For over 10 years students have participated in two campus events during the annual McPherson County All-Schools Week – the Campus Blowout team competition and the Senior Drive-Thru where seniors are recognized as they pass through the Heaston Gazebo.
Category: Campus Events
End of Year Traditions
MC Hosts One-Day Art Festival With More than 350 Works For Area High School Students
For five years, now, McPherson College has hosted what might be the shortest art exhibit in Kansas.
Since 2011, the Central Kansas League has invited McPherson College to host its annual art festival, which was held this year on April 29.
The annual festival offers a professionally juried exhibition for high school students who are selected by their teachers at Sterling, Halstead, Hesston, Hillsboro, Haven, Kingman, Lyons, Nickerson, Pratt, Smoky Valley (Lindsborg), Larned and Hoisington.
This year brought about 120 students to campus with more than 375 works of art in a wide range of mediums – paint, pencil, ceramics, photography – even corrugated cardboard.
The subjects covered the gamut, too – a towering mobile of multi-colored paper cranes, photography of the lower half of a face caked in white and blue paint, a rosary so large that it would only be usable for a giant (presumably a Catholic one).
The show was juried by Frank Shaw, associate professor of art at Bethany College, and Mary Kay, professor of art at Bethany. Kay and Shaw said that rating such excellent and diverse artwork was a joy, and a job.
“Walking in the door,” Shaw said, “I realized that our work is going to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.”
While their work was judged, the young high school artists got to learn new skills in professional-level workshops – including pinhole photography, clay, plaster casting and quilting.
Wayne Conyers, McPherson College professor of art, said that the league festival used to be held in high school gymnasiums, with work hung on chicken wire. The workshops, meanwhile, were often held in unsuitable classrooms and even hallways.
In 2010, the head of the league that year proposed that the next festival be held at McPherson College. Conyers arranged to have MC as the festival’s host for 2011. The league has asked McPherson College to host the festival every year since.
Now instead of gymnasiums, students hang their work in McPherson College’s Friendship Hall gallery. Instead of hallways, high school students get to experience true college-level art studios.
Welcoming students to McPherson College, Dr. Bruce Clary, vice president for Academic Affairs at MC, applauded the high school students at the festival for pursuing their artistry and expressing themselves in their work.
“It’s one of the most elemental human impulses,” he said. “To create.”
Work from the show was posted on Twitter with the hashtag #cklart.
Car Show at McPherson College Attracts About 250 Vehicles, Hundreds of Visitors
Microcars and modern jazz, pop-tops and pinstripes, historic racers and even a haircut – all a part of the 16th Annual C.A.R.S. Club Car Show on May 2.
About 250 cars, trucks, motorcycles and tractors entered the student-run show on the campus of McPherson College, attracting hundreds of visitors and automotive enthusiasts.
Robert Bean of Great Bend, Kan., entered the show for the first time this year with what was probably the smallest car in the show – a 1954 Gebruder Ilhe Schottenring Microcar that doesn’t quite reach the knee.
With a single cylinder motor giving the tiny car a top speed of 25 miles per hour, only five of the microcars are known to remain, and Bean’s was the third manufactured. When Bean discovered the C.A.R.S. Club Car Show in an Internet search, he thought it would be a perfect venue for the Microcar.
“I like the setting,” he said. “It’s not like you’re sitting on Main Street somewhere.”
Evan Clary is a 2014 graduate from the college’s four-year automotive restoration bachelor’s degree program. He entered his daily driver in the show – which happens to be a 1967 Dodge A100 Sportsman with a Travco “pop-top” conversion to turn it into a RV/camping vehicle. With the pop-top up, it towered above any other car on the campus.
While Clary said the van was a good car but “nothing special.” As it won a top award for Student Choice, however, it still captured plenty of attention.
“Everybody loves the van,” Clary said. “I always get looks and comments when I drive it.”
Near the college’s iconic Heaston Gazebo, Jacob San Martin, a freshman from Perris, Calif., demonstrated his steady hand and artistic skill painting pinstripes on glass plates as well as a bright pink pedal car. San Martin said he’s been pinstriping since he was 12.
