Before the Music Center was built, the space below the Leaf Raker had practice rooms. So that’s where Luke Miller ’02, who plays keyboard and guitar in the band, and his twin brother, Jesse ’02, who plays the bass and sampler, practiced during the early days of Lotus. “We started right away when I was here as a freshman,” said Luke. “We all just got together because we loved playing music.”

Lotus’ albums:

“Vibes” (2002) self-released (out of print)
“Germination” (live) (2003) Harmonized Records
“Nomad” (2004) Harmonized Records
“The Strength of Weak Ties” (2006) Harmonized Records
“Escaping Sargasso Sea” (live) (2007) Sci Fidelity
“Copy/Paste/Repeat” (remixes) (2007) Lotus Vibes Music
“Hammerstrike” (2008) Sci Fidelity
“Oil on Glass/Feather on Wood” EPs (2009) Sci Fidelity
“Lotus” (2011) Sci Fidelity

Check out the band’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lotus or listen to their music at lotusvibes.bandcamp.com/album/lotus.

Back then, the band consisted of a slightly different group of guys than it does now. In addition to Luke and Jesse, Lotus in its current form consists of guitarist Mike Rempel, who went to Goshen College for a semester, percussionist Chuck Morris, who lived in town at the time but didn’t go to the college, and drummer Mike Greenfield, of Nissequogue, N.Y. The original drummer for the band was Steve Clemens ’01, who played with Lotus until the summer of 2009.

As a music performance major specializing in classical guitar, Luke was required to take music theory and aural skills classes. In addition to remembering that he got sent out of the classroom for laughing at his brother’s attempt to sing during an ear training exercise, Luke also remembers the basic foundation of music composition that he learned in that class. “Having that music theory foundation helped me to be more flexible and try out different things when I’m writing music,” he said. He and Jesse are the primary composers for the band.

Through trial and error, Luke and Jesse have found a unique sound. As they expand upon a wide range of styles and sounds, Lotus is considered a multi-genre band, incorporating elements of rock, electronica, jazz, jam, funk and other influences.

Through the years Luke said he has learned a lot. “The music has changed a lot. I think it’s more focused down now, and a little less noodle-y than it used to be. Maybe a little bit more aggressive,” he said. “I feel like I learn something new every day about space and rhythm.”

During their constant touring – including gigs at Red Rocks amphitheater in Denver, Colo. and various music festivals with crowds of over 20,000 people – Lotus has acquired quite a following. The band’s Facebook page has more than 87,000 fans.

Known best for their live shows, each accompanied with a specially designed light show, Lotus has built much of their following through word of mouth, encouraging the recording and trading of their live shows. Their concerts often are recorded by amateur engineers and posted online for others to listen to. “We do a lot of group improv on stage that requires listening to all the parts at once. It’s kind of like problem solving,” said Luke. “But as the music builds and builds it’s a great feeling seeing the energy ripple through the crowd.”

A 2005 review of the band in Glide Magazine said, “Combining a sometimes explosive, sometimes delicate balance of electronic textures, from deep house to drum and bass, with more traditional, jam-oriented jazz, funk and world music, Lotus appeals to a diverse crowd of club goers and jam band supporters.”

In addition to their live shows, their albums also have received praise. Their 2004 album “Nomad” went to the top of the Home Grown Music Network charts and by the end of the year was the HGMN Best Seller. “Nomad” also was nominated for a New Groove of the Year Jammy award.(The Jammys is an awards show for jam bands and other artists associated with live, improvisational music.)

Their 2007 album “Escaping Sargasso Sea” was nominated for a Jammy award by Guitar Player magazine for Best Live Album of 2007. The album was described by Relix magazine as “sexy and sophisticated dance music, mature enough to be played in the club or the living room.” Their 2007 album “Copy/Paste/Repeat” was positively received by PopMatters webzine, who said that the album “reinvents the jam band’s music as dance floor jams, with hip hop and trance-influenced beats and mind-warping electronic synth burbles.”

After several years of building success, Lotus was featured on the cover of concert tour industry’s leading trade publication Pollstar magazine in 2008. While Lotus has come a long way, Luke said he’s still looking forward. He sees the band’s sound continuing to evolve. And there are still many venues that he wants to perform in, including The Warfield Theater in San Francisco.

Even though it’s been years since he spent his time practicing under the Leaf Raker, Luke still carries vivid memories of Goshen College. “That was a really pivotal time in my life… just kind of the general attitude that Goshen teaches of being accepting of new and other people, I think that’s helped me out on the road. Being able to interact with all of these people in an affable manor and dealing with different people – you’re dealing with different local crews everyday and different musicians – and that Goshen attitude rubbed off on me in that regard.”

