emerson, Luther head women’s track coach, 1989–2005 chris cinnamo ’98
For a 400-meter sprinter, mental and physical toughness are key. Chris Cinnamo ’98 exemplified those qualities at Luther with such track and field accomplishments as racing the 4x800 relay with a 2:01 split, followed by anchoring the 4x400 relay with a 51.0 split in back-to-back events with only seven minutes of rest. Cinnamo was a two-year letter winner in cross country, a four-year letter winner in track and field, three-time Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference all-conference performer in the 400-meter run, and a threetime National Collegiate Athletic Association qualifier. The list of his athletic highlights is much longer, but there is even more than that that makes him tick. Cinnamo has been named engineer of the year three times by his employer, Secure Computing/McAfee Inc. His resume of volunteerism includes serving at his church, coaching young athletes, and educating elementary and middle school students about cyber security and how to use the Internet safely. Cinnamo and his family return to campus often and have missed only one alumni meet since 1999, every year lacing up the spikes to run the 400 meters. —excerpted from citation by Jeff Wettach ’79, Luther head track and field coach
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Brian Hawes ’88
trish (price) nelson ’83
In the fall of 1983, KWWL in Waterloo featured 17-year-old Brian Hawes, a runner for Kee High in Lansing, Iowa, as athlete of the week. As Hawes was pictured onscreen, the sportscaster said, “He looks a little like Buddy Holly, and he runs a lot like the wind.” His high school regimen often consisted of running extra miles around the fields and woods of his family’s 400-acre farm, and Hawes developed that strong work ethic even further—athletically and academically—at Luther. He enrolled at Luther not because his older brother Mike Hawes ’85 and older sister Maureen (Hawes) Bigelow ’86 were students here but because of the tenacious and encouraging weekly calls from legendary Luther coach Kent Finanger, Hawes says. Highlights of his athletic career at Luther include captaining teams his junior and senior years and contributing to teams each of his four years at Luther that qualified for NCAA Division III nationals—especially the cross country team that won the 1985 national championship. That squad made Norse records for the only national title in the history of Luther College. After graduating from Luther summa cum laude in 1988 with a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry, Hawes continued his education, earning a Ph.D. in pharmacology. In 1996, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University. Since then he has worked as a scientist for Schering Plough and Merck Corporations, participating in and leading teams researching cures and treatments for diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular issues.
When Trish (Price) Nelson ’83 joined the Luther track team, women’s track had existed on campus for just three years. Price made her mark immediately by setting her first school record in the long jump. Her running talent was sprinting, so she was part of a dynamic 4x110-yard relay team. As a sophomore, she set records in the indoor long jump and the 4x160 and 4x176 relays. As the outdoor season arrived, she set a new long jump record. When it came time for the 1981 Iowa Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championship, Luther’s team needed to gather every point possible to come close to rival Central College. Price volunteered to train for the heptathlon although she had never even tried some of the events. By the end of a week, she had skillfully accomplished each event and was ready for the meet. The last event was the 880-yard dash. Price, who had never run more than 220s, dug deep and finished well enough to be crowned the 1981 IAIAW heptathlon champion. She set new records at each meet during her junior and senior years and finished her senior year holding seven school records: indoor long jump, 4x160 relay, 4x176 relay, eight-lap relay, outdoor long jump, 4x100 relay, and heptathlon. She finished her collegiate career by setting a new NCAA Division III long jump record. She had made a mark in national history, although her opponent from Cornell College, who jumped immediately following her, reset the national record. Price finished that meet and her collegiate track experience as the first NCAA Division III Women’s Track and Field AllAmerican for Luther College. Trish earned an M.B.A. from Keller Graduate School of Management and is controller for Brock Associates Inc. in Milwaukee.
—excerpted from citation by Mark Hostager ’84
—with excerpts from citation by Gail Grimm, Luther head track and field coach, 1979–88
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Luther rolled to a 41-7 Homecoming victory over Loras College in a packed Carlson Stadium. This was the conference opener for both teams. The Norse dominated every aspect of the game, while scoring more than 40 points for the first time since the second week of the 2009 season. Aaron Lurth ’08
Music awards presented Karen Gesme BrunsSen ’75 receives Weston Noble award
The Weston Noble Award is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the choral arts. This year’s recipient is Karen Gesme Brunssen ’75, mezzosoprano and associate professor of voice and cochair of music performance at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Her singing career has spanned more than 30 years and included solo appearances with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Among her recordings are Telemann’s Day of Judgment, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with Music of the Baroque, and a revival of John Philip Sousa’s operetta, Desiree. Noted for her spirited and inspiring presentations, Brunssen is a frequent guest clinician, master teacher, panelist, and adjudicator for music organizations. She has done unique weeklong teaching residencies at Cambridge University in England as a guest of Clare College. . . . She has also taught at the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy; at Luther’s Dorian Opera Theatre; and at the International Summer School Music Course in Shrewsbury, England. She is a former president of the Chicago Singing Teachers Guild and a former president of the Chicago Chapter National Association of Teachers of Singing, where she started the annual vocal competition that has grown to involve more than 400 singers from the Chicago area. Brunssen’s father, husband, son, sister, brother, niece, aunt, other relatives, best friends, and their family attended Luther. —excerpted from citation by Allen Hightower, Luther director of choral activities and professor of music
harry hindson ’70 receives carlo A. sperati award
In the spirit of Carlo A. Sperati, conductor of the Luther Concert Band from 1905 to 1943, Luther annually honors an alumnus who has had a distinguished career as a music educator. This year the college recognizes Harry Hindson ’70. Hindson’s first exposure to Luther occurred in 1966, when his high school band appeared at the Dorian Band Festival. The next year, 12 students from that school, Ottawa (Illinois) High School, attended Luther; five, including Hindson, were immediately made members of Concert Band. After graduating, Hindson was accepted into the United States Navy Band. In 1976 he was selected Sailor of the Quarter, and he founded the U.S. Navy Band Saxophone Quartet. He participated in eight national tours and completed a master of music degree in saxophone performance at the University of Maryland–College Park. When his naval career ended, Hindson taught privately throughout northern Illinois. He married a bass clarinetist, Jean Pederson ’71, and in 1984 Jean accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin– La Crosse, which prompted a move to southwestern Wisconsin, where they still reside. Hindson enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a doctoral student and completed his D.M.A. in saxophone performance in 1992. He has served on the faculties of Winona State University, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, and Luther College and has performed with a variety of bands and orchestras in the area. —excerpted from citation by Frederick Nyline, Luther professor emeritus of music, and Joan deAlbuquerque, Luther director of bands and associate professor of music
Bobby Ragoonanan ’14 receives Presser award
The Theodore Presser Foundation provides Luther’s Music Department with a generous scholarship for an extraordinary senior music major each year. This year’s Presser Award recipient is Bobby Ragoonanan ’14, pianist, oboist, singer, conductor, scholar, teacher, and community leader. Ragoonanan started taking piano and oboe lessons at an early age. In middle school, he participated concurrently in orchestra, band, and choir, and as a high school student in Roseville, Minn., he was invited to lead rehearsals, play the piano, and teach voice for his school district’s middle school musicals. While at Luther, he has taught voice at Roseville Area High School, served as choir and band assistant at Concordia Academy, served as guest director of the Roseville High School Summer Band Program, and directed musicals at the Chaska Valley Family Theatre. . . . He also organized a community concert series every summer and organized and performed in Food Shelf Benefit Concerts every year since 2007. Ragoonanan has distinguished himself as an honors student at Luther and has continued to develop his finely honed social conscience while actively pursuing a music major. He has served as principal oboist of the Wind and Percussion Ensemble and principal oboist of Philharmonia and has also served as a collaborative pianist for voice studios, opera productions, and the Dorian Vocal Festival. He served both as the Saturday evening traditional service pianist and as the contemporary service pianist for First Lutheran Church and was hired by Minnesota Public Radio in February 2013 to accompany a euphonium player for the Young Artist’s Competition, an event that was later broadcast. Ragoonan hopes to develop a career as an orchestral conductor. —excerpted from citation by John Strauss, Luther professor of music Winter 2014 Luther Alumni Magazine
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Aaron Lurth ’08
Football alumni were recognized at halftime of the Homecoming football game as part of the celebration of the 100th season of football at Luther.
Homecoming 2013 reunions Alumni gathered to reconnect and remember with classmates throughout Homecoming weekend. These photos were taken at receptions for some of Luther’s earlier classes. Photo albums from all of the class reunions are online at www.luther.edu/homecoming/photos.
Class of 1953, left to right: Jerry Mathre, Manuel Johnson, Avis (Nelson) Savre, Bob Savre, Don Ambroson
Class of 1943. Front: Dorothy (McMillen) Anderson and Skip Herwig. Back: Paul Schroeder and David Preus.
Class of 1948. Sitting: Lorenz Pinski. Left to right: Evelyn (Fruechte) Estenson, Alice (Michelson) Collings, Phyllis (Rood) Cleys. Class of 1953: Alton Hillesland, Irene (Schulz) Hausken, Robert Mix
Class of 1948: Warren Burstrom, Mary (Ramsland) Sordel Moe.
Kermit Hendrickson ’48 and Nora (Forde) Hendrickson ’49 Class of 1953, left to right: Marilyn (Stolle) Miller, Richard Simon Hanson, Knute Gilbertson, Nadyne (Reque) Reardon
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Alumni News
“I thought the forest might eat me up.” This fall, Boundary Waters guide and outfitter Jason Zabokrtsky ’96 asked himself, “Is it really possible to walk across canoe country?” In answer, he set out on a 90-mile bushwacking trek through the heart of the wilderness, crossing rivers without a canoe and squeezing through thickets so dense he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of his face, wondering whether the forest would swallow him whole.
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“I realized that the parts of the maps that I don’t know are the parts in brown, which show the land. I’ve seen so much blue, but I haven’t seen behind the trees.”
Jason Zabokrtsky ’96 Alumni Snapshot
O
ne wall of the Ely Outfitting Company in Ely, Minn., is papered with maps of the Boundary Waters. The shop’s owner, Jason Zabokrtsky ’96, has spent a lot of time looking at them. “It used to be that I primarily saw places I wanted to go, but I’ve been really blessed to explore a lot of this region by canoe, so eventually as I looked at the map wall, I saw places I’ve been to more than I saw places I wanted to go.” When he took a closer look, however, something stood out to him: “I realized that the parts of the maps that I don’t know are the parts in brown, which show the land. I’ve seen so much blue, but I haven’t seen behind the trees.” This wasn’t unusual in a place that’s so convenient to explore by paddle. “No one
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goes 100 yards beyond the water lines,” he explains. There’s a good reason for this: the inland thickets of the Boundary Waters are so dense that visibility shears off to a mere few feet. Travel by foot is “virtually never done up here because people know better,” Zabokrtsky jokes. But, looking for new territory, the hale and hearty adventurer decided to bushwack the Boundary Waters. He chose a route from Atikokan, Ontario, to Ely, and, with a 54-pound backpack on his shoulders, he hit the trail—or lack of one. “I basically looked at my feet for two weeks. I was really focused on my foot placement because I was concerned about twisting an ankle or knee. It’s so possible because everything was so slippery out there.”