“I was just fascinated by the art,” he said. “Once the brush goes down, you’re in the zone.”
Nearby were the show’s featured cars, which were selected on a racing theme this year – including the 1991 Chevy Lumina winner of the Daytona 500, driven by Ernie Irvan; and a 1964 Shelby Cobra racer, owned by Tom Cotter – author of “The Cobra in the Barn” – who drove the Cobra to McPherson from North Carolina.
If the cars weren’t enough, many other special events were planned for the day. Hagerty Insurance gave kids the opportunity to race with “Valve Cover Cars” down a special racing ramp. Ed Barr, assistant professor of technology, demonstrated sheet metal shaping techniques just after lunch.
In the afternoon, the McPherson College jazz combo and the McPherson High School jazz band played several standards. Later, a team of restoration students assembled a functioning 1926 Ford Model T touring car from a pile of parts in just 9 minutes and 4 seconds in a competition against the clock that has become a tradition at the show.
Visitors to the show could also support the automotive restoration program by picking up lunch sold by the C.A.R.S. Club or getting a retro-style haircut or “mustache wax” right on the college campus from the Fox & Ash Barbershop in McPherson.
The day ended with students presenting the day’s awards, with top prizes going to a 1967 Corvette Stingray (People’s Choice) 1967 Dodge A100 Sportsman (Student Choice) and a 1951 MG T.D. Series (Best in Show).
‘Evening With Automotive Restoration’ Features Expert in Car Journalism
For decades, Jean Jennings has been helping make the automotive world accessible to non-experts – or, as she puts it, “I know the secret car-guy handshake, so you don’t have to.”
Jennings is this year’s featured guest speaker at the “Evening with Automotive Restoration” dinner at 6 p.m. on Friday May 1, in Mingenback Theatre on the MC campus.
Jennings first learned about cars at the kitchen table from her father, who was editor of “Automotive News.” She went on to become an owner/operator of a Yellow Cab in Ann Arbor, Mich., and then as a test driver, welder and mechanic at Chrysler’s test track. From there, she became a writer at “Car and Driver” magazine in 1980 and helped found “Automobile Magazine” as first executive editor in 1985, becoming editor in chief in 2000 and adding the role of president of the magazine in 2006. She now focuses on the website that she created – “Jean Knows Cars” – and has signed with the “Chicago Tribune” to write a syndicated column.
In her career, she has taught Oprah and her studio audience how to change a tire and jump a battery; served as automotive correspondent for “Good Morning America”; been a guest on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno; and been profiled in “The New Yorker.”
On television, she’s been a regular contributor to the “Fox Business Network,” “Behind the Wheel,” MSNBC, CNN’s Headline News, and CBS This Morning and Evening News, among others.
An Evening with Automotive Restoration is one part of a full weekend highlighting the automotive restoration program at McPherson College, which is the only college to offer a four-year bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration.
May 1 will also have a “cruise-in” for classic cars, May 2 is the student-run C.A.R.S. Club Car Show – which is free to the public to attend – and on May 3 is a swap meet – a new event this year.
Amanda Gutierrez, vice president for automotive restoration, said she expects a fun evening and weekend with both Jennings speaking Friday evening and the car show on Saturday.
“As the college’s reputation grows nationwide, we are able to bring in high-profile individuals from the automotive world to spend time with our students, the campus community and area car enthusiasts,” Gutierrez said. “Jean is a remarkable woman with a lot of industry knowledge.”
Tickets for An Evening with Automotive Restoration are $35 per person, with proceeds benefiting the automotive restoration program. Tickets can be purchased online at www.mcpherson.edu/autorestoration.
McPherson College to Hold Earth Day Celebration
McPherson College will celebrate Earth day on its campus with activities for all ages and a give-away of rain barrels.
The activities will run from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, April 24 in front of Melhorn Science Hall. In case of poor weather, the events will be inside Melhorn Hall.