In February, Lotus checked the Goshen Theater off their list of venues they’ve played in, much to the delight of many students and alumni who were amidst the packed crowd. “It felt good to be back in Goshen and to remember how it all started,” he said.

– By Alysha Landis ’11, in the Summer 2012 Bulletin

Myra de la Vega and Dan Coyne ’80

A longhaired teenage boy sat in the Elkhart County Jail awaiting transportation to the state correctional facility where he was to live for the next five years. After getting arrested for burglary and being put in solitary confinement for smuggling a weapon into jail, his story made the front page of the Goshen News.

Thirty-five years later, the same man lay in a hospital bed, awaiting transportation to an operating room so he could donate his kidney to a woman who needed it. Again, he was featured on the front page of the Goshen News, this time for being named “Hero of the Year” by the Chicago Red Cross.

Dan Coyne ’80 moved with his family from Albion, Mich., to Goshen when he was in ninth grade, and immediately didn’t fit in. “My shoulder-length hair and self-medicating behaviors kept most peers and teachers relationally apart from me,” he said. “Some teachers verbally taunted me by calling me a girl and a hippie.”

After repeated verbal and physical abuse, Coyne quickly learned to hate school and distrust adults. He spent most of his time in high school in suspension and emotionally disconnected. “Most of my leisure time was spent burglarizing homes in Goshen, taking cash and creating monster images in victims’ minds and hearts,” he said. One day, in 1973, he used the cash he collected illegally, purchased a used car, stole a license plate and ran away from what he felt was a broken home and community life.

What happened in the time between his young life of distrust and unhealed wounds and his selfless act of giving in his adult life? Coyne said it’s when he learned about the idea of “Culture for Service” that his worldview began to change.

Coyne first heard about “Culture for Service” when he was at the Indiana correctional facility and a young woman came to visit the inmates. “I heard a young woman’s peaceful voice as she was sharing her Goshen College Study-Service Term experience of Peru with the inmates,” he said. “Was it her gentle innocence relating to the forgotten? Or was it her color slides of a world far away? More than likely, it was her natural ability to actualize Goshen’s motto, ‘Culture for Service.’”

Coyne was a fast learner at the Indiana Reform School for Boys, and quickly earned enough academic credit to catch up with his peers. The parole board released him to his family and he was allowed back at his high school four years early.

Coyne continued to cross paths with “Culture for Service” as he began to adjust to a new life after leaving the correctional facility. Bill Miler ’55 (Associate Director of Admissions at GC at the time) and Phyllis Ramseyer Miller ’55 of Goshen provided Coyne with a place of refuge. They encouraged their teenage boys to develop a friendship with Coyne and invited him into their home where he watched family members pray, sing and enjoy each other’s company in a safe environment.

Coyne began attending College Mennonite Church on campus and got connected with the youth program there with the help of Rick Stiffney ’73, who was the youth pastor at the time. Yet another GC alum came into his life when Carl Weaver ’69 became one of Coyne’s teachers. “Carl became the most influential teacher in my high school life through graceful coaching and fun biological rigor,” Coyne said.

Later, Coyne remembers Goshen College President J. Lawrence Burkholder giving him a personal tour of campus (topped off with a free lunch.)

Through these various acts of kindness, Coyne said he slowly began to understand the significance of unconditional love and service. “These strange folks actually lived according to their word,” he said.

Inspired to also live out this lifestyle, Coyne decided to attend Goshen College. He studied biology, met his wife, Emily (Bohn) Coyne and graduated in 1980. He began working in public service and became the founder of two halfway homes in Portland, Ore., which are now celebrating their 25-year anniversary. Later, he received a master’s degree in social work from the University of Chicago.

So when it came to donating his kidney to his favorite cashier, it was just a matter of following the example of those before him. Coyne knew Myra de la Vega as a cashier at a local store for almost 20 years, when one day he noticed she was looking ill. When he asked what was wrong, she told him she suffered from renal failure and needed a kidney – and no one in her family was a match. Coyne offered to see if he was a match, and he was. The transplant took place in March 2010.

“There is nothing unique in how I responded to Myra’s need,” said Coyne. “Many GC alumni do this each and every day, whether it’s the gifted surgeon’s hands healing a broken body or the scientist’s tenacious research discovering cures for disease – each is using his or her education to serve our world.”