Zabokrtsky anticipated that the 90-mile trip would take about two weeks. By day four, however, he’d already put his body through the ringer. “My legs were black and blue from my ankles through my thighs. It really looked like somebody had taken a baseball bat to them,” he says. It was time to reevaluate his strategy. “The reason I was that bruised up was because I was just crashing through brush and thickets and tree branches coming through every direction. In places, I would just put my head down and my hands behind my back and make my body like a bullet and just lean through. The backs of my hands were all scraped up and bleeding at the knuckles. “I was just looking at my body and thinking, ‘I’ve got
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Photos courtesy of Jason Zabokrtsky ’96
Alumni News
another 10 days out here—this probably is not the most sustainable way to go about this.” Zabokrtsky changed tactics and started weaving through the more open areas of forest, taking frequent compass bearings to stay roughly on track. “It helped,” he says. “My body totally bounced back.” Zabokrtsky updated his Facebook page frequently over the course of the trek (he checked in daily with friends via satellite phone), and his trek was watched with great interest by hundreds of Facebook users, as well as by regional news outlets, including the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Duluth Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio, which coordinated a live online chat between Zabokrtsky and listen-
ers in late October. Elements of the outfitter’s trip that particularly interested people were his water crossings, which were done not by canoe but by drysuit. “I had tested the system and felt confident in it,” he says. “The system was the drysuit with Crocs over the stocking-foot feet, and then I had a drybag for my pack, and that got tethered to my wrist. I wore neoprene webbed gloves so that when I was swimming, I could move more water. At times I wished I could have trolled along for fish!” Joking aside, Zabokrtsky says, “The water crossings were a significant issue. I have a real respect for water, so I tried to minimize the amount of swimming.” He suited up for about
five crossings and says, ironically, “I was typically driest and most comfortable when in the water!” Other aspects of the trek that captured the imagination of followers were Zabokrstky’s close wildlife encounters. One day, he says, it had drizzled for about 11 hours. He drew up to a low ridge, where he stopped to listen to a wolf chorus. “I was standing there, really appreciating that experience and thinking it felt really different from back in my cabin listening to wolves because here I was interacting with them totally on their own terms. And as I stood there, suddenly there was this crashing in the woods behind me. My heart jumped, and whatever it was paused and got quiet. And
then I heard a bull moose vocalize—they only vocalize when in full rut—and then the cow came past me within 40 feet at a trot. Then the bull came right behind her at a much slower pace. It curved down the low ridge right in front of me.” As for his homecoming, Zabokrtsky says, “You know you live in a special place when you can do a trip like this and basically walk home. That’s what I did: I walked right down Ely’s main street to my outfitting shop, and waiting for me at the shop were several dozen people. It was really heartwarming.” —Kate Frentzel
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New students include 90 children of alumni CALIFORNIA San Francisco Maria Dubon, daughter of Lisa Everson ’82 and Rafael Dubon ILLINOIS Aurora Melissa Norman, daughter of Kim and Russ Norman ’80 Lombard Thomas Egan, son of Karen (Madsen) ’77 and Patrick Egan Loves Park Rachel J. Adkins, daughter of Melissa (Gibson) ’87 and Terry Adkins INDIANA Indianapolis Erin Ellefsen, daughter of Peg (Braun) ’86 and Pete Ellefsen ’85 West Lafayette Rebecca Rye, daughter of Suzanne (Granquist) ’88 and Steve Rye ’87 IOWA Adel Rachel Soderstrum, daughter of Teresa Soderstrum and Brent Soderstrum ’86, West Des Moines, Iowa Cedar Falls Ryan Ehrhardt, son of Connie and Rob Ehrhardt ’85 (deceased Sept. 4, 2011) Clear Lake Kelli Gapinski, daughter of Kim (Haugen) ’79 and Dan Gapinski ’77
Davenport Emily Crowe, daughter of Katie Hanson ’82 and Dave Crowe ’82 Justin Kreiter, son of Nancy (Watson) ’91 and Eugene Kreiter ’89 Decorah Emily Alcock, daughter of Sherry (Braun) ’82 and Dave Alcock (deceased April 3, 2005) Brinn Anderson, daughter of Julie and Jim Maloney and Craig Anderson ’79, Decorah Abby Arend, daughter of Kristi and Karl Arend ’87 Hannah Bernatz, daughter of Dodi and Richard Bernatz ’77 Hans Holkesvik, son of Molly (Williams) ’97 and Bob Holkesvik ’96 Kiersten Jensen, daughter of Jane and Dave Jensen ’79 Peter Kephart, son of Ann (Tjostem) ’90 and Jim Kephart ’87 Hannah Leeper, daughter of Janene (Bachelder) ’83 and Jeff Leeper Joshua Miller, son of Jane (Dalen) ’86 and Brad Miller ’86 Andrew Sorenson, son of Joleen and Dave Sorenson ’90 Molly Wettach, daughter of Barb and Jeff Wettach ’79 Katherine Whitehill, daughter of Michelle (Gipp) ’91 and Troy Whitehill ’92 Des Moines Benjamin Sides, son of Kathy and Earl Sides ’83 Elgin Cody Torkelson, son of Cindy (Frieden) ’85 and Dirk Torkelson ’85
Clive Ellen Bunz, daughter of Susan and John Bunz ’87
Grimes Mallory Carr, daughter of Peg (Ganske) ’85 and Robert Carr ’86 Cecilia Shutt, daughter of Barb and Jim Shutt ’87
Cresco Dakota Gooder, daughter of Rebecca (Miller) ’81 and Pat Gooder
Indianola Britton Vander Linden, son of Susan (Dengler) ’88 and Eric Vander Linden ’88
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Mount Vernon Rachel Reimann, daughter of Kristin (Jensen) ’88 and Paul Reimann ’89 Pella Gabrielle Meirick, daughter of Norma and Phil Meirick ’87 Swea City Leslie Brandt, daughter of Mary (Henriksen) ’83 and Lennon Brandt Urbana Kaia Monson, daughter of Sheila (Pflibsen) ’87 and Kirk Monson Waterloo James Stortz, son of Bridget Dunbar and John Stortz ’69 (deceased Nov. 21, 2012) Kathryn Yarwood, daughter of Corrine and Mark Yarwood ’83 MARYLAND Chevy Chase Lars Sorenson, son of Ruth and Arne Sorenson ’80 MICHIGAN Traverse City Hannah Will, daughter of Nancy Ackerman Will ’85 and Katherine and Brad Will ’85, Traverse City, Mich. MINNESOTA Austin Mollie Mickelson, daughter of Maria (Spieker) ’89 and Todd Mickelson Brownsdale Addison Tapp, daughter of Kristin Tapp and Mike Tapp ’88, Dexter, Minn. Crystal Rachel Johnson, daughter of Shirley and Dan Johnson ’80 Eden Prairie Sylvia Kaare, daughter of Sharon and Steve Kaare ’86
Mitchell Stenoien, son of Kirsten (Reigle) ’89 and Peter Stenoien ’89 Edina Erika Finanger, daughter of Kim and Phil Finanger ’79 Gunnar Swanson, son of Lynne (Erickson) ’85 and James Swanson Eyota Brett Blattner, son of Kristi (Pederson) ’88 and Michael Blattner Falcon Heights Julia Johnson, daughter of Liz and Greg Johnson ’89 Fridley Emma Stivers, daughter of Jill (Evans) Stivers ’87 and Wendy and Scott Stivers ’88, Woodbury, Minn. Hastings Aaron Munter, son of Tricia (Glader) ’81 and David Munter Lakeville Kathryn Olson, daughter of Joan and Neil Olson ’84 Maple Grove Taylor Felton, daughter of Tracy and Grant Felton ’80 Minneapolis Noah Boltik, son of Erin (Sebbert) ’87 and Ronald Boltik Amy Kittelson, daughter of Beth Kittelson and Gary Kittelson ’72, Minneapolis Northfield William Bestul, son of Jenny (Bolton) ’85 and Terry Bestul ’78 Owatonna Kellen Glynn, son of Kristin and Terry Glynn ’90 Plymouth Alexa Schroeder, daughter of Lynn (Pedersen) ’88 and Erich Schroeder
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Alumni News
Help Bring the Next Generation to Luther Hey Luther alumni, did you know that students you nominate as promising Luther prospectives will receive a $100 voucher for the Book Shop when they enroll? Simply visit www.luther.edu/admissions/bookvoucher and submit the names of students you’d like to see at Luther. When your nominees enroll here, they will be given a voucher to use toward books or other merchandise at the store during their first year as a Luther student. What a great way to launch another generation of Luther alumni!
NORTH DAKOTA Minot Krista Mathistad, daughter of Janet (Hernes) ’83 and Todd Mathistad NEBRASKA Sidney Sarah Krueger, daughter of Annette (Roney) ’86 and Dave Krueger ’87 NEW JERSEY Long Valley Zachary Bumpus, son of Judy (Farwell) ’80 and Brian Bumpus ’80 NEW YORK Chappaqua Cade Bolen, son of Connie Plaehn ’75 and Ted Bolen, New York, N.Y.
Are you a teacher or administrator in the field of education? Would you like to show pride in your alma mater by proudly displaying a Luther College pennant in your classroom or office? If so, we would love to accommodate you. We have a free Luther pennant waiting to be delivered to you. Go to www.admissions.luther.edu/ pennant and complete the online request form to receive your pennant today!
Princeton Isaiah Mayerchak, son of Mary and Richard Mayerchak ’77
St. Paul Jennifer Martin, daughter of Kris (Lerud) ’74 and Chip Martin
Rochester Evan Berg, son of Pam (Braun) ’83 and Jim Berg ’84 Jillian Harstad, daughter of Denise (Kruse) ’86 and Carter Harstad
St. Peter Audrey Dontje Lindell, daughter of Laura Lindell ’82 and James Dontje ’83
Rushford Erika Hinz, daughter of Lynn (Humble) ’89 and David Hinz St. Charles Abigail Forbes, daughter of Lori (Cedarholm) Hilmer ’83 and Craig Hilmer and Jeff Forbes, Austin, Minn. Megan McCready, daughter of Ann and Scott McCready ’90
Sartell Andrew Reitz, son of Heidi (Koukkari) ’84 and Alan Reitz ’83 Wayzata Nicholas Brahs, son of Becky Ulstad Brahs ’80 and John Brahs Zumbrota Annika Sand, daughter of Ronda Anderson Sand ’85 and Doug Sand ’85
WISCONSIN Alma Lara Bacon, daughter of Maran (Mandsager) ’87 and Joel Bacon ’88 Appleton Kevin Hash, son of Linda (Rosholt) ’85 and Lee Hash ’84 Bayfield Inga Aleckson, daughter of Jane Aleckson and Eric Aleckson ’85, Amery, Wis. Blue River Elizabeth Keegan, daughter of Valerie (Perkins) ’93 and Ryan Keegan Brookfield Jordan Lawrence, daughter of Rebecca (Knutson) ’79 and Lee Lawrence Bjorn Norderhaug, son of Linda and Michael Norderhaug ’77 Cambridge Hannah Kaare, daughter of Susan Kaare and Brenda and Paul Kaare ’84, Cambridge, Wis.
Madison Marlene Jones, daughter of Cathy and Hugh Jones ’81 Emily Kuhn daughter of Karen (Brugge) ’87 and Brian Kuhn Monona Olivia Toal, daughter of Christine and Jack Toal ’80 Mount Horeb Leah Rasmussen, daughter of Wendy and Jeffrey Rasmussen ’80 Pewaukee Bethany Noltner, daughter of Kari and Steve Noltner ’81 Racine Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of Kari Sena Gordon ’81 and Rod Gordon St. Croix Falls Noah Casterton, son of Debra Landin ’85 and Jim Casterton ’85, Milltown, Wis. Incoming Transfer Alumni Children IOWA Decorah Gabriel Eide, son of Beth (Cooper) ’88 and Greg Eide ’87 Peosta Jacob Lembezeder, son of Jennifer (Carlson) ’86 and John Lembezeder MINNESOTA Brooklyn Park Corey Smith, son of Arden Smith and Roger Smith and Ann Bentdahl ’85, Edina, Minn. Hayfield Micah Thorson, son of Kathy (Miller) Pinke-Thorson ’78 and Mark Thorson WISCONSIN Fort Atkinson Brittany Engstrom, daughter of Denise and Craig Engstrom ’88
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Whiteley ’13 participates in Nobel laureates meeting in Germany
Annie Whiteley ’13, second from left, with other students nominated by Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre to attend the Nobel Laureate Chemistry Meeting in Germany last July.
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eorgianna (Annie) Whiteley ’13 credits a fellow Minnesotan and Nobel Prize winner with helping her attend a prestigious meeting of chemists in Germany last summer. For a week in July, 625 undergraduate and postgraduate students participated alongside 34 Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany, for the 2013 Lindau Nobel Laureate Chemistry Meeting. After being named a 2013 Rhodes Scholar, Whiteley was contacted by Dr. Peter Agre. Agre, a 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Northfield, Minn., encouraged Whiteley to apply and recommended her application to the conference. According to the Nobel Laureate Meetings review panel, more than 20,000 young researchers applied to attend the chemistry conference. After preliminary evaluations and selection procedures, the number of applicants was reduced to the top candidates. This year,
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78 countries were represented among the students. Whiteley described her reaction to being named one of the privileged 625: “I was very surprised and excited to learn that I had gotten in! Many of the other researchers attending were much more ‘serious chemists,’ meaning they were in the midst of pursuing their Ph.D. in chemistry or even doing postdoctoral research in the field, and I had just done undergraduate chemistry research at the U of I one summer, but I think Dr. Agre’s recommendation of me for the conference was critical,” Whiteley says. At the meeting, Whiteley spent mornings listening to lectures by Nobel laureates, who discussed topics of primary concern in the scientific communities, ranging from climate control to the future of personalized medicine. Afterward, Whiteley and her fellow participants ate lunch, where she had the opportunity to create friendships with fellow young scientists
from diverse cultural backgrounds. Following lunch were question-and-answer sessions with the laureate presenters. “It was a phenomenal experience—I realized just how ‘human’ Nobel laureates are. They are just like every other researcher, spending immense number of hours in their labs, fully committed to their work and then finally making some amazing breakthrough or discovery (with a mix of complete commitment and often just luck). They were all incredibly approachable and willing to answer any questions of the participants,” she says. The Nobel laureates’ goal to pass the torch and create excitement about the future of scientific research and discoveries was well received by the chemistry major. “I think the conference really showed the immense diversity of research topics within just one field of science, and it highlighted the issues for the future of science as a whole. As a person who is most interested in the medical applications of what I learned at the conference, from the bioethics of discovering your own genome and genetic mutations to the potential impact of climate change on our health, it provided a great background for me to become informed about those issues that will greatly impact medicine and its delivery in the future, since it will be up to our generation to try to solve these problems,” Whiteley says. Whitely is currently studying at the University of Oxford in England as a Rhodes Scholar. —Paige Lobdell ’16
Tours
Forsgrens to lead Austria cycling tour Luisa and Peter Forsgren ’82 will lead a bicycling tour of Austria, June 11–23, 2014. The ride, along the Danube River from Salzburg to Vienna, will begin with a brief introduction and orientation in Vienna before setting out by train to Salzburg. Participants should be ready to bike up to four hours a day, at their own speed. Terrain will be mostly flat, with some hilly stretches in the Salzkammergut. Bikes will be rented in Salzburg. Highlights along the way include Lambach, which was in 2009 named the European Capital of Culture; the village of Enns, oldest in Austria; the romantic Baroque village of Grein; the Wachau Valley, recently nominated as a UNESCO World Culture Heritage Area; and historic monasteries along the way. There will be time to explore Salzburg and Vienna, including a morning Mass concert on June 22 and a trip to the elegant gardens of the Schonbrum Palace. Accommodations will be three-star hotels and inns. Cost for the trip is $1,950. Each participant is repsonsible for securing his or her own flights to and from Vienna. Registration is due Jan. 30. For more information, visit www.luther.edu/alumni/ events/alumni-tours or contact Sherry Alcock ’82, executive director of alumni relations, (800) 225-8664 or (563) 387-1861 or alcock@luther.edu.
Alumni Office offers Bach and Bonhoeffer tour The Luther Alumni Office is offering a two-week tour to Germany and the Czech Republic, June 14–27, 2015, titled Music
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and Conscience: Bach and Bonhoeffer. The tour begins in Berlin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birthplace and the center of his teaching and work in the resistance against Hitler. The group will then travel to Leipzig, where J.S. Bach culminated his career and composed his most beloved works. There the group will attend the internationally acclaimed Bach Festival. An optional side trip to Wittenberg will be offered during the time in Leipzig. Two days immersed in the art and culture of Dresden will follow. En route to the tour’s final destination, Prague—a city teeming with art and culture—the group will visit Flossenburg Concentration Camp, the site of Bonhoeffer’s execution in 1945. Interspersed throughout the tour will be informal lectures and discussions with faculty tour leaders Jim Martin-Schramm, Luther professor of religion, and Gregory Peterson ’83, Luther associate professor of music and college organist. Peterson will also give an organ recital during the tour. Coleading the tour are Ann Sponberg Peterson, Luther director of development, principal gifts, and Karen MartinSchramm, executive assistant to Luther’s president. All Luther alumni, parents, and friends interested in exploring the relationship of music and conscience in the lives and works of Bach and Bonhoeffer are invited to participate. For details about the tour as they become available, contact Karen Martin-Schramm at kms@luther. edu; phone (563) 387-1527.