Planned activities will teach about why it is important to protect the planet, and share several ways to do so.
Student groups from the Natural Sciences department at McPherson College, such as Tri-Beta, will be showing off their hydroponic garden and teaching people how to build one of their own.
The Pre-Health Professions Club will share information on the usefulness of plants in the home as it relates to air quality and medical applications. All children who attend will be able to take an aloe vera plant home. There will also be several games for kids designed to educate them on concepts of conservation.
Finally, as part of a service-learning project, Dr. Dustin Wilgers, assistant professor of biology, and his Environmental Science class will be giving a limited number of rain barrels.
Rain barrels are an excellent way to conserve water resources by collecting rain from gutters to be used to water gardens and landscaping. Donations to help cover the cost of these rain barrels – which cost $15 each to build – are appreciated to help keep this program going in coming years. However, no donations are needed or expected.
There will be 12 rain barrels available to the community, handed out on a first-come, first-served basis.
‘The Foreigner’ at McPherson College Displays Work of Student Director
In “The Foreigner,” a man named Charlie gets tossed into a new and unfamiliar situation when his friends introduces him as a foreigner who speaks no English.
Addie Johnson, junior, McPherson, at McPherson College is learning how to direct “The Foreigner” in a similar way – by jumping in as the only director of the comedy, which is showing at 7:30 p.m. April 17 and 18 in Brown Auditorium.
Learning how to direct will help Johnson in her planned career, as she’s working toward becoming a theatre teacher.
Johnson said there were some initial fears after she started casting the show right before Spring Break.
“I was really excited,” she said. “And then I thought, ‘Oh, what have I gotten myself into?’”
The comedy follows two friends who go on a Georgia fishing trip, and one of them introduces the other – Charlie – as a foreigner who speaks no English to keep the locals away.
Instead, the residents come out in droves to educate the “foreigner,” and he overhears more than he should – leading to some awkward moments and has to decide what to do with what he inadvertently discovers. Johnson said her favorite part of the show is when Charlie gets tricked into telling a story in his “native language” – which he makes up on the spot.
“If people want to have a great night of laughter,” Johnson said, “I think it would be a great opportunity for people to come.”
Tickets to all shows cost $5 for adults and $3.50 for children ages high school and younger as well as seniors. Reservations may be made by contacting the theatre box office at 620-242-0444 or at [email protected].
Harter Lecturer at McPherson College Talks On the Life-and-Death Difference a Bit of Soap Makes
Three facts of Derreck Kayongo’s life led to him creating a global social venture that saves lives.
- His father was a soap-maker.
- He saw the deadly effects of poor hygiene in refugee camps while working for humanitarian agencies, such as American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, and CARE International.
- He stayed in an American hotel and confessed to “stealing” the bathroom soap, only to discover the unused bars were just thrown away every day.
These experiences led Kayongo to co-found – with his wife, Sarah – of The Global Soap Project in 2009. The project takes partially used soap from hotels and turns it into new, refined soap for those in need around the world.
“Events are what give us the impetus to do good things,” Kayongo said.
Kayongo talked about the Global Soap Project and how it came to be at McPherson College’s Harter Lecture on Wednesday, April 8.
Today, the Global Soap Project produces 30,000 bars of soap each week, and since its founding has provided more than 500,000 bars to countries including Afghanistan, Swaziland, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Haiti. The project led to CNN naming him a “CNN Hero” in 2011.
During the lecture, Kayongo said that more than 800 million bars of soap are thrown away every year in the United States. The project reclaims some of that and provides it to those in countries where the spread of disease among people who are unable to thoroughly wash their hands is a real and daily threat.
Giving out the bars of soap to a community is a celebration, Kayongo said. Whereas mothers in the U.S. may respond to a gift with a, “Thank you,” the reaction among those who need soap is quite different.
“We scream and we dance and we laugh and we cry together,” he said.
At times, he’s had to convince mothers to use the gift, however, because some of them are holding on to holding something more powerful when they hold on to that bar of soap.
“I told them about the passion of American philanthropy,” he said, “And they saw it as a sign of hope.”