Now that both Coyne and de la Vega have recovered from the operations, they have teamed up to help raise more than $500,000 for the Chicago Area Red Cross and became partners in a nonprofit kidney organization that teaches people how to ask for a kidney, the Living Kidney Donor Network.

At the time just after the donation, Coyne, a social worker for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), received substantial news media attention because of his selfless act. This added attention led CPS officials to learn that Coyne did not live within city limits, a requirement for all its employees. For a time, Coyne was unsure if he would be able to keep his job with the school district, but after conversations with the school district and the mayor of Chicago, he has been able to keep his job.

“Both of my schools have taken this event to help teach our students, faculty, parents and stakeholders the value of serving others unconditionally,” he said. The schools have even dedicated every March 26 to celebrate Dan Coyne Day by learning about stories where people have helped serve their community.

“How can I thank the peaceful college jail volunteer and the myriad of Goshen saints who faithfully nurtured a new life?” asked Coyne. “Perhaps ‘thank-you’ will do. Perhaps following in their footsteps will do better.”

– By Alysha Landis ’11, in the Summer 2012 Bulletin

We kicked off the school year by focusing on the core value of Servant Leadership. Mid-year, we poured out our hearts and hammers to help Habitat for Humanity build a home for custodial staff member Eddie Mayorga and his family. As the year closed, we sent a new batch of Servant Leaders into the world as ambassadors of Goshen College.

In saying goodbye to members of the Class of 2012, I reminded them that their true vocations, no matter their majors, were to be Ambassadors for Christ and Diplomats of Reconciliation. I asked them to consider a few basic questions: In a world where those on all sides of every issue consider themselves to be prophets, do we need more prophets running around? In a world where those on all sides of every issue consider themselves to be “rightly dividing the Word of Truth,” do we need more clever exegetes and historical deconstructionists? In a world filled with moral ambiguity and indulgence, do we need ever more rigid legal and ethical guidelines, judicial decisions, and coercive moral arbiters? In a world of ever more selective identity politics, do we need more excommunications by the right or left, the red or blue, the purple or other-than-purple? I sincerely doubt it.

We are called, instead, to bring former enemies together, to unite friend and foe. How radical is that? Amid pervasive ideological conflict, being an ambassador, a diplomat, may be the most radically counter-cultural calling. To be a diplomat of reconciliation may truly be more radical than that of an apostle, a prophet, a priest; more so than a preacher, a teacher, a nurse; beyond that of an artist, an engineer, or judge. Whatever one’s profession, there is no greater vocation needed on earth, no more timely calling than to be an Ambassador for Christ, a Diplomat of Reconciliation.

Recently, I led a group to one of the most conflict-riddled places on earth, Palestine/Israel. While there, we visited a great Christian leader, the Rev. Zoughbi Zoughbi, founder and director of Wi’am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center. He also happens to be the father of Marcelle Zoughbi ’13.  Some of our students spent last summer serving in Wi’am’s summer programs for kids. Wi’am in Arabic means “cordial relationships” – developing relationships across profound differences. That is exactly what Zoughbi Zoughbi’s team does, day in and day out, year after year. In our parting, he presented me with a red stole with white Jerusalem crosses embroidered in its fabric. I wore the stole at our Baccalaureate service as a sign of our common bond in Christ, our common call to be Diplomats of Reconciliation and our solidarity with him in his holy work.

In a time of division, demonization, and polarization without end, Wendell Berry reminds us, “the ground of our reconciliation will have to be larger than the ground of our divisions.” The role of prophet may just have to give way substantially to that of diplomat, ambassador, and reconciler.

Jesus said in his great Sermon on the Mount, which underlies the mission of Goshen College, “if we are only friends with friends, how are we different from anyone else? Anyone can do that. Rather, it is when we are able to befriend foes that the true miracle of our faith is made plain for all to see.” It is that “second-mile” love that demonstrates whether or not we are truly Christ-followers. Our greatest challenge today may simply be to deeply befriend someone with whom we have profound disagreements.

Would that each of us find that friend or better, make a friend, who is so different from us that the opportunity to be an Ambassador for Christ, a Diplomat of Reconciliation, is truly an opportunity of a lifetime. In so doing, our lives will truly manifest the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. In so doing, healing and hope will be born anew in this broken world, little by little, peace by peace.

Ken R. Yoder ’68, right, often runs marathons with his son, Ben, and his daughter, Karen ’96.

It wasn’t a typical father-son bonding activity.

Ken Yoder ’68 and his son, Ben, set a goal to run 50 marathons – one in each U.S. state. Five years later, they met their goal when they completed the Phunt Trail Marathon in Maryland on Jan. 2, 2011. They’re the only known father-son duo accomplish the challenging circuit.