In 2013 tour, Luther pilgrims followed Portuguese Camino Eleven eager pilgrims with ties to Luther College began the Portuguese Camino de Santiago last July in Lisbon, heart of
Photo courtesy of Peter Forsgren ’82
Alumni News
The pilgrims of the Luther College Camino tour last July. Front row (left to right): Lynn Black, Luisa Forsgren, Mary (Bay) Johnson ’69. Second row: Eurico Silva, James Herman ’70, Linda (Peterson) Herman ’75, Kathleen Adam, Richard Roehrkasse ’69. Third row: Peter Forsgren ’82, Ann-Caroline Davis, Phillip Adam. Portugal’s historical discoveries. We climbed over Roman ruins to a Moorish fortress that was later transformed into St. George Castle. From the castle, we looked over the historic Port of Lisbon. Its 20th-century bridge was modeled after the Golden Gate Bridge and spans the Tejo River, center of New World explorations during the 15th and 16th centuries. Mary (Bay) Johnson ’69 discovered the first of many yellow arrows that point pilgrims on their way along the Camino. These yellow arrows, along with seashell tiles, were our guides on the Way. Walking to the Fort of Valencia on the northern border of Portugal, we could see the Tui Cathedral in Spain on the opposite side of the Minho River. Once at the cathedral, we took our first hiking break and received our first official Camino Passport stamp. The Camino Passport confirms the starting point, walking dates, and distance walked and is presented at the Pilgrims’ Office in Santiago.
In past centuries, the Camino Certification was required of pilgrims by the church to prove rehabilitation at the end of the Camino for law-breakers. The Camino winds along the ancient Roman Route XIX, connecting the city of Braga, Portugal, to Astoria, Spain. As an important Roman trading route 2,000 years ago, the legacy of Roman engineering and lifestyle was reflected in the roads, mineral-spring spas, bridges, and mile markers that we passed. The spirit of the Galician people was so welcoming and generous that it shaped our understanding of Iberian culture. Hospitality came in many forms. At the Convent of Shoeless Nuns, a woman guided us to a room with a door, a tiny turnstile, and many small peepholes. We were not allowed to see the nuns on the other side of the wall, so we ordered the convent specialty, almond pastries, by placing money on the turnstile. A spin of the turnstile delivered our fresh pastries!
Further along, we encountered a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in a chapel along the path. They warmly greeted us and invited us to share in their celebration. A shout from a welcoming farmer invited us into his shady backyard. He shared refreshing ice water and apologized that the fruit on his trees was not yet ripe. Otherwise, his wife would have baked us a pie! Bom Camino—Good Way—is the greeting linking all pilgrims hiking the trail. Bom Camino brought us serendipitous acquaintances, and we exchanged stories with people from across the world. Linda (Peterson) ’75 and Jim Herman ’70 of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, walked a distance with Nikita, an academic translator of Polish to Russian, and Mariya, an archeologist. We reconnected with these and other pilgrims in Santiago and Finesterra. Each day delicious food nourished us while colorful flowers framed the miles of small
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vineyards and family farms. Symbols of the local food culture are kiwis and peppers. Kiwi farms are a tremendous success begun just in the last two decades. Yet, monks brought the famous Herbon peppers to Padron from South America several centuries ago. For pilgrims, blisters are common. At one resting spot, a group from Italy stopped to offer their advice and treatment. In return, Lynn Black of Morganton, N.C., from our group, shared tufts of lamb’s wool. Outside the town of Padron, we stayed in an old stone farmhouse transformed into a guesthouse. A farmer’s breakfast of meat, cheese, fruit, homemade bread, and cake prepared us to hike. From its roof we could see the river with its migrating fish leading to the Atlantic. In ancient times, Padron was a harbor for boats. (A large
stone used to moor a fishing boat was called a padron.) Legend has it that St. James, patron saint of Santiago, preached here. After his death, faithful brethren returned his body by boat to Padron. Today, St. James’s padron serves as the altar foundation in Padron’s St. James Church. The city of Padron is also the hometown of Camilo Jose Cela, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1989. Two Galician women captured our experience best: “Our tradition is simple. We are welcoming. Our lands are fertile. We eat well. However, we are poor.” Honoring this tradition, we walked in sync with the peaceful rhythm and natural beauty of Galicia. On our final day we passed the Paideia Foundation, where we shared our personal experiences with Luther College traditions. As we headed into
Santiago, jubilant pilgrims embraced one another and celebrated the end of their journey to the Compostela. During Sunday Mass in Santiago Cathedral, a massive incense burner, or botafumeiro, suspended from the center of the cathedral, flew above us, filling the air with mist and incense. In earlier times this ritual was used to mask the stench of the pilgrims who walked from all over Europe. It has grown so large that eight monks are required to pull the ropes that propel it in spectacularly high swings. The gospel lesson for the day was the familiar story of Jesus visiting the home of Mary and Martha. In his homily, the priest asked each of us to reflect deeply on the meaning of our personal Camino pilgrimages so that we might be changed and strengthened by this wonderful tradition. The next day, we headed for
Early in her career, Phyllis (Dankers) Yes ’63 was labeled a feminist artist, known for painting lace designs on things that had a masculine association, including a Porsche she titled PorShe. Luther’s art collection contains some of her later works—two ceramic female torsos adorned with necklaces that resemble military medals. For Yes, the “medals” represent the achievements of ordinary women: “This person got all this décor because she changed a lot of diapers. Another one might have waited in grocery lines for hours,” Yes said in a gallery talk in Luther’s Kristin WigleyFleming Fine Arts Gallery during Homecoming 2013 last October. “So you see, there is a
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Bob Modersohn
Gallery talk traces feminist thread through the works of Phyllis Yes ’63
Phyllis (Dankers) Yes ’63 gives a gallery talk at her show on campus last fall. feminist thing that runs through my mind.” For her fall Luther show, Yes brought a series of paintings of flower bouquets—not particularly feminist at first glance, but the story behind them is revealing. Yes, now professor emerita of art at Lewis & Clark College, attended faculty meetings at the school in an august, woodpaneled room. She told the crowd at her gallery talk that the walls were adorned with bronze
letters spelling out the names of “twenty-four great thinkers of the world: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Jesus Nazareth, you name it—24 of them.” No women were named. The few women faculty at Lewis & Clark when Yes started there in 1978 wondered what message that sent to the student body, which was 55 percent women. The women came up with the names of about 15 women who had changed the world in a major way. Their
Finisterre, known as the “end of the earth” for centuries. We climbed a steep, rugged trail through a pine forest to a ridge with a spectacular view. Eurico (historian, guide, and storyteller) explained that the rocks on the ridge were known as balancing rocks since they seem to hang balanced on each other. A tradition of the Camino is to pick up a small rock as a symbol of a worry or burden, carry it to the next mile marker or to the “end of the earth,” and leave it. Laying down our rocks releases our burdens to the care of God. Perched on the rocks overlooking Finisterre, we felt grateful for the team we had become—a group of people rooted in Luther College now traveling as a “mosaic in motion” on the Camino de Santiago. — Luisa and Peter Forsgren ’82
initiative didn’t go over well with the president of the college, though, and he ordered all of the men’s names taken down rather than adding any women. Later, Yes did 15 paintings including the men’s names who’d been named on the wall. In front of each name was a bouquet in honor of one of the women. The works were displayed in Yes’s last show at Lewis & Clark. Her exhibit of similar work at a Seattle gallery was reviewed in a Seattle newspaper. A critic, known for being tough, surprised Yes. She recalled his review: “We know that Phyllis Yes has been known as a feminist artist for a long time, but these flowers are so gorgeous and so beautiful they don’t need those men’s names. “So,” Yes told her gallery audience, “you are seeing the results of that encouragement to just continue to do what I was doing.”
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Attendees of the 2013 Luther Black Alumni Reunion enjoy a fun moment during a dinner on campus.
Black Alumni Reunion is an opportunity to meet and network with current students and a way to preserve history
G
reg Fields ’77, Luther regent, is quick to respond when asked what he—and Luther—hoped to accomplish when he helped conceive and organize the inaugural Black Alumni Reunion held on campus a decade ago. “I had a long conversation with Rick Torgerson, then Luther president, when my son, Brandon, was looking at attending Luther,” he recalls. “We talked about why there was so little engagement among black alumni with the college and what Luther could do to strengthen that bond.” Not only did Brandon end up following in his father’s footsteps— he graduated from Luther in 2004—but that discussion also planted the seed for the college’s first Black Alumni Reunion, planned over the course of a year by Fields and Sherry (Braun) Alcock ’82, executive director of alumni relations and development services. Nearly 50 black alumni from across the United States and abroad attended the event in February 2003. “That reunion brought back black alumni spanning five decades to campus,” Fields says. “They established new relationships among fellow alumni and with the college and also reestablished old relationships cultivated years before.” The reunion soon evolved into a yearly event, held on campus some years and off campus others. Off-campus sites have included Chicago and Las Vegas. “Every time a reunion has been held, someone who has not attended before has decided to participate,” Fields says. “The more opportunities you give alumni to reconnect with Luther, the more likely they will be to return to campus or
attend an event held off campus. . . . It’s important that it not be a one-shot deal.” The most recent Black Alumni Reunion, held in Decorah during Homecoming last October, drew more than 30 alumni and students for a weekend of programming that, in addition to a gridiron victory over Loras College in front of a vocal Carlson Stadium crowd, included an opening reception at Rubaiyat restaurant; a dinner featuring Novian Whitsitt, Luther associate professor of Africana studies and English, and Guy Nave, Luther associate professor of religion, as speakers; and a closing brunch, also held at Rubaiyat. “The Black Alumni Reunion is critical to Luther as it is an essential way to celebrate the long, distinguished history of black students, alumni, faculty, and staff of the college as well as preserve that history,” says Sandy Chiweshe ’02, organizer of the event in recent years. “Even more importantly, it’s crucial to the future of the college as Luther prides itself in its culture of acceptance and inclusion.” Asked to name a highlight of the most recent reunion, both Chiweshe and Fields pointed to the number of black students and young alumni who attended the event. “It was a great opportunity for older alumni to meet younger alumni and current students and network with them,” Fields says. “The best part of the 2013 reunion was being able to mix and mingle with these young people, share the experiences we have all had at Luther and in Decorah, and continue the legacy of black alumni at the college.”
PHOTOS: Will williamson ’71
— Sara Friedl-Putnam
A group of Luther alumni, students, faculty, and staff mixed, mingled, and reconnected during Homecoming last October.
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developed and adds photos to his website www.HolyLandPhotos.org, which has over 4,100 images from Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Italy, and Egypt.
class notes
1955 CLARIE (RENSLO)
STRENG BROSTE of Buda, Texas, was part of a delegation from North Texas/North Louisianna Synod that traveled to Sierre Leone, West Africa, in February 2013. They were present for the dedication of the Jubilee Centre in Freetown as part of the ELCA Sister Synod Program. The group was invited to meet with the president of the country, Ernest Bai Koroma.
Hanson ’53 lectures, “How the Bible Happened,” available on DVD A series of lectures titled “How the Bible Happened,” by Richard Simon Hanson ’53, Luther professor emeritus of religion, have been gathered into an eight-DVD set. While working on his Ph.D. at Harvard University, Hanson worked extensively with the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Upper Galilee, now known as Palestine. On these discs, he also shares the backstories and talks about personalities that shaped tribes and nations that were the locus of these religious writings. This lecture series was sponsored by the Northeast Iowa UnitarianUniversalist Fellowship in 2006. Proceeds are to be used by NEIUU for education. Many alumni—and many of Hanson’s former students—visited with him at a table set up to sell the DVDs in the Union during Homecoming 2013. For more information or to purchase the $45 set, go to http:// uudecorah.org/learning/dvd. The DVDs are also available at the Luther Book Shop and at Dragonfly Books in Decorah.
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1960 CAROL (WILLIAMS)
HASVOLD of Decorah was recognized at the Daughters of the American Revolution State Conference for outstanding achievement in historic preservation.
is intended to bring grandparent and grandchild together to create a written account of the grandparent’s life. It offers a series of questions that the grandchild can ask in order to write a grandparent’s biography. There are questions for the grandparent to ask the grandchild, too. The book builds on the special bond between grandparent and grandchild at all ages. Visit www.mygrandparentjournal.com or Amazon for more information. MARY (DAHLMAN) and CARL RASMUSSEN live in New Brighton, Minn. Since his retirement in 2008, the two have led three or four groups a year to places such as Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. In 2010, Zondervan published Carl’s Zondervan Atlas of the Bible and will publish his new book, The Essential Bible Atlas, this year. Carl has also
1965 PAUL OLSEN is
professor of English and head men’s cross country and track and field coach at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. Olsen has been an Augustana mainstay since taking over the cross country program in 1966. He has spent 47 years as the men’s cross country coach and 45 years as the men’s track and field coach. Both teams have seen great success while he has led them. Olsen was inducted into the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame at the USTFCCCA Convention in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 16, 2013.
1963 MARY J. (GAARDER)
NIELSEN is a real estate associate in Lilburn, Ga. JEANETTE (WIRTH) and PAUL TOBIASON ’64 are retired and live in Independence, Wis. He serves as interim pastor at Little Norway and Squaw Creek Lutheran churches. She is an organist, choir director, and piano teacher.