The lecture closed with Ayongo teaching the audience a song from Uganda, where he was born, and then leading everyone in joining together.
Beyond providing life-saving soap around the world, Kayongo said he hopes the project has helped to change the mindset of American industry as well.
“We need to help corporations understand that their ultimate role is to help society,” he said.
800 Students Compete in Central Kansas League Music Festival on McPherson College Campus
In auditorium and sanctuary, classroom and library, the campus of McPherson College was alive with music and song on March 4.
Thanks to about 800 high school musicians and singers competing in the Central Kansas League Music Festival, few corners of the campus lacked the sound of music. The competitions included both vocal and instrumental divisions in both ensemble and solo categories across the whole day.
To accommodate everything from large-group jazz bands to a capella singers to percussion ensembles, performances were held on campus in Brown Auditorium, Miller Library, and Hess Hall as well as venues close to campus – McPherson Church of the Brethren and Trinity Lutheran Church.
Debra Lewis, choir and vocal teacher in Hoisington, brought 36 of her students to perform and compete at the league festival. She said hearing other students perform and developing camaraderie with them mean they grew and learned as performers. She said the group performances in Trinity Lutheran Church stood out to her as a highlight.
“There were a lot of moments where my students said, ‘Wow, that was awesome,’” she said. “It made a big impression on them.”
The Central Kansas League member high schools are Halstead, Haven, Hesston, Hillsboro, Hoisington, Kingman, Larned, Smoky Valley, Lyons, Nickerson, Pratt and Sterling. In recent years, McPherson College has offered its facilities and resources for Central Kansas League events, including the league’s art festival and a league jazz festival.
Kyle Hopkins, associate professor of music and director of bands at McPherson College, along with Shawn Knopp, chairman of the league, spent long hours planning the festival. Hopkins said it was well worth the time and effort, however, to build community across the league.
“We made them feel welcome and vital on our campus,” Hopkins said. “And I heard over and over again how much they appreciated our hospitality.”
Hopkins said the festival benefitted more than the students competing.
“We encouraged over 800 students to achieve a higher level in their musical preparation which will enable them to embrace a deeper understanding of themselves and their humanity,” Hopkins said. “We strengthened our campus community, and we built a larger community of area schools. To me, that’s a win, win, win.”
Mohler Lecture at McPherson College Marks 40th Anniversary of Great Guest Speakers
Dr. Robert E. Mohler (left), co-founder of the Mohler Lecture in 1975 at McPherson College, greets the lecture’s first guest speaker at the first event. Dr. H.H. Nininger (right) was a former MC professor and prominent meteorite expert. The lecture also served as a joint 90th birthday party for both Mohler and Nininger.
For 40 years, the generosity of Dr. Robert and Mrs. Fern Shoemaker Mohler has brought prominent speakers and cultural programs to McPherson College – spanning academic disciplines and representing a wide range of human experience and thinking.
The first lecture in 1975 highlighted MC professor Dr. H.H. Nininger, famous for his work on meteorites and paleontology. In addition to providing information about Dr. Nininger’s lifetime of knowledge in meteorites, it also functioned as a 90th birthday party for both Dr. Nininger – the first speaker of the lecture series – and Dr. Mohler – one of the lecture’s two benefactors.
Since then, speakers have included Dr. Elmer Staats, comptroller of the currency of the United States in 1982; “Roots” author Alex Haley in 1987; and Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein in 2003.
Susan Taylor, a granddaughter of Dr. Mohler who helps select the speakers every year, said Haley’s lecture always stood out in her mind.
“The audience was just spellbound,” she said. “It was more than an hour, but felt like a few minutes.”
Academic disciplines represented by Mohler lecture speakers have included; philosophy and religion, chemistry and nutrition, music performance, dance, medicine, automotive restoration, government and public policy, business, history, art, literature, politics, service, ecology, economics, agriculture, education, diversity, biology and more.
Roberta Reed, Dr. Mohler’s daughter, said the lecture series has been a way to honor his love of lifelong learning.
