Here’s a quick summary of some of the highlights from the week:

• Sunday evening, Admissions staff connected with 250 youth at Trinity Mennonite (Glendale) and Michele Hershberger was the keynote speaker for the event
• Hesston College gave away about 1,000 T-shirts to youth as they arrived and checked into their youth hotel lobbies as people arrived Monday, before opening worship. Everyone kept asking “What’s with all these SMART shirts?” and “How did Hesston College do this?” By the end of the week, the college nearly ran out of the giveaway T-shirts as they were so popular with youth and their sponsors.
• Constituents noticed a strong faculty presence in our booth along with our president’s presence in the booth.
• Our alumni event Tuesday night STARTed at the admissions booth where we offered a brief explanation of all the things going on with the youth and then took about 160 alumni and friends to a lovely reception that focused on “Why I was SMART to START at Hesston College.” Speakers included Luke Hartman, Marissa King and Mallory Eicher. President Keim shared more spectacular data from our recent round of surveys and assessments, and alumni even got to play a mini version of our match game that the youth played.
• Rachel Swartzendruber Miller represented Hesston College very well as the featured speaker for youth worship Tuesday night.
• Hesston College faculty and staff presented in a total of 20 seminars – more than any other college.
• Hesston College sponsored the Junior Youth gathering and Marissa King, Bonita Garber and Dustin Galyon all served as keynote speakers for that gathering.
• A highlight for the Junior Youth gathering was the Anabaptist Game led by Michele Hershberger.
• Our strategy for youth focused on our high quality academics and how it’s smart to start at Hesston College. Rather than matching a random number (as has been the case in previous conventions), youth were looking to match specific transfer tracks done by our alumni. For example: Hesston>Goshen>Iowa State. The tracks were attached to SMART glasses (which are VERY in right now with youth).
• Hesston College Pastoral Ministries had a booth alongside Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Recent PM alumnus Kenzie Intemann helped Tim Lichti work this booth.
• Hesston College had Bel Canto Singers’ most recent CD “Songs of a Wayfarer” on sale as part of a partnership with Mennonite Economic Development Associates wherein profits are shared between Latin American economic development and student scholarships at Hesston College.
• Hesston College faculty and staff and many of our alumni served on Community Life staff (a team of liaisons between youth groups and hotels).

And of course, there were countless other meaningful interactions that happened and were somehow connected to the college.

To pull off such a great presence at the convention, it took all of us working in together – mainly Admissions, IT, Marketing & Communications, Alumni & Church Relations, Facilities, Faculty, our student focus groups, student ambassadors, administration and many many more. THANK YOU!

For more, search #phoenix13 and #hesstoncollege on Twitter and Instagram.