1964 DICK EDWARDS is
coauthor of a book, with Korinn S. Hawkins, called My Grandparent: A Life and Times Journal for Grandchildren of All Ages. The book
Betty (Rikansrud) Nelson ’57 of Decorah participated in a professional live theatre production at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro, Minn., last summer. She received the “Star for a Day” honor for a walk-on role she won at the 25th season anniversary gala at the theatre. Nelson joined the cast in the production of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz. From left, standing: Jeremy van Meter, Carla Joseph, Daniel Stock, Nelson, David Hennessey, Stef Dickens ’04, Mike Swan. Kneeling: Hal Cropp, Gary Danciu ’10.
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Class of ’64 members gather in Wisconsin
Seventeen alumni of ’65 celebrated their 70th birthdays on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Front row, left to right: Lori (Wogan) Haaland, Nancy (Bonde) Evenson, Kathy (Larsen) Throdahl, RuthAnn (Johnson) Atkinson, Pat (Kvamme) Duschek, Jane (Dicke) Dettloff. Back row: Marie (Peterson) Marin, Karen (Nilsestuen) Peterson, Barb (Anderson) Nelson, Judy (Zimmer) Olson, Bev (Nelson) Clark, Sue (Schwager) Baum, Barb (Forland) Neils, Marcia (Peterson) Van Vleet, Mary (Shafland) Hutson, Elaine (Voss) Monis, Mary (Kaasa) Ulland.
Luther friends saw each other for the first time since the 1969 wedding of Diane (Walsh) Matson ’69. They had a dinner meeting in Madison in October. From left: Jane Sandberg ’69, Matson, and Ginny (Lindquist) Bosse ’70.
The class of 1964 will gather to celebrate its 50th class reunion at Luther this year, but for the past 15 years, many 1964 graduates who were members, or honorary members, of Pi Sigma Omicron have gathered together around the country. Fifteen couples celebrated at the summer home of Richard and Barbara Amundson in Shell Lake, Wis., Sept. 12–15, 2013. The weekend ended with a group singing/ worship/sharing time before everyone departed. The first “annual” gathering was in 1999 in San Diego, hosted by Steve Messer, and since then the group has gathered in West Virginia, Oregon, Florida, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado. There is a host couple at each location, and the group decides on next year’s location before they depart. All 30 who gathered at Shell Lake this year are looking forward to attending next year’s 50th class reunion.
Front row, left to right: Sue (Savre) Ashland ’66, Pat (McCullough) Edwards ’63, Suzanne Birkestrand, Barb (Erickson) Dodd ’67, Linda Matter, Ann (Fritz) Woelffer. Back row: Dick Ashland, Dick Edwards, Dennis Birkestrand ’66, Ron Dodd, Jim Matter, Mike Woelffer ’63.
Population boom lifts Jerry Erickson ’61 to mayor of fourth-smallest county seat in U.S. In August, the town of Amidon, N.D., and its mayor, Jerry Erickson ’61, lost a distinction: the town is no longer the smallest U.S. county seat. Three other counties have edged out Amidon, according to the 2010 U.S. census, with the smallest being Gann Valley, S.D., which boasts 14 people to Amidon’s 33. (The latter counted 20 citizens in the census, but there’s since been a population boom.) North Dakota’s Fargo-Moorhead Forum reports that the Lilliputian town, which receives oil and tax revenue, expects to have a city hall within a year, granting it a meeting space and dedicated storage for the city-owned Bobcat skid-steer loader. Other town plans include a Fitterer Oil credit card fueling island as well as an underground bar—tongue-in-cheekly called the Bunker Bar—at a local campground. While Amidon may have lost the accolade of being the smallest county seat in the nation, its White Butte remains the highest point in North Dakota.
Front row, left to right: Jim Boyce, Luther Nervig, Sharon Boyce, Emily (Homstad) Bodensteiner, Tom Lawrence. Middle row: Helen Mundahl, Kay Saxvik, Donna (Wangsness) Weigle, Linda (Ladd) Messer, Bonnie (Curtis) Behnken, Marilyn Nervig, Maddy (Preus) Lawrence. Back row: Dale Mundahl, Erik Saxvik, Jim Weigle, Steve Messer, Barry Behnken, Joe Bodensteiner.
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DALE SCHROEDER is the State Senate doorkeeper for the Iowa General Assembly’s State Senate in Des Moines, Iowa.
1976 GARY GRINDELAND is pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Bayonne, N.J.
1967 MARK REINSMOEN
retired after 28 years as a teacher for Echo Park Elementary in Burnsville, Minn. In June, he published his first novel, J-Hawk Nation, which focuses on the triumphs of a small-town high school basketball team. The book is available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and www.outskirtspress.com/jhawknation.
1970 BILL KOBLER of
Rockford, Ill., was elected treasurer for the American Medical Association Foundation and serves on its board of directors. LINDA (MEYER) THOMPSON is a healthcare consultant in Spokane (winter) and Bellingham (summer), Wash.
1973 ROCKLON “ROCKY”
CHAPIN has been named president/ CEO of Benedictine Health System, which is a Catholic, nonprofit, longterm care health system based in Duluth, Minn. CAROL GALVIN WICK is a bilingual elementary teacher for Eagle Valley Elementary in Eagle, Colo. RANAE (KEOPPEL) GIPP of Decorah retired from teaching at Northeast Iowa Community College. DAVID OLSON is senior vice president for F&M Bank in South Sioux City, Iowa.
1975 STEVE CONNELL
directs the Pride of the Dutchmen Marching Band from MOCFloyd Valley Senior High School in Orange City, Iowa. The band participated in the 124th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. More than 300 bands from around the world applied to be in the parade, and 21 bands were chosen.
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1977 STEVE AMUNDSON is conductor of the St. Olaf Orchestra at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. The orchestra was the 2013 winner of the American Prize in Orchestral Performance. The American Prize is a series of nonprofit competitions designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles, and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings.
1978 KAREN (BRADLEY)
BUECHLER earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Iowa and is a nurse consultant with the Department of Public Health in Des Moines, Iowa. DONNA NOVEY earned a master’s degree in music education from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago. She is band director at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, Minn. She is a sergeant first class in the Army Reserve and is currently in individual ready reserve for the 451st Army Band. EVERETT SCHMIDT JR. is director of Christian education for St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Wausau, Wis.
1979 HANS BRATTSKAR is
Norway’s state secretary for foreign affairs (deputy foreign minister). He was previously the country’s ambassador to Kenya and Somalia and permanent representative to the United Nations Offices in Nairobi. JIM NIELSEN is a college instructor for SIAS University in Xinzheng, Henan, China. MARY LYNN (SWENSON) RETTIG is director of development–major gifts for the University of Iowa Foundation in Iowa City.
In June, Kathy (Willi) ’81 and Kris Gregersen ’82 accepted the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for Luther College from Gov. Terry Branstad on behalf of president emeritus Rick Torgerson. Left to right: Iowa DNR secretary Chuck Gipp ’70, lieutenant governor Kim Reynolds, Kris Gregersen, Kathy Gregersen, and Branstad.
1980 SCOTT HANSON is
a major general in the U.S. Air Force and director of operations for Headquarters Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.
1981
LAURIE HEYER is senior vice president of operations for BC Idaho in Boise. LAURA (NELSON) and STEVE SCHROEDER live in Mantorville, Minn. She earned a master’s degree in business administration from Augsburg College and a doctor of physical therapy degree from the University of Montana. He is an IT manager for Ability Building Center Inc.
STEVE MEANS is the general counsel and vice president for legal affairs and compliance for the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation in Madison.
1984 MARK HOSTAGER is
an associate judge for Iowa District 1A in Dubuque. JEFFREY O’BRIEN is a historical preservation architect for FrantzHobart Design in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1985 ERIC ALLEN is owner of Eric Allen Productions in Los Angeles.
DAVID BUSCH is vice president for Viroqua (Wis.) Bank.
1982 DAVID LENTH is a
pastor at Ossian (Iowa) Lutheran Church.
MARY BETH PETRAK DE AVILA is a choir instructor for West Las Vegas (N.M.) High School.
1983 COLLEEN COLBERT
is career program coordinator for the Yale School of Management. She also owns and operates Bladen Valley Farm in Woodbridge, Conn., which was accepted by the National Register of Historic Places after receiving the First Annual Barn Grant in 2008.
TOM ROSHOLT of Racine, Wis., is vice president of Morpace International Inc.’s Analytics and Modeling Team. SHERRY (SEEGER) RUSSELL is a clinical director and therapist for NorServ Group Ltd. in St. Clair, Mich. She is also a special child advocate and is a doctoral student in nursing practice in psychiatric mental health at the University of Michigan-Flint.
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1986 JOHN ROSENDAHL
is vice president of finance for the portrait division of Lifetouch in Minneapolis.
1987 ERIC JOHNSON is
director of choral activities at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. He is also the founding music director of the professional choir Cor Cantiamo. Johnson and the choir were contracted with Centaur Records to commercially record and release the choral music of Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, who will be participating in the recording sessions. Cor Cantiamo performed at the Central Division ACDA Convention and presented a world premiere concert for the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music by composer Daniel Knaggs. The choir also performed an American premiere concert at College Church in Wheaton, Ill., in collaboration with Soli Deo Gloria and their Psalm’s Project. SARAH LENTZ-KAPUA was recognized at a retirement ceremony at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii. She holds positions as an associate professor of pediatrics with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and Josh A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu. She now lives in Bettendorf, Iowa, and is
medical director of newborn services for UnityPoint–Trinity. KATY (SAUERS) MAKER of Decorah is a midwife for Gundersen Clinic. Last spring she traveled to Cambodia for six months to teach and assist other midwives for Life Option Asia. MIKE MILLS is a medical technologist for University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.
1988 GENE ALBERTS is
vice president of finance at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis. He was named employee of the year for the 2012–13 academic year. VIRGINA (GROTZ) HAGEN is a support engineer for SAP America in La Crosse, Wis. MARTY JACOBSON is pastor at Community Lutheran Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. ERICA (HEATH) KENNEDY is lead pastor at Atonement Lutheran Church in St. Cloud, Minn. LINDA (GEHRING) RAETHKE is a student health nurse for the University of Wisconsin-Stout. CHRISTINE SPERATI EASTBURN is project manager for Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics in Newark, Del.
Several Luther students and alumni play with the summer municipal band in Boone, Iowa. The band performs nine concerts each summer, once a week June–July. There are about 50 members, so Luther makes up almost 20 percent of the group. Front row, left to right: Laura Martin ’17, Julie (Lawson) Thompson ’74, Kara (Hebrink) Swenson ’83. Back row: Josh Bacon ’14, Katie Fillmore ’15, Mariah Crotty ’15, Paul Navara ’78, Dave Swenson ’81. Not pictured is Ted Erickson ’76.
Patrick Whitesell ’87, father restore Iowa Falls theatre, reopen with Hugh Jackman Patrick Whitesell ’87 and his father, John, recently restored the Metropolitan Opera House in Patrick’s hometown of Iowa Falls, Iowa. Patrick, who grew up watching movies at the opera house in the town of 6,000, is now co-CEO of the William Morris Endeavor talent agency, where he represents Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jude Law, and Christian Bale, among other high-profile entertainers. John purchased the building, which was erected in 1899 and which had fallen into bankruptcy, for about $65,000 in May. Patrick was an eager collaborator in the renovation, which reportedly cost around $500,000 and involved replacing the roof and HVAC system, restoring the proscenium, and installing digital projectors. The theatre reopened in September in true Hollywood style, with actor and Whitesell client Hugh Jackman in attendance to premiere his thriller Prisoners. John recalls, “Opening night was great. What had happened was that Hugh—the family has known him for years—and Patrick were in London, where he had just done the opening of Wolverine. They were having a cup of coffee, and Hugh called me to congratulate us and said ‘I want to be there when it opens.’ I laughed it off and said, ‘Sure, sure, that’s nice of you to say, Hugh, but Warner Brothers is the one you have to talk to.’ Well, the release of Prisoners was coming up, and Pat called a month before its release and said ‘It’s all set, Dad: Hugh and his family are coming.’ ” When it’s not hosting stars of the silver screen, the restored opera house, which John describes as “a real gem,” shows firstrun movies and occasional retrospectives.
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Angeles, Calif., is a cofounder and producer of a visual effects company called FuseFX. He recently received an Emmy nomination for best visual effects in a TV program for Last Resort. The company created full computer-generated water, environments, and submarines for the series. The company also creates effects for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., American Horror Story, Glee, Hell on Wheels, Mike and Molly, Sons of Anarchy, and Criminal Minds. Over the past five years, the company has grown from three employees to 50. THERESA (ANDERSON) OWENS is executive assistant to Wisconsin chief justice Shirley S. Abrahamson in Madison. Last May, Owens was inducted as a fellow of the Institute for Court Management at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. RENEE PRESTEGARD LOWREY is assistant director and online librarian for the Owatonna (Minn.) Public Library.
1990 BRENT ASPLIN was named chief clinical officer for Catholic Health Partners in Cincinnati.
1991 DEANNA (RUDE)
CASTERTON of Decorah is director of the Book Shop at Luther. She was named to the National Association of College Stores Foundation board of directors. DEANNA (LINDELL) DRUM is a business systems analyst for Utility Trailer Manufacturing Company in City of Industry, Calif. EXCIER RODRIGUEZ is training teachers as an instructional coach for the Denver (Colo.) Public Schools and is doing professional development in the area of Englishlanguage acquisition. He remains active in the musical community with the Denver Guitar Society and other regional music societies.
Zach Stottler ’15
1989 TIM JACOBSEN of Los
Callista Gingrich ’88 talks about her children’s books, documentaries, and “edge of history” photographs Before Callista (Bisek) Gingrich ’88 signed copies of her Ellis the Elephant children’s books at Homecoming 2013, she met with me for a quick Q&A. She’s shown above with husband Newt Gringrich. —Ellen Modersohn
EM: You are a very busy person, between running the multimedia production company Gingrich Productions with your husband, Newt Gingrich; singing in choir; playing French horn in a concert band; speaking engagements; and political activities. Why did you decide to add writing a series of children’s books to your schedule? The Winona Brass Band is celebrating its 20th anniversary season. The group is a British-style brass band with 28 members, and five are Luther alumni. Pictured are Myron Haug ’82, Dan Raney ’92, Shawn KennedyLee ’97, Gene Olstad ’61, Jane (Niemyer) Lindner (former member), and Dick Lindner ’63.
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CG: I write these books because I love America, and I think it’s more important now than ever that our children realize what a special country this is. In my new book, Yankee Doodle Dandy—the third volume in the Ellis the Elephant series— Ellis discovers the American Revolution and how America became a free and independent nation. My first book was Sweet Land of Liberty, an overview of the pivotal moments that have shaped our history, and the second
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was Land of the Pilgrims’ Pride, a book about colonial America. It’s our hope that we can continue to march Ellis through the remaining chapters of our American history. My next book is going to be about the early days of the Republic through the great expedition of Lewis and Clark— we’ll call it From Sea to Shining Sea.
EM: What’s your process in writing the Ellis books?
Zach Stottler ’15
CG: I publish these books with Regnery Publishing in Washington. I have a fabulous illustrator. Her name is Susan Arciero. Initially, my publisher and I decide what key moments we want to highlight in telling the story and what values we want to convey. We then translate this into images, because a children’s book, obviously, is largely about the imagery. Susan does a lot of historical research, as well, so her sketching is historically accurate. She does a rough sketch and I critique it. She’ll then edit and send a tighter sketch, and I have one more chance to comment. Usually we’re good at that point, and then she paints. At the same time, I am drafting the rhyming text. The whole process takes about six months.
EM: After working on Capitol Hill for more than 18 years, you became president of Gingrich Productions. Tell me what you do there. CG: At Gingrich Productions, we produce historical and public policy documentary films. We’ve done seven documentaries to date. We like to focus upon historic moments and leaders. One of our favorites is Nine Days That Changed the World, about Pope John Paul II and his trip to Poland in 1979 and how this pilgrimage was seen as the beginning of the end of Communism in Poland and Eastern Europe. We may be going back to Rome during Blessed John Paul II’s canonization (in April 2014) to update this film. We are currently working on a film about one of our nation’s most influential religious leaders, Reverend Billy Graham. In addition, Newt and I both write books and newsletters, as well as give speeches.
EM: You’re also a photography buff. Your work is on your company website and in books you’ve produced. What do you use to shoot photos? CG: I love technology. Every time a new camera comes out, I decide whether I need it or not. (She takes a small camera out of her purse.) I have big cameras too, but this is a Sony RX100 with a little Carl Zeiss lens, and it has great power and clarity. I have to say, I’ve loved photography since a child. When I was a very small girl, my mother gave me my first Polaroid camera, and it took off from there. My first Girl Scout badge was for photography. Newt and I have had the opportunity to live on the edge of history on occasion, and I like to capture these moments. When we’re sitting at the inauguration, or other historic event, I like to take photos.
EM: You were a music major at Luther. How do you keep music in your life now? CG: I’m a member of the Choir of the Basilica at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, singing alto II. I’ve been there since 1996, and I look forward to this each week. I also play French horn
with the City of Fairfax Band in Fairfax, Virginia. We play four formal concerts a year and a summer series. We also have smaller ensembles that play in the community. The organization really supports musical growth and education and does a lot of outreach. Our band hosts instrumental “petting zoos,” where band members bring their instruments and children can come and see them, touch them, and play them.
EM: French horn can be a difficult instrument. Why did you choose it? CG: Growing up in Whitehall, Wis., the father of my best friend, Mary (Johnson) Kamish ’88, was a band director. He was also a Luther grad, Sheridan Johnson ’56. I spent a lot of time at their house, and Sheridan knew us from little on. He would say to me, “I think you would be a very good French horn player.” So I followed Sheridan’s advice and learned to play the French horn. I currently serve as the president of the Gingrich Foundation. In 2005 we were honored to establish the Newt and Callista Gingrich Scholarship at Luther, which provides annual scholarships for instrumental music majors. Callista Gingrich ’88, a photography buff, took this photo of President Barack Obama during his first inauguration in Washington, D.C., in January 2009. Gringrich also took this photo of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2008.
EM: I’ve heard that while a student at Luther you had an apartment above Mabe’s Pizza. CG: That rumor is true. Senior year. Luther has always been a really special place. I think being at Luther was so instrumental in my life. I learned here that you need to live a balanced life. You need to have a spiritual component. You need to have a professional component. You have to have a social component. You need to do things that make you happy and that you’re truly passionate about. And you need to do all those things in balance. I try to live that out every day.
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Saqib Nadeem ’98 expands Chicago pet-resort business Paradise 4 Paws, the brainchild of Saqib Nadeem ’98, is not your run-of-the-mill boarding kennel. It is a cage-free pet resort. Its canine boarders stay in suites or lounges, and its feline boarders room in deluxe, presidential, or executive bungalows. But the real genius of the business that Nadeem started in 2008 is its proximity to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Paradise 4 Paws allows pet owners
(Nadeem calls them “parents”) to park their cars at Paradise 4 Paws, and it offers shuttle service to and from the airport. Nadeem took a gamble by opening his pet resort in 2008, which he names “one of worst years for the travel industry in the past two decades,” but his gamble paid off. In May of 2011, he expanded to Chicago’s Midway Airport, and in November of that year, he opened a third branch at Dallas/Fort Worth. This year, he will open his fourth Paradise 4 Paws in Denver, with plans for several others in the works. “In 2008,” Nadeem says, “our revenue was $350,000, and we are on track to do 10 times that this year.” In terms of personnel, the business has grown from eight employees to 87. “It’s always such a proud moment to see our team grow,” he says. “It’s one of the biggest stresses and the biggest joys in what I do. At end of the day, I love providing an opportunity for my employees to go somewhere.”
1994 JASON HABECK is
have been sent to Haiti with well over 200 volunteers serving more than 9,000 patients. Public
the golf course superintendent for Lewiston (Idaho) Golf and Country Club.
1997 JOE BREKKE teaches
1992 WENDY (JAYCOX)
DAVIDSON was named president of U.S. Specialty Channels for Kellogg’s in Chicago. She also serves on Luther’s Board of Regents. KRISTIN (HOHNBAUM) KLEIN is a teaching assistant for Matthews Middle School in Island Lake, Ill. KARL REDELSHEIMER is an active-duty United States Army chaplain currently stationed with the 2nd Calvary Regiment at Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany. DAVE SCHNEIDER is senior vice president for Digitas, a digital marketing firm in Chicago.
1993 GINA EICKELBERG NELSON works in operations for Next Century Growth in Minneapolis.
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1995 NIELS ANDERSON
coached his La Crosse (Wis.) Central High School track team to its fourth consecutive conference championship last May. In August he became head men’s and women’s track and field coach for St. Mary’s University in Winona, Minn. DREW CURTIS is the founder of the news aggregation website www. fark.com. The website has between three million and four million visitors every month, placing it among the top 100 English-language websites in the world. SHAWNA KIRBY-ECKSTEIN is a case manager for Optum Transplant Solutions in Lisle, Ill.
English at Ames (Iowa) High School. He and two colleagues were invited to lead a breakout session on student writing and effective teacher feedback for the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention in Boston. KEN CARROTHERS is pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Boise, Idaho. SARA (NICHOLAS) KOEHNEN is a teacher for South Washington County (Minn.) Schools. JOSH WHITE of Lebanon, N.H., received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Early Achievement from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine for his work in cofounding and managing the Community Health Initiative in Haiti. Since the foundation of the CHI in 2012, 12 medical and surgical teams
health and medical researchers have also been sponsored by the CHI to conduct research on the communities CHI serves and to evaluate the effectiveness of CHI services.
1998
TRICIA (BERG) FISHER is quality project manager for UnityPoint Clinics in Moline, Ill. TREVOR LOES is the choral director for Assumption High School in Davenport, Iowa. DOUG ROSS is an attorney for Hupy and Abraham, S.C., in Wausau, Wis. AMY SCHACHTLIE is an emergency room/critical care nurse for the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
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EMILY (FOSTER) and TODD VELNOSKY ’97 live in Columbia, Ill. She is an assistant preschool teacher for Bright Beginnings Preschool. He works in administration and management for Jet Aviation. STEEN WESTERGAARD is a developmental scientist with Novo Nordisk A/S in Bagsværd, Denmark. JOHANNA (JENSON) WIHLM is a registered nurse for BSJ Corp. in La Crosse, Wis.
1999 ERIN (BROOKS)
CROLL is the technology relationship manager for Wells Fargo in West Des Moines, Iowa. RHONDA OSBORN-ALBERT is CFO for Olson Explosives Inc. in Decorah. She completed the 2013 leadership class hosted by the Iowa Motor Truck Association.
JOE ECKBERG is an engineer for Target Corporation in Minneapolis. KIMBERLY EVERSMAN earned a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from Arizona State University. She is an assistant professor of education at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, and is a researcher for the Institute for Child Development Research and Social Change, a division of the Indigo Cultural Center.
director of choral activities at Hudson (Wis.) High School and artistic director of the River City Chorale. With the help of his good friend MEL OLSON ’68, Haase created Home for the Holidays, a community concert modeled after Christmas at Luther. The production includes five high school choirs with more than 340 singers, a children’s choir, a local hand bell choir, and a full symphony orchestra composed of professional musicians from the Minnesota Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and other Twin Cities–area orchestras. Founded in 2006, the concert is adding a fourth performance in 2013, since the performances have been selling out.
2001 DEVON AGANGA is senior associate consultant in pediatric anesthesiology and pediatric critical care for Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
TRISTAN COX is an integrated wealth manager for Heritage Wealth Architects in St. Paul, Minn.
2003 STACY (EGTS) ABAR is a registered nurse at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wis.
MIKE ADDUCCI is a research analyst for Wells Capital Management in Menomonee Falls, Wis.
MATT HERRICK is the principal for St. Francis Catholic School in Marshalltown, Iowa.
AMANDA ARMSTRONG teaches social studies at Carmel Middle School in Charlotte, N.C.
STEPHANIE LORD is pastor for Christ the Servant Lutheran Church in Louisville, Colo.
MATT ENGELKES is a business systems consultant manager for Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.
STEVE ONDRASHEK earned a bachelor’s of science degree in nursing from University of Northern Colorado. He is a registered nurse at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., where he works in psychiatric acute care.
KRISSY HALTINNER is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Idaho in Moscow.
ANNA ROEDER is visiting professor of anatomy and physiology at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.
2000 ANDREW HAASE is
LAURA ZAMZOW is assistant professor of music and director of bands for Jamestown (N.D.) College.
2002 RACHEL (WACHTER) GENTES is a nurse practitioner at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
REBECCA (DOIDGE) LONG is a mental health counselor for Woodland Centers in Montevideo, Minn. RYAN NEWBERRY is a captain in the United States Army and an emergency medicine physician for Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. KATYA OUCHAKOF is a pastor for Cooksville Lutheran Church in Evansville, Wis. RON ROBINSON wrote a chapter for the book The Art of Being Healthy, which was released in October 2013. The book is a collaborative effort to bring more awareness to natural health and each individual’s ability to be well. Robinson, who earned a doctor of chiropractic degree from the University of Western States, lives in North Liberty, Iowa. JULIE (DUHME) VANDEHOEF is a policy advisor for Iowa governor Terry Branstad and lieutenant governor Kim Reynolds in Des Moines, Iowa.
JIM JESPERSEN earned a certificate in endodontics from the University of Iowa. He is an endodontist for Endodontic Specialists of La Crosse, Wis. DUSTY JOHNSON directs middle school band for the Tipton (Iowa) School District. MEGAN (LARSEN) LOVINGUTH earned a master’s degree in education curriculum and instruction from Ohio Dominican College. She is a teacher assessment support specialist for the Denver (Colo.) Public Schools. AMANDA (BENEDICT) OBENAUER is a counselor for Cigna Behavioral Health and a crisis supervisor for Canvas Health in Eden Prairie, Minn. DANIEL RIEBE earned a master’s degree in applied science from the University of Denver. STACEY (SCHULTZ) SIMATIC teaches second grade for the Verona (Wis.) Area School District. AMBER (WILSON) WEISPFENNING is a palliative care social worker for ChildServe in Johnston, Iowa. HEATHER (LEHMANN) WITTS is an engineer for the United States Air Force in Santa Maria, Calif.
2004 COURTNEY
ALLENSWORTH earned a juris doctorate from William Mitchell College of Law. She is a tribal
attorney for the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Hayward, Wis. ANNA HANSEN BONARO is a visitation pastor at First Lutheran Community Church in Port Orchard, Wash. CASSIE (LEE) CARPENTER directs vocal music for Indian Hills Junior High School in Clive, Iowa. KRISTY (HANSON) COOK earned a master’s degree in instructional technology from Cardinal Stritch University. She is an instructional technology specialist for the Chatfield (Minn.) Public Schools. ANNA (PLAGMAN) DAVIS directs bands for St. Mary’s High School in Remsen, Iowa. LEAH DUNHAM and her father, Arthur, a large-animal veterinarian in northeast Iowa, turned his veterinary notes into a book about how changes in the agriculture industry have affected animal health. In the book America’s Two-Headed Pig: Treating Nutritional Deficiencies and Disease in a Genetically Modified, Antibiotic Resistant, and Pesticide Dependent World, Leah explains how several veterinary diagnoses have been complicated by many twentyfirst-century agricultural systems and explores how animal science has been deformed and corrupted by vested interests. ANDREW HAUGEN is a special education teacher for Century Junior High School in Forest Lake, Minn. MANDY HENDERSON and DAVE ROWLEY ’05 live in Boulder, Colo. She is part of the Behavior Support Program at the Temple Grandin School. He is an experience designer for the Crispen, Porter & Bogusky advertising firm. MATT OKLAND is an anesthesiologist at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, Iowa. NICK PETER is an event manager for Cushman & Wakefield/Northmarq at the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. CASSIE (FRIEDERICH) PETERSON of Clermont, Iowa, earned a licensed bachelor’s social worker certification. She works in
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renewal for Lutheran Services in Iowa and is a support specialist for Iowa KidsNet. JAN SAXHAUG of Duluth, Minn., earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Minnesota–Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She is a regional labor market analyst for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. MIRIAM (BLOM) SKRADE is the head women’s and men’s tennis coach for Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. JIM STELLMACHER of Appleton, Wis., earned a master of music degree in education from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He teaches music and directs bands for the Wrightstown (Wis.) School District. He is also the music coordinator for First English Lutheran Church’s North Site. AARON STEWART is senior systems analyst for the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation in Madison. ERICK WEEG is a portfolio manager for Abbot Downing in Minneapolis. ZACH WIGLE is the principal for Keokuk (Iowa) Senior High School.