“It meant a lot to him,” Reed said, “To have a way to continue his legacy.”
Taylor recalled other lectures that had a significant effect, both personally and across the McPherson community.
For example, in 1989 Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, inspired students to form a campus chapter of the non-profit that builds homes for low-income families. At the time, MC was the smallest college with a local chapter anywhere in the nation. That campus organization developed into the McPherson County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, which even today continues to build homes.
When on the faculty, Taylor remembered the classroom visits from the lecturers as her favorite part of the series. In particular, she recalls MC alumnus Noel Grove, a writer for “National Geographic,” explaining to students how he got his start at the magazine. He would spend all night working on getting the captions just right. Taylor said Grove’s work ethic made a positive impression on her students.
The lecture is supported by permanent funds from the Mohler’s initial gift that are now held in the McPherson College endowment, meaning that the Mohler lecture will continue to bring great speakers to McPherson College for years to come.
This year’s Mohler lecturer is alumna Dr. Kathy Melhorn ’77 – an expert in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Dr. Melhorn will present “Child Abuse and Neglect: Do we have the Evidence and Courage We Need to Make a Difference?” on March 8, 2015, starting at 4 p.m. in Mingenback Theatre on the campus of McPherson College. Her lecture will cover what researchers and physicians know about child abuse – and what researchers still need to learn.
The lecture is free and the public is invited and encouraged to attend.
Highlights from 40 years of the annual Mohler Lecture at McPherson College
- 1975: Dr. H.H. Nininger, meteorite expert
- 1982: Dr. Elmer Staats, comptroller of the currency of the United States
- 1987: Alex Haley, author of “Roots”
- 1989: Dr. Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity
- 1990: Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute
- 1998: Dr. Martin E. Marty, theologian and religion scholar
- 2002: Noel Grove, writer for “National Geographic”
- 2003: Gerda Klein, Holocaust survivor
- 2007: McKeel Hagerty, classic cars and liberal arts
- 2012: 125th anniversary of McPherson College, panel discussion
‘On the Verge’ at McPherson College Tells Tale of Travel Across Space, Time, Mind
A deep plot involving exploring the jungle deeps, time travel initiated by egg beaters, and a script with all male parts played by a single actor just scratches the surface of what makes “On the Verge, or The Geography of Learning” a complex and layered production.
The play is showing at McPherson College at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 27 and 28 as well as March 6 and 7 in Mingenback Theatre.
The show explores three Victorian-era women who move through the unexplored land of “Terra Incognita,” and eventually find they are moving through time, as well as space. The movement through both dimensions becomes a metaphor for personal exploration and change in life.
Laurina Hannan, senior, Wamego, Kan., said much of the language is archaic with metaphors working on multiple levels and frequent, long monologues. It adds up to being a challenging story for both audience and performers.
“The whole concept is unfamiliar to modern audiences,” Hannan said. “We’re moving quickly in time along with physical movement.”
The subject of travel and exploration was particularly personal for Addie Johnson, junior, McPherson, Kan., who recently returned from a choir tour of Europe; as well as Hannan and Crystal Osner, junior, Conway Springs, Kan., who spent January on a college trip in Ecuador.
Logan Schrag, freshman, McPherson, Kan., has the distinction in “On the Verge” of being the only male actor, although not the only male character. Schrag has to portray eight distinct personalities across the course of the play.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge,” Schrag said.
He’s enjoying the reversal from the ways playwrights often cast men and women.
“Usually it’s the opposite: that men are fully rounded and women are generic characters,” Schrag said.
Jd. Bowman, associate professor of theatre and director of “On the Verge,” said that he sees parallels between the journey in the play and the journey of learning that these students are in the midst of right now.
“They’re the perfect age for this show because they’re in the middle of intellectual travels,” he said.
Tickets to all shows cost $5 for adults and $3.50 for children ages high school and younger as well as seniors. Reservations may be made by contacting the theatre box office at 620-242-0444 or at [email protected]. Seating is limited, so reservations are encouraged.