A passion for learning and relationships are the foundation of Hesston College’s newly established Kenneth Steider Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship, which will benefit international students, is a tribute to Steider’s life work and interests.

Steider, who passed away Sept. 15, 2011, was a 1949 Hesston College graduate and served the college as librarian and part-time English instructor for 11 years before spending 27 years serving in Taiwan. The scholarship fund was set up by Steider’s family as a way to honor the places and people he held dear.

“Ken loved school and learning,” said his sister-in-law, Jan Steider. “I think it would please him to know that a student’s chances at a Hesston College education were increased in his honor.”

Because of his years of service in Taiwan and his love for the country and its people, the scholarship will give recipient priority to a Mennonite student from Taiwan, followed by an international student from any other country who would benefit from the scholarship.

Steider grew up on a farm near Shickley, Neb., and left home as a high school student to enroll as a college freshman at Hesston in 1944 at the urging of Hesston instructor Morris Yoder and President Milo Kauffman. After one year, he received a teacher’s certificate and returned to Nebraska where he taught for two years in rural schools near his hometown. In the fall of 1948, he returned to Hesston and received his associate of arts degree in 1949, then transferred to Goshen (Ind.) College where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1951.

He spent the next two years again teaching in rural schools in Nebraska when he was approached by President Kauffman asking if he would be interested in getting his master’s degree and becoming the college’s librarian. Kauffman’s proposal prompted Steider to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for one semester and then the University of Illinois at Champaign to earn a master’s degree in library science.

In 1955 he returned to Hesston College and began serving as librarian and part-time English teacher. During his time on staff at Hesston, he helped establish the Mary Miller Library.  In 1966 he was called by the Board of Christian Service of the General Conference Mennonite Church about an opening for a teacher-librarian at a missionary school in Taiwan. He accepted the position and served a two-year term of voluntary service, which extended into a lifetime career until his retirement in 1993.

Steider’s 27 years in Taiwan began with teaching junior high and high school English at Morrison Academy in Taichung for one year and working with the Christian Children’s Fund in Taipei. In 1974 he began at the Mennonite Christian Hospital in Hwalien as the first English secretary to the medical director and then the superintendent’s assistant as well as being a liaison for many foreign missionary doctors. He also started the medical library for the hospital and served as secretary for the medical education with the hospital.

Upon his retirement, Steider returned to Hesston where he volunteered at the college, providing tutoring support and serving as a mentor and resource for international students and returning to Taiwan a couple of times to teach English.

Taiwan became Steider’s home and his students became his friends and family. In tributes to Ken and messages to the family upon his death, his former students in Taiwan remember a man who was intentional in his relationships and delighted in the beauty of even the simplest of matters.

“Kenneth’s example of service was an important model for me,” said his niece, Susan (Steider) Miller. “It wasn’t easy for him to go to Taiwan, and after retiring, it wasn’t easy to make the States home again.”

Steider expressed his life experiences through poetry. His poem entitled “Leaving,” sums up his experience with international work.

Ten years plus one in Kansas –
Life and love, work and worship,
Wind and rain, heat and cold,
Spring and summer, fall and winter
Engulfed me and infilled me.

One day my Mother Kansas,
    With little pain of labor,
    Expelled me from her cozy womb
    Into the boundless vast expanse,
    All strange and unfamiliar

    But then I took the unfamiliar,
    Wrapped myself securely in it
    And made that world a home much larger,
    Less confining – yet still another womb.
    I wait once more to be delivered.

    How many births shall I experience
    Until I soar to utmost heights
    With spirit free of flesh-blood barriers,
    Free of all that keeps me earthbound?
    Hope fills my heart; faith quells my fear.

“He touched a lot of lives,” said Jan of her brother-in-law. “He lived a total life of faith and was humble in the process of living.”