2005 LINDSAY
JON TRULLINGER is a research associate for Syngenta Biotechnology Inc. in Durham, N.C.
JOHN SILL is a one-stop counselor for the University of Minnesota– Twin Cities.
2006 KELSEY BOYCE is the
ERIKA STRANDJORD is assistant professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.
DUSTIN CAROLAN is a police officer in Iowa City.
VERONICA (ALZALDE) WELLS is a music librarian and information services coordinator for the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif.
hall director for Brandt Hall at Luther College.
RYAN HULSHIZER is an insurance and investments professional for Farm Bureau Financial Services in Northwood, Iowa. KRISTEN (STRANDELL) KESSLAR of Minneapolis is a registered nurse in the Intermediate Care Unit of the University of Minnesota Medical Center. MARC KALIN graduated from Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is a resident in psychiatry at the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Fla. COURTNEY KUPFER is admissions manager for CenterPoints Massage and Shiatsu Therapy School and Clinic in Minneapolis. MANDI LYNCH is director of client relations for WhyNotLeaseIt in Manchester, N.H. KEVIN OPPERMANN is senior business improvement consultant for CUNA Mutual Insurance in Madison, Wis.
BERNHAGEN earned a Ph.D. in comparative studies from the Ohio State University. She is an instructional consultant for the university’s Center for Advancement of Teaching in Columbus.
MICHAEL EISELE was appointed chief operating officer of Black Ridge Oil in Minnetonka, Minn.
HAYLEY (HOILAND) SMITH earned a doctor of nurse practitioner degree from the University of Iowa. She is a certified registered nurse anesthetist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.
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earned an M.B.A. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a senior consultant for Ernst & Young LLP in Chicago. He is also a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. GRETCHEN (GUSTAF) ENGLEDOWL is a learning specialist for Columbia (Mo.) Public Schools. PAMELA (BERG) HAMANN is coordinator of public operations for the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. STEPHANIE KIRSTEIN earned a master’s degree in literacy education from Northeastern Illinois University. She is a teacher at Thomas Kelly High School in Chicago and is also the coach for the school’s Students for Social Justice Club. ADAM LOY earned a Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University. He is a visiting professor of statistics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis. AMANDA (ELLSON) MADSEN is head athletic trainer at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
STACIE CASTELDA is a doctoral student at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., and received a Fulbright Student Research Grant for research in Brazil.
DUSTIN ROSS is the senior director of alumni engagement and annual giving for Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa.
2007 CHRIS ANGELICA
MEGHAN (GESING) and JOHN PALMER ’03 own a certified organic dairy farm near Waukon, Iowa. Their family was chosen to be featured in a regional marketing campaign for Organic Valley, their farmer-owned cooperative. She is also a visiting clinical faculty member in the Nursing Department at Luther.
2008 LISA (SAVRE) and
MATTHEW BUSCHE ’07 live in Girona, Spain. She earned a Ph.D. in psychology from New Mexico State University. He is a professional cyclist with RadioShack-LeopardTrek. He helped his teammate, Chris Horner, win the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), one of cycling’s prestigious three-week-long Grand Tours, last September. Horner, at age 41, became the oldest champion of one of the Grand Tours. RYAN GIBBS is director of youth and growth ministries for Webster Hills United Methodist Church in St. Louis. CHANDRA (SKINNER) JENNINGS earned a Ph.D. in health education from the University of Kansas. She is an assistant professor of community health education for the University of Maine at Farmington. ERIKA KAMBS of Decorah is director of the 2014 Oneota Film Festival. ANDREA KRUSE earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership from St. Catherine University. She is a financial associate for Thrivent Financial in Albion, Neb.
NATHAN MOSER earned an associate of applied science degree in information technology and network administration from Des Moines Area Community College. He is a client architect for LightEdge Solutions in Des Moines, Iowa.
JANA (SMITH) and NICK LARSON live in Minneapolis. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota and is a registered nurse for Abbott Northwestern Hospital. He is a mortgage consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
DARIN PERSON is a suicide prevention coordinator for the V.A. Health Care System in Iowa City.
DANNY LEE is a development officer for Columbia University’s School of Arts in New York City.
AMY (GMINKSI) SCHULTZ is project manager for Konecranes Nuclear Equipment and Services LLC in New Berlin, Wis.
JULIA (STUEBNER-HOLT) SALZMAN is a school psychologist for the Rochester (Minn.) Public Schools.
MAREN WACHOLZ teaches kindergarten for the Northfield (Minn.) Public Schools.
DANIELLE (KNEALING) SWANSON earned a master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Des Moines University. She is
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a physician assistant with RiverWay Clinics in Anoka, Minn.
SARA WENZEL is an associate with Faegre Baker Daniels in Minneapolis. ANDY WILHELM is an independent IT consultant in Mankato, Minn. NATHANIAL YOUNGQUIST earned a teaching license from the University of St. Thomas. He is a special education teacher for the St. Paul (Minn.) School District.
VCA Veterinary Care Animal Hospital and Referral Center in Albuquerque, N.M.
ERIN MAKELA teaches seventhgrade English for the Worthington (Minn.) School District.
ERIN (GORMAN) GILLE is the youth program coordinator for Community Youth Concepts in Des Moines, Iowa.
JOEL MARTIN works for ProSource Technologies in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
ADAM HALVERSON earned a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from Des Moines University. He is a physician and orthopedic surgery resident at Doctors Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. KIRSTEN HOYME earned a doctor of dentistry degree from University of Minnesota School of Dentistry. She is a resident general dentist for Health Partners of Western Ohio in Lima, Ohio. EMILY IRONSIDE earned a juris doctorate from the University of Iowa College of Law. She is an associate for Kennedy, Cruise, Frey & Gelner in Iowa City. JERRY JAEGER is a mortgage consultant for Home Services Lending in West Des Moines, Iowa. ASHLEY JOHNSON is a client associate for Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.
2009 ALLY CZECHOWICZ
earned a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Minnesota’s College of Design. She works as an urban designer for Stantec Consulting in St. Paul, Minn. She received the Women in Landscape Architecture (WILA) Student Leadership Award in 2013 for her work on a start-up sustainable business called Twin Fin Aquaponics. The business comes out of an interdisciplinary, humancentered design course that required the team to create a concept, write a business plan, and test that concept. After trying their first business idea in Delhi, India, the team regrouped and set their sights on impacting their local food system in the Twin Cities. The result is an innovative urban farm start-up that will provide fresh food greens, tasty herbs, and healthy protein to Twin Cities communities year-round. DANA FRANZEN earned a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. She is an intern veterinarian for
STEPHANIE LIM is director of business development for Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas.
DAVID MCKAY won the Equinox Marathon on Sept. 21, 2013, in Fairbanks, Alaska, with a time of 2:49:21.7. The Equinox is considered one of the toughest marathons in the nation. The 26.2-mile event started amid temperatures in the 20s, and the 960 participants had to ascend about 1,500 feet up Ester Dome Road to the top of Ester Dome, which had snow. In August, McKay placed fourth with a time of 2:30:03 in the Pikes Peak Ascent, a 13.32-mile race that goes from Manitou Springs, Colo., to the summit of Pikes Peak. The race features a vertical gain of 7,815 feet. In April in Eugene, Ore., McKay placed fifth with a time of 1:08:37 in the 13.1mile Eugene Half-Marathon. Eugene is also where McKay recently earned a master’s degree in public administration at the University of Oregon.
earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from Northern Arizona University. She is a hospitality coordinator for Manhattan Concert Project in New York City. MIKE BYRD is a policy advocate for Effective NY in New York City. MEGAN (PETERSEN) GIBSON earned a master’s degree in occupational therapy from St. Catherine’s University. She is a licensed occupational therapist for Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. LAURA GRANGAARD earned a master’s degree in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She is a research analyst for Stratis Health in Minneapolis. ERIN GREEN earned a master’s degree in sustainable tourism from East Carolina University. She is an associate with McCabe World Travel in McLean, Va.
JEN MEUWISSEN earned a doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Iowa. She is pharmacistin-charge for CVS Pharmacy in Kewanee, Ill.
ANDREA (HATLELI) HALVORSON earned a master’s degree in music therapy from the University of Iowa. She is a music therapist for Life in Harmony Music Therapy in West Salem, Wis.
ERIKA RANDALL is recreation superintendent for the Decorah (Iowa) Parks and Recreation Department.
APRIL HAUSWIRTH is a registered nurse for Pocahontas (Iowa) Community Hospital Homecare.
BETH (JEDDELOH) SCHULTZ teaches music for the Robbinsdale (Minn.) School District.
SARAH KNOPLOH earned a juris doctorate from St. Louis University School of Law.
EMILY (OLSON) SPEROPULOS is a human resources office assistant for Kwik Trip in La Crosse, Wis.
SKY MACKLAY of New York City, received the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the 2013 American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation.
KRISTIN SWENSON teaches third grade at Evergreen Elementary School in Fort Lewis, Wash. KATHIE (PALMERSHEIM) WHITT earned a doctor of podiatric medicine degree and a master’s of healthcare administration degree from Des Moines University. She is a foot and ankle surgical resident at Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.
Erin Makela ’09 and Jean Patrick ’83 met each other at Vermont College of Fine Arts’ M.F.A. in writing for children and young adults this July. Patrick is beginning her final semester while Makela is starting her first.
2010 MAGGIE BOLAND
ASHLEE WICKS teaches first grade at Hiawatha Leadership Academy in Minneapolis.
TYLER POWELL earned a juris doctorate from William Mitchell College of Law. He is an attorney for First Law Group in Stevens Point, Wis. SAMANTHA REISER earned a doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. She is a pharmacist with Hartig Drug in Waukon, Iowa. JEFF RIDDLE is a registered nurse in oncology for St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield, Wis. He received the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses.
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VIVEK BISEN is a software engineer for TeamQuest Corporation in Clear Lake, Iowa.
AARON SHATZER earned a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Oregon, where he is also a graduate teaching fellow in the Department of Mathematics.
KAI BREWSTER lives in St. Paul, Minn., where he has a music studio and is a musician. He also is an assistant conductor at Wayzata Community Church.
2011 RACHEL ALBERT
earned a master’s degree in biological anthropology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
SOPHIA BROWN is an area coordinator and assistant volleyball coach at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
MITCHELL DEMERS earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of St. Thomas and St. Catherine University. He is a day treatment team lead with Therapeutic Services Agency Inc. in Pine City, Minn. ELISE DESROCHES is a physician’s assistant for University of Iowa Quickcare in Iowa City. BRETT EPPERSON is vocal music director for Lincoln (Neb.) East High School. KELLEY KUSSMANN earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Northern Colorado. She is a singer for Opera Colorado in Denver. STEPHANIE LEINEN is a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit of the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City.
CHARLIE BRUER is an intern for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
A group of 2012 alumni met their freshman year in Ylvisaker Hall and met up again for a weekend in Chicago last summer. Left to right: Betsy (Zimmerman) Gerike, Alicia Woock, Courtney Borowicz, Meredith (MacDonald) Highmark, Jenna Yeakle, Mikaela Belland, Lauren Griffen. KELSEY OLSON is a business systems consultant for Wells Fargo in St. Louis Park, Minn. ALIYAH RICHLING earned a master’s degree in music from Wichita State University. She is an adjunct professor of music and conductor of women’s chorus for the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
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2012 COURTNEY GUNTLY
JAKE DEBACHER of Monona, Wis., was honored with a Meritorious Service Award at Iowa governor Terry Branstad’s Lifesaving Awards Ceremony in Des Moines. DeBacher and several others were recognized for rescuing and caring for people who were injured and trapped in a two-vehicle accident near Waukon, Iowa, in 2012.
is a case manager for Central Iowa Shelter and Services in Des Moines.
SHELBY EATON is a professional services consultant for Cerner in Dubuque, Iowa.
ANNA RICK is an administrative assistant for Access Justice PSC in Minneapolis.
WILLIAM HOFFMAN is a market researcher for Imanis Life Sciences and Mayo Clinic Business Accelerator in Rochester, Minn.
DAVID FARES is a junior strategist for BizTraffic LLC in Dallas.
WINDA (ROMPASS) ROETS is an accountant for Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
DAVID KORT is a delivery coordinator for Menards in Eau Claire, Wis.
JEFF ROSE earned a master’s degree in physical education and exercise science from the University of Northern Iowa. He is a strength coach for BST Strength & Conditioning in Waterloo, Iowa.
JENN (WINDER) KOST teaches Spanish for the Corwith-Wesley (Iowa) Community Schools.
WYATT SANDBERG is a learner services and operations representative for Capella University in Minneapolis.
Beth Lynch, associate professor of biology at Luther, bumped into Jimmy Marty ’12 at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. The cardboard man is Professor Herb Wright, who works at the University of Minnesota, where Marty is employed, and who was Lynch’s former professor in graduate school.
WHITNEY (KELTNER) WESSELS is a mental health practitioner for the Minnesota Autism Center in Woodbury, Minn.
SHANNON CURTIS directs bands for grades five through twelve for West Fork Community Schools in Sheffield, Iowa.
EMILY SCHMIDT is a math strategies and AVID teacher at Maplewood (Minn.) Middle School. JAYSON SWANSON of Oslo, Norway, earned a master’s degree in health economics, policy, and management from the University of Oslo. He also earned a master’s degree in international health care management from the Management Center Innsbruck in Austria.
MARY FERRIAN of St. Paul, Minn., is an ethical auditor for Accordia Global Compliance Group. SCOTT GERIKE is a software developer for Kinetic Data in St. Paul, Minn.
