Hurricane-survivor, accomplished pianist, and songwriter Tony Duplessis performs a selection as part of a short concert during chapel Monday, April 20, at Hesston College. The chapel presentation followed a 90-minute concert the previous evening to raise scholarship funds for Hesston students enrolled in the Disaster Management program, a joint program with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS), Akron, Pa. Program director Russ Gaeddert said more than $1,400 was raised.

Duplessis was glad to do the fund-raiser. “I believe in what MDS is doing and anything that I can do to support it, I’ll do,” he said. “I’ve seen firsthand what MDS does and the impact it has on people’s lives. They minister to people through their work.”

Gaeddert said the scholarships help students to be able to better afford to come to Hesston College and to participate in the Disaster Management program that gives them service and leadership opportunities.

Duplessis, 40, and his wife Donna have a new home, thanks to MDS workers at the Diamond, Louisiana project site. Their new home was dedicated in December 2007.

The couple had fled to Arkansas in advance of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August 2005. The twin hurricanes also destroyed the church Duplessis was pastoring at the time, the Lighthouse Fellowship congregation in Buras, La., which was also rebuilt by MDS workers from the U.S. and Canada. The MDS project site in Diamond is the former St. Jude’s Catholic Elementary School, where Duplessis learned to love music, among other things, especially classical music.

Duplessis said he received a warm and loving welcome at Hesston College, and an appreciation for his piano music, which ranged from classical like Chopin to gospel music to indigenous music like zydeco, a mixture of French and West African music. “That’s probably because so many people have come to Diamond and got a taste of it,” he said. “I cannot wait to come back to Hesston.”

Duplessis, who holds a bachelor’s degree in piano performance at Xaxier University in New Orleans, is engaged in studies for a master’s degree in piano performance at Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo.