In the News

Hesston College announces new position for Aviation

Hesston College Vice President of Academics Sandra Zerger announced the appointment of Richard Binkley to the new position of Aviation Operations Manager.

Binkley will serve the college’s aviation department through financial planning and management, fleet management, curriculum oversight and classroom and flight instruction. He began his role February 11.

“We added this new role in response to a need that grew out of growth in the aviation program following the addition of Air Traffic Control in 2010,” said Zerger. “Richard will play a key role in ensuring student success in aviation by scheduling student flights, maintaining the planes and handling the budget.”

Binkley earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a master of aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide (Atlanta, Ga.) with a specialization in aviation and aerospace management. He is a FAA-certified flight instructor with instrument and multiengine ratings. He also has extensive classroom teaching experience in flight school, high school and college environments.

Prior to transitioning to Hesston College, Binkley was a high school advanced placement computer science instructor at the Georgia Institute of Technology Operation Reboot (Atlanta). His aviation experience includes serving as chief pilot, flight and ground instructor and FAA test center supervisor for FlightGest Aviation in Raleigh, N.C., for 11 years.

Hesston College Aviation offers two-year degree instruction in flight and air traffic control. Flight students earn certification in single-engine land private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument and multi-engine rating and fixed-wing private pilot through airline transport pilot. Air Traffic Control was added as a plan of study in 2010 as part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative and is the only program in Kansas and one of 36 nationwide with FAA approval.

Hesston College and local churches to present program in honor of Black History Month

Hesston College will partner with Mennonite churches in Inman and Buhler – Bethel, Hoffnungsau and Inman Mennonite churches (Inman) and Buhler Mennonite Church to present “Common Threads: Anabaptist and African-American Songs and Stories of Suffering and Hope” at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 24, at Bethel Mennonite Church in Inman. The event is free and open to the public though a free-will offering will be received to cover program costs.

“Common Threads” is a program of story and song featuring Hesston College faculty members Tony Brown, John Sharp and Ken Rodgers that explores the way the historical events of Anabaptist religious persecution and African-American racial segregation intersected. They give voices to Anabaptist martyrs and enslaved African-Americans of history by singing their hymns and telling their stories.

February’s Black History Month is for remembrance of historical events and important African-American leaders. “Common Threads” offers deeper understanding about the enslaved African-American and Anabaptist Martyr experience of suffering and hope. High school and junior high youth are especially invited to attend.

“Both groups found strength and consolation in their steadfast faith in God,” Sharp said. “They were utterly confident that God’s purposes would, in the end, prevail. Their stories and songs have not typically been linked, but we believe it is useful to do so. Their witness stands for all who will see and hear.”

“Thinking about how we can connect with others and finding those common threads can offer promise for humanity,” Brown said. “In the end, we as a human species are more profoundly alike than different. It is the idea of difference that formed the basis for racism, persecution and systematic oppression. Humanity needs to find value in difference while at the same time exploring the common threads that bind us together.”

Brown is a professional baritone, artist in residence and sociology professor. Sharp is a history professor, storyteller and author. Rodgers is director of the Chorale and instructs in the music department. Alumni and Church Relations Director Dallas Stutzman will represent the college. A reception and short Hesston College update will follow the program.

Search “Common Threads” at www.youtube.com for a short video on the program.

Bethel Mennonite Church is located at 256 8th Avenue in Inman.

For more information, contact the Alumni and Church Relations office toll-free at 866-437-7866.

Kenneth Steider Memorial Scholarship to benefit Hesston College international students

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.”

Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts to present a cultural treasure of Mexican traditional music and dance

What the “Kansas City Star” called “a heady rush of tapping heels, dazzling costumes and insistent rhythms” comes to Bethel College’s Memorial Hall stage Feb. 23.

The fourth event in the Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts series for 2012-13 brings the Ballet Folklorico “Quetzalli” de Veracruz to south central Kansas to share indigenous and other traditional Mexican music and dance.

The show will take place Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, including how to order tickets, visit HBPA’s brand-new website, hesstonbethel.org.

Veteran dancer Hugo Betancourt founded Quetzalli in 1985 and still directs it. Since then, it has delighted audiences from Europe to Indonesia, bringing the world a visual fiesta of culture and folklore featuring regional dances of old Mexico.

Music is performed live on authentic stringed instruments by the award-winning folk ensemble Tlen-Huicani. It punctuates the meticulous movement, colorful clothing and perfect pulse established by the dancers and helps make Quetzalli one of Mexico’s most popular exports.

Quetzalli’s home base is in Xalapa, the Veracruz state capital. They perform traditional folkloric dances, as well as their Afro-Caribbean spectacular, “Carnaval Veracruzano.” The company has been the official representatives of the Secretary of Tourism and Economic Development for the State of Veracruz since 1986, having given hundreds of performances across Mexico and the United States, South America, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.

They have performed at the Carnaval de Veracruz every year since 1991, as well as taking their famous comparsa xalapeña to the Carnaval de Havana on three different occasions. Other important appearances include the Miss Mexico pageant in Cancun, TV appearances on “Siempre en Domingo” from Mexico City, the Festival Cervantino in Guanaguato, and at the Festival of Culture in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Quetzalli’s dance company is composed of young people who love the traditions of their people as expressed through the music, songs and dances characteristic of different ethnic groups. They create their interpretations through technical formation, bibliographical study and ritual observation.

The group has around 45 dancers and 10 musicians and, in addition to maintaining its performance schedule, operates a school and training program for young dancers in Xalapa. Quetzalli continues to be one of the great cultural treasures of Veracruz.

“Things were clicking at the Performing Arts Center when the vibrant Ballet Folklorico de Veracruz stormed the stage in a heady rush of tapping heels, dazzling costumes and insistent rhythms,” wrote a reviewer for the “Kansas City Star.” “A near-capacity audience cheered and clapped its welcome. . .every heritage should be so lovingly and beautifully preserved.”

Single tickets for Ballet Folklorico “Quetzalli” de Veracruz at Bethel College are $27 or $23, with discounts available for students and senior citizens.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call 620-327-8158 (Hesston College) or 316-284-5205 (Bethel College) or visit the HBPA website at hesstonbethel.org.

The Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts Series started in 1982 as Hesston Performing Arts (HPA) with funding and planning provided by Hesston College and the Hesston community. In 1998 HPA planners launched a partnership with Bethel College, and the series name changed to Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts. Hesston College in Hesston and Bethel College in North Newton host performances each year. HBPA is funded in part by the cities of Hesston and North Newton, Excel Industries and Hustler Turf Equipment (Hesston), and area patrons.

Brown to perform “I Go On Singing” in Harrisonburg, Va.

Tony Brown will perform the original musical autobiography “I Go On Singing” at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9 at Lehman Auditorium on the Eastern Mennonite University campus, Harrisonburg, Va..

“I Go On Singing” is Brown’s original tribute to Paul Robeson, all-American athlete, scholar, champion orator, international recording artist and star of the stage and screen during the 1930s and 40s, written for Brown by playwright Andrew Flack. Brown’s telling of Robeson’s story is a 75-minute song-filled, multi-media presentation that reveals him as a towering figure in 20th century American history.

Accompanied by collaborative pianist and Hesston College music faculty member Ken Rodgers, photo projection and a narrator, “I Go On Singing” is equal parts historical documentary and live concert experience. Using Robeson’s own words from his autobiography “Here I Stand” and comments from legendary peace activist and artist Pete Seeger, the show traces Robeson’s humble beginnings as a preacher’s son in Princeton, N.J., to his international celebrity and pioneering activism on the world stage.

Brown is an international promoter of peace, Hesston College sociology faculty member and artist in residence and founder of Peacing It Together Foundation, an organization that serves the global community as a resource for peace and social justice. He uses music and the spoken word to bring people together across the divides of race, culture and religion. His travels have taken him to countries such as Bosnia, Moldova, Northern Ireland, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Philippines, China, Japan, South Korea and Colombia, where he has seen music transform and heal.

“I Go On Singing” premiered to inspiring reviews in Princeton, N.J., in 2011 and Wichita, Kan., in 2012. Brown also performed it at A Hesston College Homecoming in September 2012.

Photo release - Honoring Dr. King

Hesston College sophomore Bonita Garber (Bainbridge, Pa.), third from right, shares during a panel discussion about her experiences and views with gender roles Jan. 16. The panel discussion made up of students and faculty was part of the college’s week-long celebration Jan. 14 to 18 of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. The week’s theme, “Gender Around the World and on the Hesston College Campus,” featured author and local college professor Aikiiki Daisy Kabagarama in the keynote presentation Jan. 14. Pictured from left are sophomore Tim Bixler (Indianapolis), biology instructor Lorna Harder, history instructor John Sharp, sophomore Mallory Eicher (Berne, Ind.), sophomore Neal Brubaker (Goessel, Kan.), communication instructor Kendra Burkey, business instructor David LeVan, Garber, education instructor Marissa King and sophomore Matt Hershey (Harleysville, Pa.).

Hesston College part of new program encouraging healthy behavior for students

As college students return to schools this spring, there is renewed interest in ensuring their health and wellness. This includes managing risky behaviors like drug use and excessive drinking, which are the most common health issues on college campuses.

This semester, students at Hesston College will have extra resources to make sure they stay healthy. These resources include mental health and substance abuse counseling services via Telemedicine, a technology that allows the student and mental health provider to meet over a secure video conferencing connection.

“Students who avoid substance abuse treatment often do so because of a lack of access to counseling services or because of stigmatization,” said Les Sperling, chief executive officer of the Central Kansas Foundation. “Telemedicine helps us overcome these barriers by providing a safe, confidential connection with a licensed counselor in a neutral environment.”

The counseling services are free to Hesston students, because of grant funding through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The grant was awarded to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City and the Central Kansas Foundation in Salina to improve substance abuse prevention and treatment among rural college students.

“Our goal is to identify those students that are high-risk early and assist them so they can stay in school,” said Eve-Lynn Nelson, Ph.D., psychologist at KU Medical Center. Nelson said many studies have examined alcohol and drug abuse on college campuses, but those studies haven’t focused on colleges in rural communities.

“Students attending college in rural towns face unique challenges in substance abuse treatment and prevention. Our project addresses those challenges,” said Nelson, who is principal investigator on the grant.

Hesston College has two trained campus counselors on staff who meet regularly with students to support them as they process topics and issues that may arise as students are on their college journey, such as depression, anxiety, personal growth, interpersonal conflicts and stress management. Adding Telemedicine to their counseling services expands the way in which they can assist students more specifically.

“Telemedicine is an important resource for Hesston College students because it meets a need that is best addressed by a clinician specifically trained in substance abuse and chemical dependency,” said Julie Lehman, Hesston College campus counselor and on-site coordinator of the project. “Students make decisions about lifestyle choices and habits, and Telemedicine offers them a place to process these choices or to address habits that interfere with their success.”

Hesston College is the third school to offer counseling through the three-year project. The project will expand to rural colleges across the state and add a substance abuse prevention component, using social media and virtual worlds. The project is a collaboration between KU Medical Center’s Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth and Area Health Education Centers, the Central Kansas Foundation, and rural Kansas colleges.

Sweet Honey brings vocal prowess, rich harmonies to songs for a better world

The internationally renowned women’s a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock comes to Bethel College’s Memorial Hall stage as the third concert in the 2012-13 Hesston-Bethel Performing Arts series.

The group performs Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are currently on sale weekdays at both Bethel and Hesston Colleges.

Since Bernice Johnson Reagon founded Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973 (along with Mie, Carol Maillard and Louise Robinson) at the D.C. Black Repertory Theater Company, this ensemble has been a vital and innovative presence in the music culture of Washington, D.C., and in communities of conscience around the world.

The name comes from Psalm 81:16: the promise to a people of being fed with honey out of the rock. Honey is an ancient substance, sweet and nurturing, while rock has an elemental strength that endures the winds of time.

The metaphor of sweet honey in the rock captures these African-American women with a repertoire steeped in the sacred music of the Black church, the clarion calls of the civil rights movement and songs of the struggle for justice everywhere.

Rooted in a deeply held commitment to create music out of the rich textures of African-American legacy and traditions, Sweet Honey In The Rock is known for a stunning vocal prowess that captures the complex sounds of blues, spirituals, traditional gospel hymns, rap, reggae, African chants, hip hop, ancient lullabies and jazz improvisation.

Sweet Honey’s collective voice, occasionally accompanied by hand percussion instruments, produces a sound filled with soulful harmonies and intricate rhythms.

In nearly 40 years of existence, Sweet Honey In The Rock has brought music to communities across the United States and around the world with a voice of hope, love, justice, peace and resistance. Sweet Honey invites audiences to open their minds and hearts and think about who we are and how we treat each other, our fellow creatures who share this planet and, of course, the planet itself.

Sweet Honey’s 20th CD, “Experience…101,” received a 2008 Grammy® Award nomination. Sweet Honey was then asked to compose new material to celebrate the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater’s 50th anniversary. These two artistic treasures of the African-American experience performed a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration throughout the United States, with the music released on a CD entitled “Go in Grace.”

“Go in Grace” was Sweet Honey’s 23rd CD. In addition, they have appeared on numerous tribute albums and collections.

Sweet Honey was honored to accept an invitation from President and Mrs. Obama to give a concert at the White House Feb. 18, 2009. In 2010, the group created a tribute concert, “Remembering Nina, Odetta and Miriam Makeba,” performed several times during the 2011-12 season.

In April 2012, Sweet Honey premiered its first-ever orchestral collaboration, “Symphony 10: Affirmations for a New World,” in performances with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. William Banfield wrote the music and Sweet Honey members the lyrics.

Last May, Chicago Theological Seminary presented the members of Sweet Honey with Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees, given to those whom have, in their work and in their lives, embodied the seminary’s core value of “transformative leadership toward greater justice and mercy in church and society.”

In addition to Maillard and Robinson (Reagon retired from the group in 2004), Sweet Honey In The Rock members are Ysaye Maria Barnwell, Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil and Shirley Childress Saxton (sign language interpreter).

Single tickets for Sweet Honey In The Rock are $27 or $23. Discounts are available for students and senior citizens.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call 620-327-8158 (Hesston College) or 316-284-5205 (Bethel College) or visit the HBPA website at www.hesston.edu/hbpa.

HBPA is funded in part by the cities of Hesston and North Newton, Excel Industries and Hustler Turf Equipment (Hesston) and area patrons.

Choirs to present collaborative concert in historic prairie cathedral

For a singer, few things compare to hearing the reverberation of a choir ring through vaulted cathedral ceilings. But in Kansas, cathedrals are hard to come by. The Hesston College Bel Canto Singers and the Goessel High School Elbiata Singers managed to find one of the few scattered on the Kansas prairie – St. Fidelis Church: The Cathedral on the Plains in Victoria, Kan. – will collaborate to present a concert in the unique space.

The combined choir will present a program of sacred and secular choral music with the theme “A Prairie Winter Sojourn” at 5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27. The concert is free and open to the public, though a free-will offering will be collected to cover program costs and for the ongoing work of the church.

Located north of Wichita, Hesston College and Goessel High School are only about 15 minutes apart and both are well known for their outstanding performing arts programs and long traditions of vocal excellence. Bel Canto Singers and Elbiata Singers are Hesston College and Goessel High’s premiere choirs with members selected by competitive audition. Bradley Kauffman of Newton, Kan., directs Bel Canto and Renae Schmidt Peters of Hesston, Kan., directs the Elbiata Singers.

St. Fidelis Church is located less than 15 minutes east of Hays. The acoustics make the two-hour drive worthwhile for the choirs and the audience.

“This performance gives the choirs an opportunity to present a specific type of legato music within a sympathetic architecture,” said Kauffman. “Bringing the legato voice together with a generous, live acoustic can be a uniquely inspiring experience. It is an aesthetic that inspired medieval and renaissance to modern composers.”

St. Fidelis Church was nicknamed The Cathedral of the Plains by William Jennings Bryan in 1912. The Romanesque church completed in 1911 features many elements found in its European inspiration, including German windows and works of art, Austrian hand-carved stations of the cross and an Italian marble altar. In 1971 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as a “building of architectural significance,” and was named one of the Eight Wonders of Kansas in 2008. The church is open to the public every day of the year, with mass being celebrated daily.

A charter bus leaving from Hesston at 1 p.m. Jan. 27, will travel to the concert for anyone wanting to attend. Seats on the bus can be purchased for $25 by calling Hesston College Alumni and Church Relations at 866-437-7866. Reservations and payment must be received by Friday, Jan. 25.