MANDIE MICKELSON is an account manager for Press Ganey Associates Inc. in South Bend, Ind.
ALYSSE HAFERMAN is an associate application engineer for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in Minneapolis.
RYAN MYHRO is a wellness coach for Ultimate Wellness Center in Minnetonka, Minn.
MEGAN HATFIELD is a registered nurse for Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C.
KRISTI WIETECHA teaches seventh-grade English at John Adams Middle School in Rochester, Minn.
LIBBY HOLMES is a project manager for Wagento Creative in St. Louis Park, Minn.
2013 CHELLA BHAGYAM
is a bio-skills lab assistant for TRIA Orthopedics in Bloomington, Minn.
SHARI HUBER is a graduate student in physical therapy at the University of Iowa. She was selected as the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s nominee for the 2013 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
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Luther College Book Shop
Phone (563) 387-1036 or (888) 521-5039 www.lutherbookshop.com
books • t-shirts sweatshirts • kids apparel mementos • and more Photo: Amanda Bailey, Head Women’s Basketball Coach
Your source for Norse apparel RACHEL JUNGWIRTH is an associate sales representative for Principal Financial Group in Houston.
Andrea (Annie) Klepper ’13, left, and Addy Rickels ’13 were two of 108 students presented with coats and welcomed into the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy’s class of 2017 during a “White Coat Ceremony” in August 2013.
ALLISON KANE is a marketing research intern for TMG in Des Moines, Iowa.
JAKE NOWOSATKA is a software development engineer in test for Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.
ANGELA KRATCHMER, a violist, was selected as a 2013–14 Orchestra Institute Napa Valley Fellow, a postgraduate program focused on performance, professional development, and arts outreach in Yountville, Calif.
ALEX NYMAN is program services coordinator for REM Hennepin in Minneapolis.
MARIO MATINUCCI is a human resources associate for Cargill Inc. in Wyalusing, Pa.
BRI PIESCHEL is an associate ecommerce analyst for Northern Tool and Equipment in Burnsville, Minn.
JENNIE MAURER is a legal assistant for attorney George L. Cohen in Redondo Beach, Calif.
AMANDA RUDNICKAS teaches music for St. Anthony Elementary School in New Ulm, Minn.
RACHEL MIESSLER is a literacy tutor for Minnesota Reading Corps in the Faribault (Minn.) elementary schools.
KATIE SCHWARTZ is a loan servicing specialist for Green Tree Financial in St. Paul, Minn.
KELSEY MOLER is serving in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Minneapolis. JORDAN MORTENSEN of St. Paul, Minn., is a literacy tutor for the Minnesota Reading Corps.
JIM PENNING is a software development engineer in test for kCura in Chicago.
HANNAH SHATZER is a graduate assistant in psychology at the Ohio State University in Columbus. SAM SIMATAA is an IT support analyst for Fastenal Company in Winona, Minn.
TYLER SIMPSON is an elementary literacy tutor for the Minnesota Reading Corps at Chatfield (Minn.) Elementary School. CAITLIN STENSRUD is a call specialist for Heartline Inc. in Oklahoma City. CODY TUCKER is a director of bands at West Montgomery Middle School and High School in Mount Gilead, N.C. ISAAC VAN BRUGGEN is a tenant services coordinator for Zeller Realty Group in Minneapolis. TIM VAN CLEAVE is a software developer for the City of St. Paul, Minn. EMILY VOSS is a professional photographer and owns VOSStudios in Wausau, Wis. TYLER WEDEMEIER teaches sixth-grade science for the Forest City (Iowa) Community Schools. SHANE WILSON is an analyst for Target Corporation.
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2002 LLOYD SMITH and
2008 LANDON AULD and
MAIRIN WISNEWSKI and Chuck Boswell, April 13, 2013
LINDSEY BULGER and Jeff Bina, July 20, 2013
1982 NICK VAVRICHEK and
2003 ABIGAIL FROST and
LAURIE FRITZ and CASEY BOUSKA ’07, June 8, 2013
1985 JOHN DEVINE and
RIAN HELGERSON and Tim Jentz, Sept. 7, 2013
Marriages
Taylor Thusing, July 6, 2012
1968 MARY ELLINGSON and Ed Goldsmith, Oct. 30, 2012
Kent Jones, Sept. 6, 2013
Rick Murphy, Sept. 5, 2013
1989 KARI MEYER and Daniel Alstad, July 28, 2012
1992 DAVE SCHNEIDER and Karen Liu, Sept. 2, 2012
1995 JENN GHELF and Dean Lange, July 15, 2013
ANN STENSAAS and Bill Short, Oct. 13, 2012
Adam Boyles, June 29, 2013
MIKE MUSKE and Megan Astry, July 19, 2013
2004 BRET ASKELAND and Ashley Worley, June 8, 2013
2005 LARA GILBERTSON
and Jeremiah Bauer, Oct. 20, 2012 JULIE KRUSE and Jesaiah Summer, Aug. 24, 2013
2006 ABBY BALLAIN and
Sarah Reuss, June 16, 2012
ANNA KNAEBLE and Andrew Quirk, June 22, 2013 ELISE MOORHEAD and Josh Shaw, Aug. 3, 2013 KRISTI WILSON and Alex Syhlman, June 29, 2013
2009 HANNAH
ARMSTRONG and JULIAN STANKE, Oct. 12, 2013 JAMIE CHRISTOFFER and Brandon Swenson, Oct. 12, 2013 AMY EKLAND and PHIL WORDEN ’08, July 27, 2013
Mike Polich, June 8, 2013
MAIA ELGIN and Andrew Wegmann, June 14, 2013
MARISSA BRENGMAN and Joe Hansen, June 15, 2013
KRISTIN FLESSLAND and Jon Duesterhoeft, Aug. 12, 2013
Misty Walker, Feb. 12, 2013
KRYSTAL BROICH and Jamie Stanford, Oct. 11, 2012
1999 HEIDI CHRISTIAN
LISA JACOBSON and Zachary Hirschman, Aug. 5, 2012
ALYSON GANGSTEE and NATHAN NEBLUNG, Nov. 17, 2012
BETH WEEDMAN and Jon Mutton, Sept. 1, 2012
1998 JASON HABECK and
and RYAN HANKE ’06, June 29, 2013 KAREN ERCEG and Stanley Schock, June 22, 2013 KARA LOVETT and Russ Epperson, March 31, 2012 TRYNDA OBERG and Peter Kroneman, Sept. 15, 2012 ROBIN ROSS and Jendra Gosai, April 27, 2013
2000 ERIN MEYER and Mark Troll, May 10, 2013
2001 PAUL HOYEM and Melina Siomos, Sept. 7, 2013
SARAH OLSON and Robbie Cutcliffe, Sept. 1, 2013
2007 ELLIE DUNDEK and
NELAO NENGOLA and Eric Alexander, Dec. 29, 2012
Joseph Demitrius, Dec. 29, 2011
TONYA ROBERTS and ADAM LAMOS, Aug. 17, 2013
AMANDA ELLSON and LEIF MADSEN ’08, July 5, 2013
KRISTIN SWENSON and Nick Eilers, April 4, 2013
MEGAN FINHOLT and Joel Hansen, Sept. 8, 2012
EMILY WALK and Brett Harris, April 6, 2013
ASHLEY KOOP and Zach Bader, July 14, 2012
2010 KELSIE ALLEN and
RACHEL LITTLE and Samuel Schmidt, Sept. 21, 2013 KRISTA REMME and Scott Peterson, Aug. 11, 2012 DANA ROBERTS and Elizabeth Freeman, Oct. 12, 2013
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JERRY JAEGER and Michelle Boge, July 6, 2013
MARK MATESKI, July 14, 2012 ALEX LARSON and Joel Groten, Oct. 13, 2012 CHRISTIN MICKOW and Bryant Frey, June 22, 2013
CASSIE TYSLAND and JACOB FOUTS ’12, Sept. 14, 2013 JENNY WARD and JUSTIN NELLIS, Aug. 23, 2013 TESSA WINTERTON and TOM BLATTNER, June 9, 2012
2011 KELSEY BALK and
JORDAN GRIMM, Aug. 9, 2013 ERIN DANIELS and Alan Rubach, July 6, 2013
ELISE DESROCHES and MICHAEL SINNWELL, Aug. 3, 2013 WHITNEY KELTNER and JAKE WESSELS, Aug. 10, 2013 REBECCA KOHNERT and Patrick Murphy, June 15, 2013 CAMILLE STENHAUG and Sean McVenes, Aug. 24, 2013 KIRSTEN STRANDJORD and JAY DEWITT, July 20, 2013 KELSEY VAALER and JAKE VAITH ’10, July 6, 2013 BETHANY WICHMAN and Andrew Lehman, Aug. 9, 2013 KRISTIE WIMMER and TRENT STONEROOK, July 13, 2013
2012 HEIDI DARRINGTON
and BRYCE MUENCHOW ’15, July 13, 2013 ANNA LOOFT and RYAN FETT, July 13, 2013 MEREDITH MACDONALD and Joss Highmark, Aug. 3, 2012 SAMANTHA STYKEL and TYLER STEVENSON, Oct. 19, 2013
2013 HALEY CLARK and
CALVIN SIMMONS, July 20, 2013 CHRISTINA STORLIE and ANDREW WECKWERTH ’12, July 13, 2013
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Alumni News
Births/adoptions
1980 BILL MUSSER and Otter
1999 KARA (LOVETT) and Russ Epperson, a daughter, Iris Virginia, July 2013
Dreaming, a daughter, Cleo Amelia born March 2012, adopted July 2013
ANNIE (CARLSON) and Seth Muir, a son, Finn, November 2011
1986 Gabrielle and JOHN
2000 JACI (GERDTS) and
1988 MELE WILLIS and
2001 JODI (ANDREWS)
CARRINGTON, a son, John Anderson, October 2013
Charles Lazarus, a son, Kainalu, November 2011
1992 Karen Liu and DAVE
SCHNEIDER, a son, Logan Alan, October 2013
1994 ALLISON BIGBEE, a
son, Jackson Alexander, May 2013
1995 BETHANY (BIERMAN) and Jim Krepela, a daughter, Caris Kimberli, September 2013
1996 SARAH (VOORHEES)
and Chad Hershberger, a son, Aaron Christian, March 2013
1997 JANET (KRANZ) and
KARI (TWEDT) and Kyle Nelson, a daughter, Macey Renee, August 2013
and Jeremy Coleman, a son, Micah Andrew, July 2013 STEPHANIE LORD and Bill McHardy, a daughter, Cora, April 2013
2002 Fran Haas and RYAN FLYNN, a son, Joseph Murray, September 2013
RACHEL (JOHNSON) and MATT GENS ’01, a son, Samuel, May 2013 KARI (KOCH) and Nolan Gilbertson, a daughter, Eden, February 2013 REBECCA (DOIDGE) and Keith Long, a son, Andrew James, March 2013
Toby Davis, a daughter, Rebekah, February 2012 LORI (STASTNY) and Chris Hagstrom, a son, Owen Michael, September 2012
ANN (LIEBBE) and JOSH WALTERS, a daughter, Scarlet Helen, February 2013
Natasha and CHRIS HUBERT, a daughter, KayLeigh, April 2012, and a son, Kaden, May 2013
DEVON WENDLER ALVORD and Patrick Alvord, a son, Parker Kale, March 2013
1998 Stephanie Kaphings and
CARRIE (SCHAFHAUSER) and Jason Wittenberg, a daughter, Regina, March 2013
ANDREA (DECKER) and Kelly Olson, a daughter, Lena Bernice, August 2012
SARA (OCHSANKEHL) and AARON STEWART, a son, Owen, July 2013
Kyle Olsen, a son, Grant Charles, September 2013
JOLENE SCHIPP THOMPSON and NATE THOMPSON ’00, a son, Preston Alexander, February 2013
PATRICK LENSING, a son, Leo Patrick, June 2011
STEPHANIE (CITTA) and Scott Klein, a son, Elijah Scott, born April 2013, adopted October 2013
2003 KENDRA (NORDICK)
and Kevin Binger, a daughter, Lindy Kamaya, March 2012
BOBBYE (ROBERTS) and ERIC SCHUBERT, a son, Paul Richard, May 2013
KATE (SWENSON) and JOSH CINNAMO, a daughter, Tess Elaine, August 2013
Kine and OLAV SKOGAAS, a daughter, Iben Sigvor, August 2013
ALLYSON (PRATER) and Todd Ellis, a daughter, Gwendolyn Jane, November 2012 KRISANNE (LINDE) and Josh Forsman, a daughter, Isabelle Grace, July 2013
Camille and Savannah Plumley ALISSA (BROWN) and Josh Plumley, a daughter, Camille Elizabeth, September 2013 AMBER (WILSON) and ANDY WEISPFENNING, a son, Emmett Davis, June 2013
Becky (Weaver) ’05 and Jeromy Carlson ’05 shared this photo of daughter Linnea with the Luther Alumni Magazine. We hope she’ll be receiving her own copy someday.
2005 KELLY (RIES) and
CHRIS DAHL, a son, Isaac, July 2013
HEATHER (LEHMANN) and Joseph Witts, a son, Ian McKay, June 2013
Kaeleigh Jordan and JON TRULLINGER, a son, Gibson Edward, March 2013
2004 AMY (COLONY)
JACQUE (TALLEY) and BRYON WOLF, a son, Lyndon Wade, October 2012
and Jeff Black, a daughter, Norah Abigail, April 2013 EMILY (BERNAU) and Jordan Bohonek, a daughter, Lauren, December 2012
2006 ERIN (GALLAGHER) and CHRIS BELLINDER, a son, Brayden Francis, April 2013
ANNE (BURMEISTER) and Nate Booth, a daughter, Emma Louise, April 2013
ALISSA (JACOBSON) and KYLE GAMBREL, a son, Nathan Zachary, May 2013
KRISTY (HANSON) and Bryan Cook, a daughter, Vivian, April 2012
MAGGIE (ENGELHARDT) and MARK HADDINGER ’00, a daughter, Julia Elizabeth, September 2013
EMILY (GREGORY) and JIM GILBERTSON, a son, Odin Conrad, July 2013
LISA (JACOBSON) and Zachary Hirschman, a daughter, Sophie Eloise, July 2013
KATI (HENDERSON) and Chris Gosselin, a daughter, Maya Leigh, July 2013
Katie and RYAN HULSHIZER, a son, Gabriel Ronald, September 2012
Sara and JON REM, a son, Andrew, August 2013
ANDREA (CRAVEN) and Scott Ingalsbe, a son, Spencer David, July 2013
ANN (HERRMAN) and AARON SANDSTROM, a son, Andrew David, November 2012 KAIA (NORDAL) and ERIK SHERBURNE ’01, a daughter, Norah Solveigh, July 2013
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Alumni News
In Memoriam
1948
1937
ROBERT W. LAYTON of Melbourne, Fla., died April 29, 2013, age 94. J. KENT TWEETEN of Madison, Wis., died July 21, 2012, age 96.
Lily and Poppy Nelson AMANDA (TRYGGESTAD) and RYAN NELSON ’07, a daughter, Poppy, June 2013 KIRSTEN (BOETTNER) and REESE SHANAHAN, a daughter, Maren Elizabeth, August 2013 JENNI (MOON) and John Zeuli, a son, Connor Joshua, May 20, 2013
2007 LILLY (STEINBERG) and MARK JENSEN, a son, Charlie Richard, October 2013
1940
EMMA (PETERSON) and Don Lutzke, a son, Logan, July 2013 ASHLEY (DARLAND) and KIRBY VANDEWALKER, a daughter, Lexi Jo, June 2013
NICKI (SVESTKA) and Aaron TerBeest, a daughter, Gabrielle L., August 2013
2009 CATHERINE (DOCKEN) and Jake Dyer, a son, Rufus John, April 2013
2012
GORDON T. POLLOCK of Elgin, Iowa, died Dec. 4, 2011, age 80.
1955 WILLIAM “BILL” REARDON of Farmersburg, Iowa, died March 16, 2013, age 84.
1951
KENNETH E. NUMEDAHL of Owatonna, Minn., died Oct. 26, 2013, age 89.
AMBER (HOLZL) and GREG SORENSON, a daughter, Lena Elizabeth, August 2013
RICHARD “DICK” MULDER of Onalaska, Wis., died Oct. 2, 2013, age 81.
1950
CARL V. GRIESY of Duluth, Minn., died Oct. 10, 2013, age 84.
1945 SIGURD E. SIVERTSON of Stillwater, Minn., died Oct. 27, 2013, age 89.
1956 LEONA M. (NESS) DIERCKSEN of Marion, Iowa, died May 27, 2013, age 78.
WAYNE L. HENDERSON of Holmen, Wis., died Aug. 22, 2013, age 88.
1943
BETSY (GILBERTSON) and Jesse Meehan, a son, Case Henry, June 2013
BRUCE I. HERMANN of Golden, Colo., died July 25, 2013, age 80.
JAMES A. GRAVEN of Longville, Minn., formerly of Plymouth, Minn., died Oct. 4, 2013, age 87.
MARY ELLEN (JONES) PRESTEGAARD of Lee, Ill., died July 2, 2013, age 91.
2008 ABBY (OITZMAN) and Casey Chavez, a daughter, Ariella Faith, November 2012
CARMEN ARDIS (BURDICK) BOYINGTON of Bandera, Texas, died Sept. 8, 2013, age 84.
JULETTA (ROLLINS) QUIGGLE of Oklahoma City, Okla., died Sept. 17, 2013, age 95.
1942
SARAH (NESHEIM) and LUCAS WESTBY, a daughter, Addilyn Kay, July 2013
DONALD L. BOELTER of Sleepy Eye, Minn., died Sept. 20, 2013, age 81.
1949
1938 JULIE C. (CLAUSON) BOOTS of Decorah, Iowa, died Sept. 22, 2013, age 97.
1954
GRACIA D. (NILSSEN) FREDRIKSEN of Rochester, Minn., died Oct. 3, 2013, age 78.
1953 ANABELLE R. (UNDERDAHL) LEA of Chippewa Falls, Wis., town of Eagle Point, died Sept. 1, 2013, age 83. JOHN E. SALZMAN of Louisville, Ky., died March 21, 2012, age 83.
1958 ELSIE M. (GARTHWAITE) BOSS of Bend, Ore., died May 10, 2013, age 77.
KATIE (MALEK) and Travis Mahr, a son, Elliott Joseph, October 2013
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MARILYN (JUNKER) PYLE of Glendora, Calif., died Oct. 6, 2013, age 77.
1961 VERNON F. HOLSTAD of Knoxville, Tenn., died July 30, 2013, age 74.
1969
1985 LAWRENCE N. “LARRY” LYNCH of Decorah died Sept. 5, 2013, age 66.
1971
2001 TAMARA LEA AARSVOLD of Sioux Falls, S.D., died Dec. 1, 2011, age 48.
1997 RICHARD F. HANNEMAN of Mount Horeb, Wis., died April 28, 2013, age 63.
ABBEY J. ALMELIEN BANH of Iowa City, Iowa, died Aug. 17, 2013, age 34.
2011 STEVEN HALL of Littleton, Colo., died July 22, 2013, age 39.
1974
RICHARD P. POWERS of West Union, Iowa, died Aug. 7, 2013, age 58.
Read full the full obituaries online at luthermagazine.com.
KERMIT ROLF BERGLAND of St. Paul, Minn., died Aug. 12, 2013, age 63.
Professor emeritus Frank Barth dies, age 95 Luther professor emeritus of accounting and management FRANK R. BARTH passed away at Heritage Manor in Dubuque, Iowa, Aug. 22, 2013. He was 95 years old and a vibrant, curious conversationalist until the end. Memorial services were held Sept. 1, 2013, in the Recital Hall of Luther’s Center for Faith and Life with Rev. Steven M. Jacobsen ’69 officiating. Barth was born on March 19, 1918, in Chicago, to Esther and Frank Barth. At Luther he met his wife, MARJORIE (HOVE) BARTH ’42, and acquired a taste and love for academia. After World War II, Barth found jobs for his parents at Luther’s Canteen and Bookstore, and in the years to come many of his siblings, children, and grandchildren followed in his footsteps to attend Luther. After graduating from Luther in 1940, Barth married Marge at the Lincoln Church in Ridgeway, Iowa, and in 1942 he began teaching economics and business at Luther. His teaching stint was interrupted by three years’ service as a naval air navigator in the Pacific during WWII. When the war was over, Barth completed his M.B.A from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and became a CPA in 1947. In 1953 Barth became a financial consultant to the U.S. Post Office Department in Washington, D.C. He returned to the Chicago area in 1955 as financial vice president of Pettibone Corporation, a manufacturer of heavy construction equipment and competitor to Caterpillar. Barth also served on the Lake Forest school board. The Barths then returned to academia in 1969, when Frank was recruited to be president of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. He would serve there until 1975, being knighted by the King of Sweden for the college’s involvement in the Nobel Prize
committee. By 1977 he had come full circle and was teaching again at Luther. He continued at Luther until 1990 as a professor of economics and vice president for finance and treasurer of the college. His students at Luther—and not only the CPA-bound—developed quite an affection for Barth. A close friend and former student commented that he was the best teacher he’d ever had, at any level. The Barths retired to Sun City, Ariz., in 1990 and moved to Dubuque in 2009 to be closer to family. Barth was always active in a church—singing in the choir and serving on the church council as president or treasurer. He also loved to pilot airplanes and work with numbers and was always researching new topics. Barth is survived by his wife, Marjorie, and four children, Eugene Barth and his wife, Neil (Orinda, Calif.); KATHRYN (BARTH) VAN DINE ’67 and her husband, JIM VAN DINE ’70 (Dubuque, Iowa); FRANK BARTH ’69 and his wife, Melinda Haas (Vermont and New York); and JAMES BARTH ’71 (Red Wing, Minn.); as well as four siblings, MARGE (BARTH) WOLD ’41, Esther Wallner, EDWARD BARTH ’51, and James Barth. He was preceded in death by his father and mother, Frank and Esther Barth; sisters BETTY BARTH ’51 and RUTH (BARTH) WOODALL ’49; and brother NORMAN BARTH ’50. He is also survived by 10 grandchildren: Joshua Barth, Christian Barth (Laura Jane—pending), Kara Van Dine, Marc Van Dine (Rachel), Jenna Mathew (Ben), Hilary Denny (Wayne), Jason Barth, Aaron Barth (Jenna), ERIKA (BARTH) COTTRELL ’95 (Pat), and Greta Barth; and by 14 great-grandchildren: Julia and Gwen Van Dine; Elias, Zach, Ainsley, and Olivia Mathew; Addie and Marc Denny; Ashleigh, Kirsten, and Lauren Barth; Sydney and Elsa Cottrell; and Tristan Olson.
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LUTHER COLLEGE ARCHIVES
Endpage
1914: Band first visits Norway In 1914, the Luther band made its first international trip, to perform in Oslo, Norway, at the centennial celebration of Norway’s independence. According to the book Carlo A. Sperati: The Grand Old Maestro by Camilla Sperati Strom, the band prepared for the trip by purchasing cathedral chimes, an instrument called a nabimba—a type of xylophone with harplike tones—and a Sousaphone. New uniforms were ordered—white for evening concerts, green for parades and afternoon concerts, and blue for travel. The group left Decorah on April 25, 1914, and gave several performances in the United States on its way to boarding the S.S. Kristianiafjord for Bergen, Norway. The first concert in Norway, in the Aula (ceremonial hall) of the Christiania university, was attended by “leading musicians and music critics,” who, Strom writes, “gave their highest praise. It was outstanding that this group of young amateurs could perform so intelligently and beautifully the finest works of Wagner, Liszt, and Grieg.” On May 17, Norway’s Constitution Day, the band donned its green marching uniforms to join the massive parade. This was band director Carlo Sperati’s hometown, and, his daughter writes, he “must have been walking tall as he led his band down Karl Johan Boulevard.” During this trip, the band toured and performed extensively in Norway—giving 73 concerts, according to Luther College: 1861–1961 by David T. Nelson—before enjoying sightseeing stops in Copenhagen, Berlin, Wittenburg, Paris, and London. Arriving back in the U.S. later that summer, the band still had some 40 concerts to play in towns across Wisconsin and Minnesota. Above, the band is shown in Oisteso, Hardangerfjord. Strom writes: “The band returned to Decorah August 19, to a hero’s welcome. The band members paraded up Water Street and played to a packed house. The next day an open-air concert on campus drew 2,000 people.” The Luther Concert Band is one of the country’s oldest touring musical organizations. The band has made visits to Hawaii and conducted European tours, Asian tours, and countless Midwest appearances. Concert Band has performed in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York; in Tivoli Garden, Copenhagen, Denmark; and at the Bergen International Festival, Bergen, Norway.
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Calendar Community Day Picnic Women’s and Men’s Basketball vs. Wartburg
Luther College Lunch Connection Friday, April 25 Center for Changing Lives Minneapolis
Saturday, January 11 Regents Center Luther College
Legacy Trust and President’s Council Recognition Events
Blessed to Be a Blessing! Retreat
Saturday, May 10 Luther College Kirk Johnson ’82
Wednesday, January 15– Thursday, January 16 Spirit in the Desert Carefree, Arizona
Reception Wednesday, January 22 The Wine Bar Shop Windhoek, Namibia
Pizza Party at the Sky Zone Monday, January 27 Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park Plymouth, Minnesota
Nordic Choir Performance and Reception Sunday, February 2 Tallowood Baptist Church Houston
Chamber Luncheon Monday, February 3 Luther College
Nordic Choir Performance and Reception Thursday, February 6 Preston Meadow Lutheran Church Plano, Texas
Bob Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, speaks to Luther alumni, parents, and friends at the Luther College Lunch Connection gathering last September at the Center for Changing Lives in Minneapolis.
Luther College Lunch Connection in Des Moines Friday, February 7 Windsor Heights (Iowa) Community Center
Reception and Dinner Monday, March 24 Tucson, Arizona
Luther College Lunch Connection
Luther College Lunch Connection
Friday, March 28 Center for Changing Lives Minneapolis
Friday, February 28 Center for Changing Lives Minneapolis
Alumni Council Spring Meeting
Ninth Annual Kent Finanger ’54 Golf Classic Saturday, March 22 Tuscany Falls Golf Club at Pebble Creek Goodyear, Arizona
Reception and Dinner Sunday, March 23 Phoenix
Senior Send-Off Thursday, May 22 Hotel Winneshiek, Decorah
Commencement Sunday, May 25 Luther College
Salzburg to Vienna, Austria, Cycling Tour Hosted by Luisa and Peter Forsgren ’82 Wednesday, June 11– Monday, June 23
Family Weekend Friday, September 19– Sunday, September 21 Luther College
Homecoming
Saturday, April 5 Luther
Friday, October 10– Sunday, October 12 Luther College
Luther College Lunch Connection in Des Moines
Bach and Bonhoeffer Tour to Germany and Czech Republic
Friday, April 11 Windsor Heights (Iowa) Community Center
Saturday, June 14– Tuesday, June 27, 2015 Hosted by Jim and Karen Martin-Schramm and Gregory Peterson ’83 and Ann Sponberg Peterson
Luther alumni events are open to all alumni and friends of the college, including parents and other family members of graduates and students. Please note that some dates listed are tentative; specific information about upcoming events will be mailed or e-mailed to alumni, friends, and parents who live near the event sites. If you need more information or if you’re interested in planning an event in your area, call the Alumni Office at (800) 225-8664. We’d love to hear from you!
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Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID La Crosse, WI Permit No. 25
Luther College, 700 College Drive, Decorah, Iowa 52101-1045
Images of Luther re-created
Jamie rasmussen ’14
In honor of American Archives Month last October, the Luther Archives sponsored a “rephotography” campaign. Students and others re-created historical photos with a modern spin. Look at how life at Luther has changed over time by viewing the Relive Luther Facebook photo album created by Archives and the Luther College Photo Bureau at http://bit.ly/rephotographyinspiration.
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