Ken said it was Ben’s idea to take on the challenge. “We were visiting (Ben) in Boston in ’05,” said Ken. “I’ll never forget his words, when talking about it at Bertucci’s Pizza, ‘Dad, we can do this!’”

So they embarked on a journey of running about an average of 10 marathons a year for the next five years (that’s more than 1,300 miles).

Even though the duo started each marathon together, Ben would usually finish his marathons about an hour or two ahead of his dad. More important than doing well in races, though, was the opportunity to bond.

“Ben would greet me at the finish line, taking my picture and saying, ‘That’s my dad!’” said Ken. “All of a sudden, all that suffering in the last several miles (from about mile 20 on) was forgotten, and I’d be thinking of the next marathon. It was so rewarding and special to me.”

The Yoders aren’t the only people to run a marathon in each U.S. state. In fact, there’s an entire club for people who are up for the challenge (visit 50statesmarathonclub.com), but people can only join after they have completed a marathon in at least 10 states. There are almost 600 runners in the club, and some of them have completed the 50 states challenge multiple times.

Ken and Ben have continued running marathons since meeting their goal, and added more family members to the mix. Ken’s daughter, Karen ’96, and Ben’s wife, Orapin, have joined them. “I’ve often said that running is a metaphor for life,” said Ken. “It’s so primitive, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s in my blood.”

 – By Alysha Landis ’11, in the Summer 2012 Bulletin

The Daily Feast: Everyday Meals We Love to Share (Good Books, April 2012) was assembled last fall by Esther Rose Graber  ’52 with contributions from Esther’s daughters —  Jane Graber Davis ’76, Ellen Graber Kraybill ’77, Sibyl Graber Gerig ’80, Ann Graber Miller ’80 and Susan Graber Hunsberger ’86 — and her daughter-in-law, Yvonne Shussler Graber.

About the book

“The Daily Feast: Everyday Meals We Love to Share” was written by Esther Rose Graber ’52, Jane Graber Davis ’76, Ellen Graber Kraybill ’77, Sibyl Graber Gerig ’80, Ann Graber Miller ’80, Susan Graber Hunsberger ’86 and Yvonne Shussler Graber.

It was published in April 2012 by Good Books, which is based in Intercourse, Pa. The book is $29.95 and is available at many retail booksellers as well as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

Learn more at: www.goodbooks.com/thedailyfeast.

Esther Rose Graber explained in the book that all seven Graber women love to cook and compiled several photocopied collections of recipes over the years. Based on positive responses from guests and friends and many requests for recipes, the women decided to compile a cookbook with their favorite dishes. Each of the seven authors provided three complete menus — one for a soup meal, the second for a family weeknight supper and the third for a more elaborate guest dinner as well as their favorite special-occasion meals.

In her introduction to the 252-page book, Esther Rose wrote that the Graber family’s love of diverse meals was decades in the making. “Our food memories and experiences as a family go back more than 80 years to the days of pap, cambric tea and impossibly hot curries,” she wrote.  “Our heritage is rooted in Amish and Mennonite cooking that unites families and friends around the shared pleasures of the table, but our tastes have expanded through a love of travel. That began with Grandpa Joe and Grandma Minnie Graber, who spent many years in India and brought us their love for Indian cuisine, which Grandma prepared with great skill.”

Esther Rose and her husband, Ronald Graber ’52, lived and worked in Puerto Rico for 35 years, so the six Graber children grew up with a love for Caribbean cuisine. The children’s palettes developed further by spending time in Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Cambodia, China, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Indonesia, New Zealand and Mexico.

The book includes many mouth-watering recipes from around the world, practical advice on the best dishes to round out a meal and Graber family stories. “Each meal takes into account the ease of preparation, balance of textures and flavors and eye appeal,” Esther Rose wrote. “Partly because we’re a family of artists — watercolorists, book illustrators, potters, designers, musicians — we know these meals will look as beautiful as they taste.”

The book features full-color photography of the women preparing meals as well as the finished dishes and informal family photos. Recipes include such favorites as Baked Chicken Caribe, Cave Creek Carnitas, Bourbon-Glazed Salmon with Sesame Seeds, Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Lime and Cilantro, Naan Bread, Sweet Ricotta Fritters and Fresh Strawberry Pie.

The Graber women spent two weeks this spring touring in support of the book and giving interviews to television program hosts and newspaper reporters. The book has attracted favorable attention. Dana Cowin, editor in chief of Food & Wine Magazine told her Twitter followers on April 9 to check out the book, which she described as “accessible.” Stories appeared in the Mennonite World Review, The Elkhart Truth and The Goshen News. The women also participated in numerous book signings.

— By Richard R. Aguirre, in the Summer 2012 Bulletin

Melissa, Miles and Justin Gillette

Justin Gillette ’05 came up with the idea of running marathons for a living by default. He ran his first marathon at age 16 and since then has run 99, winning 45 of them and setting 10 course records.

While at Goshen College, Justin knew that he loved running, and he wanted to see how far his passion could take him. He told Associate Professor of Physical Education Val Hershberger, his academic adviser, what his goals were at the start of his college career. “I laid out to Val what my goals were and I said when I graduated I wanted to be good enough at running that I can run professionally, and I wanted to meet a wife while I’m at Goshen College,” he said. “Val laughed at me, and I said, ‘What? You don’t think I’m going to meet a wife?’”

He met both those goals, though getting his wife, Melissa (Lehman) Gillette ’05, to agree was harder than he planned. The two met as first-year students on the Goshen College cross country team. Justin immediately was interested in Melissa, but it took three years of asking before she agreed to go on a date with him. After graduation, they got married, and they now have a 2-year-old son, appropriately named Miles. They both are coaches for GC’s cross country team.

Last year, Justin ran 20 marathons. This year, he plans to run 25 and next year he will turn 30, so he wants to run 30 marathons. “I guess I’m kind of on an upward trend. It’s hard to limit myself,” he said. “Now, using mathematical statistics, if I continue at this rate, before long it’s just a matter of time before I do 100 marathons in a year!” he joked.

Justin said it’s easy to increase the number of races each year because his body gets acclimated to the training it takes and the recovery between races. His training consists of running 120 to 135 miles a week.

When Melissa decided to date Justin, she didn’t realize that also meant agreeing to try marathon running. Justin convinced her during their junior year to try her first marathon. “He told me, jokingly, ‘You know, you’re not that good, but, if you go for longer, you might be able to do something!’” said Melissa.

Apparently she was able to do something. Melissa broke the world record for the fastest woman in an indoor marathon at the Maple Leaf Indoor Marathon in February – a race she wasn’t even planning on running and the first indoor marathon she’s ever run. She decided the day before the race to run it because she needed to get a long run in that day and they didn’t have a babysitter. Her time was 3 hours, 8 minutes and 53.8 seconds.

“I thought if I felt good, then (the record) would be attainable, but I didn’t want to put pressure on myself because it’s a long race,” she said. “I thought about the race more as the amount of time I would be running, so I wasn’t counting laps or thinking miles.” If she had counted laps, she would have reached 204.

Still, Justin likes to tease her. “She’s only won 14 marathons, so that’s not that many…” he joked. So far, she has 43 marathons under her belt.

In addition to running 80 to 90 miles a week, Melissa is also a student at Notre Dame working toward a doctorate in biology. She is finished with all the required courses, so now she’s researching breast cancer, investigating the factors that cause cancer to develop and spread.

After graduating from Goshen, she got her master’s degree in medical molecular genetics at Indiana University and did genetic counseling for a year, which sparked her interest in finding out more about the hereditary forms of cancer. Before going back to school at Notre Dame, she spent a year teaching at GC as an interim professor of biology in 2008.

When she started taking classes again last year, she said it was her worst year for training ever. “I had to find a balance between family, school and running, and running was the first thing that had to take a back seat at that point,” said Melissa. “Now we’ve gotten into a routine that works for us and I’ve been able to recover and get back into shape.”

With both Melissa and Justin needing to get a long run in every day, Melissa working on her doctorate degree during the day and a 2-year-old to take care of, their lives require keeping a fairly strict schedule. Justin stays at home with Miles during the day, running while he pushes him in a stroller, and Melissa gets home in time to get her run in before it gets dark.

Justin looks at running as anyone would look at any other job: it’s a way to earn a living. Running is different than many other mainstream sports, he said, because with running you have to prove yourself and build up credentials before getting good sponsorship deals. Justin said it took them two years out of college to get their first good sponsorship deal, and he thinks the offers will continue to improve as he continues to improve his running.

“I could just give up on the world of running and enter into the corporate world and have a regular paying income, or, I could just keep pushing ahead like I’m doing and see what kind of mental and physical barriers I can break,” he said. “We don’t live a luxurious life, but all of our needs are taken care of and we have a lot of fun and we travel the country.” Races have taken the Gillettes from Hawaii to Florida to New York and back.

As of February, Justin was ranked third in the country. “I’ll be second by the time this story goes out, because I’ll just have to win one more!” he said. His prediction was true; as of May 9, Justin was ranked second in the United States and 13th in the world. Even so, he still sees room for improvement.

“For me, most of my races I run in about two and a half hours, so that’s a pretty good time slot that there’s various components to improve on,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t run fast enough up that hill at mile 19 or maybe I didn’t take my fluids in properly at mile eight. You’re never going to run a perfect race, so that’s part of the draw to keep coming back too. And it’s kind of neat to see what your body can handle.”

Justin’s body can handle a lot. Last fall he ran nine marathons in 11 weeks, and didn’t even realize it until someone mentioned it to him afterward. “We don’t look backward, we’re always looking forward to the next one,” he said.

You can follow the Gillette’s journey at their blog: www.gilletterunning.blogspot.com

– By By Alysha Landis ’11, in the Summer 2012 Bulletin

The cover of “Practicing: A Liturgy of Self-Learning,” by Lon Sherer, a professor emeritus of music at Goshen College

GOSHEN, Ind. – A 35-page book that urges music students to become “better ‘practicers’ and learners” and to regard such time as a vital personal liturgy continues to be the top-selling Pinchpenny Press book, nearly 25 years after its publication.

The book, Practicing: A Liturgy of Self-Learning, by Lon Sherer, a professor emeritus of music at Goshen College, sits in first place on the Pinchpenny best-seller list, with 2,082 copies having been sold. Pinchpenny is a Goshen College press for chapbook-size books written by students, faculty members or friends of the college, and is managed by the English Department. The press has published 220 titles since its inception in 1969.

In 1975, as Sherer notes in the foreword to the book, after nearly 20 years of teaching, conducting and performing as a violinist, he underwent surgery to remove an acoustic tumor. The surgery in California saved his life, but left him without hearing in the right ear and with a partial loss of muscle and nerve control on the right side. He returned home to Goshen, a violinist who could no longer play the violin.

“After my surgery, my most challenging tasks involved re-learning both basic and advanced bowing techniques that I was no longer able to do because of paralysis on my right side,” Sherer said. “I needed to master these techniques, one at a time—using different sets of muscles and nerves that still worked.

“In the process I began to realize that confronting my actual learning the second time around was a rare gift that illuminated areas of learning in countless and often vivid ways,” he said. “The re-learning changed my approach to the instrument and changed my teaching, and I decided to share some of the experience in a talk I gave to the Georgia chapter of the Music Teachers National Association.”

He expanded the talk into a magazine article published first by the American Music Teacher, and soon after by the Emerson Flute Journal. The Pinchpenny book is a further expansion of the article. Pinchpenny Press sells Practicing for $4 a copy. The brown cover presents a modest appearance, with a simple title atop art professor Ezra Hershberger’s sketch of a violinist seated before his music stand.

Sherer, who said he has been “surprised that it has sold well for so long,” credited Kenneth Warren & Son, violin dealers in Chicago, and Shar Products, a world leader in mail-order music materials, for having driven sales. James Warren, who represents the third generation of family ownership of the one of the oldest violin dealerships in the nation, said they have sold more than 200 copies over the years (copies remain in stock, selling for $5).

“Buyers have been from a wide variety but probably in the main teachers who buy it, read it and recommend it to all of their students,” Warren said. “On more than several occasions they have been bought in lots by a teacher and given to their students as Christmas gifts.”

Over the years, Sherer has received accolades from some of the most esteemed musicians in the country.

Nelita True, who debuted with the Chicago Symphony at 17 and went on to become a professor of piano at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, paid tribute to the chapbook in a letter that she wrote in 1992: “Lon, your book is a treasure from which I will no doubt quote – with full attribution, of course! It so clearly represents a distillation of what appears to be a lifetime of serious reflection. I found many things I hadn’t thought of, but which instantly seem so ‘right.’ Practicing as liturgy alters my view of this regimen in a fundamental way … I love your attitude toward, and your joy for, the ‘richness in the journey.’ ”

In 1987, György Sebők, a pianist and distinguished professor of music at the Indiana University School of Music, read the article on which the book was based. He wrote: “First of all, I want to congratulate you on your article about practicing. I have seldom read a text as illuminating and meaningful as your article.”

That same year, during a sabbatical, Sherer and his wife, Kathryn, who was an assistant professor of music at the college, attended Sebők’s master class in Emen, Switzerland. On the first day, Sebők asked Lon to speak to the class, drawing on lessons from the book.

Later in the sabbatical year, Sherer visited the Menuhin School in Stoke d’Abernon, south of London, where Peter Norris served as the headmaster. Shortly afterward, the great violinist himself, Yehudi Menuhin, wrote: “Mr. Peter Morris gave me your excellent booklet on practicing with its kind inscription. There are many points of particular interest that are enlightening. I thought especially the ‘10,000 times indeed’ was excellent.”

Given that he continued to teach at the college for two decades after the book was published and that he still offers private lessons in his home, Sherer was asked what changes to the book he would make, if any, in a new edition.

“I would update my advice about brands of string choices, along with some of the other practical bits of advice that have become out of date,” he said. “I would also add some new ideas that have emerged in my thinking in the ensuing years, and I would write at least a whole chapter on the ideas of György Sebők.”

And would he, in fact, consider writing a new edition? “Perhaps,” he said. At any rate, a reprint of the old one may be in the offing. A review of the Pinchpenny reserve shelves shows that the book is sold out.

– By Duane Stoltzfus, Goshen College Professor of Communication

For Daryl Groff ’83 and his daughter, Sara ’09, wearing a Goshen College T-shirt, scarf or hat isn’t enough to show how much they love their alma mater. Their love for Goshen runs skin deep — literally. Daryl and Sara both have GC tattoos.

This wasn’t a rash decision. Daryl, who lives in East Earl, Pa., said he considered it for a while. “I thought about it for probably 20 years, and one cold winter afternoon, I thought, ‘The time is now,’ so I decided to go for it.” That was in the winter of ’08.

Daryl said he always had a sense of how important his years at GC were in forming his beliefs and making lasting relationships. “I’m proud to be a GC grad and it wasn’t until age 40 that I realized it,” he said. Every year he still meets with college friends, who are dispersed across the country, decades later.

So he took a Development Office letter he got in the mail from GC, with the purple “Culture for Service” lamp and book seal, to a tattoo shop in downtown New Holland, Pa. He got the purple GC seal tattooed on his lower left calf, and described the process as “one and a half hours of feeling like someone was giving me a pinch.”

Since getting inked, Daryl has received a lot of attention from people who notice his tattoo. “Most people over 40 have to touch it and ask ‘Is that real?’” He uses it as a conversation-starter to tell people about Goshen and what it means to him.

Sara, who works in Washington, D.C., as a nurse, said her tattoo was inspired by the new GC “peace by peace” logo. Last summer, while home with her sisters, Hannah ’10 and Bekah, a sophomore, they all decided to all get tattoos. Sara said she wanted the tattoo to represent her core beliefs, including peace, so she settled on an olive branch design she found in another GC mailing.

Even though it’s a small tattoo on her wrist, she’s been surprised by how many people ask her about it. And when they do, she talks to them about peace, pacifism and Goshen College. “I learned a lot about myself during my time at GC, and it was during this time that I developed even further my peace beliefs,” she said.

Angie (Miller) Bastian '83 and her husband, Dan.

BY RICHARD R. AGUIRRE

Student. Hospital nurse. Mission worker. Graduate student. Psychiatric nurse. Small-business owner. National snack-food retailer. And namesake for a national brand.

Angie (Miller) Bastian ’83 has played all those roles in a varied life that has taken her from farm life to national notoriety. Bastian and her husband, Dan, a former teacher, have built their former garage business into Angie’s Kettle Corn, a multi-million company rooted in the values of family, treating people fairly and giving back to the community. They sell their snack food in 50 states through such retailers as Costco, Martin’s, Target and Whole Foods.

It’s not a career path Angie Bastian imagined growing up in Elkhart County. Switching from a nursing to a business career also prompted her to reconsider her definition of service.

“When you’re a nurse or a teacher you feel like there’s purpose and meaning in that career. When we started out in this endeavor to make kettle corn, we thought: ‘Where’s the meaning in that?’ But what Dan and I have come to realize, is that it’s a vehicle. The meaning is how we conduct ourselves in business and how we intersect in people’s lives.”

Angie Bastian was born at Goshen General Hospital to David Ray and Rosie Miller. She grew up in Jefferson Township and attended Pleasant View Mennonite Church. After graduating from Northridge High School in 1978, Bastian wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, besides Mennonite Voluntary Service.

So she took a year off and lived with her aunt and uncle in Colorado Springs, Colo. “They were both Goshen College graduates and my aunt was a nurse and she said, ‘You should go into nursing. You should go to Goshen College.’ I said, ‘OK. I’ll go check out Goshen.’ I liked the campus. It was the right fit for me and I loved my time at Goshen,” she said during a campus visit in September.

Bastian said her Study-Service Term “absolutely changed” the way she looked at everything.

“I grew up very sheltered on a small farm and I had never been out of the country. I had never been to a Catholic church before. On SST, I was with families. I loved it, but I was scared at the same time,” Miller said. “When you get to know other people that are different than yourself, it changes opinions. There is no longer ‘the other.’ You become one in that way; you’re with them and they’re with you. I understood myself as a global citizen instead of just an American.”

She received her nursing degree from Goshen College in 1983. After working for a few years at Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Hospital, she did a year of Mennonite Voluntary Service. She then earned a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing and gerontology from Emory University.

She met her husband, a graduate of St. John’s University in Minnesota, while working at a hospital that served an Indian reservation in New Mexico. They were kindred spirits who shared values consistent with Goshen’s commitment to service, social justice and accepting other cultures.

After getting married, the Bastians lived for a while in New Mexico and then Florida before settling in Dan’s hometown of Mankato, Minn. to raise their children and pursue their careers – Dan as a teacher and coach and Angie as a psychiatric nurse.

They began Angie’s Kettle Corn in 2001 as a side business in their garage when their two children, Aunikah and Tripp, were just 5 and 3. They wanted to build a college fund for their children and to show them the value of hard work. They purchased kettle corn equipment they found on the Internet and financed it with zero percent credit cards. They sold their product at fairs and festivals.

Their big break came when they decided to give Minnesota Vikings players and coaches free bags of kettle corn to enjoy after a long day at training camp in Mankato. Team members liked the kettle corn so much, the Bastians were offered the chance to pay a sponsorship fee to become an official snack product for the team. It was a big investment, but the exposure they received from the sponsorship helped them to expand the business and eventually move indoors and begin manufacturing for retail sales.

The Bastian now work only for the company; Dan focuses on operations and sales and Angie coordinates marketing and public relations. They have 150 full-time employees and can produce 80,000 bags a day of kettle corn in three varieties — Classic, Lite and Caramel. Their products are still made in real kettles with natural ingredients and no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives — allergen free, certified gluten free and certified Kosher.

Although they have appeared on the “Martha Stewart Show” and been featured in such national publications as Family Circle, Good Housekeeping and Redbook, Angie Bastian said their values have remained the same. “We both care deeply about social justice issues and the way we run our company has to do with service.

“Our business won an award as a Top-100 work place in Minnesota this past year and as a top family business and as an emerging company this year, too. Our employees like their work. I think it’s partially because we don’t ask employees to do anything we wouldn’t do. It’s a partnership with democracy in the workplace. And I see that as the way that Goshen translated Culture for Service.”

The Bastians donate their time and resources to many community fundraising events and programs, including March of Dimes, Kids Against Hunger, Salvation Army, and the YMCA. Still, Angie Bastian said that she takes greatest pride in the company’s impact on the community.

“We work with the drug court with people who need a job, who are on probation and need a last chance and aren’t doing well. We work with their probation officers and we’ve had some people turn their lives around. They’re going to college. They’ve been promoted. They’re clean. They’re sober. The way they see their life is different and that all came from the community supporting them and our piece of that was a culture where they could work and feel that they were understood and supported and we paid them,” Miller said. “You can serve in many different ways. In nontraditional service careers, you can still serve.”

When I was growing up, an annual winter tradition for the Rohrer family was driving from eastern Ohio to Goshen to visit “the cousins” – those in the family enrolled at Goshen College. All my aunts and uncles stayed together at the old Holiday Inn. I chased my brothers inside College Mennonite Church and the Roman Gingerich Recreation-Fitness Center or did “donuts” in the Holiday Inn parking lot in Uncle John’s Buick. Visiting my cousins’ dorm rooms and small group houses filled me with excitement and jealousy.

Ella Amstutz Rohrer, seated, with family members at the 2011 Commencement. The above photo shows 11 GC graduates.

Over three generations, 26 family members and spouses have attended Goshen College and 15 of the 17 grandchildren have graduated from GC. An aunt and an uncle met their spouses at GC, as did several cousins. Such deep loyalty to Goshen though, arose from modest beginnings.

My grandfather, Milton Rohrer, was a farm boy from rural Ohio and attended GC briefly from 1928 to 1929. He often said that he much preferred working in Professor John Umble’s nearby cornfield than sitting in class. That interest led to his operating a successful potato and dairy farm. Although Grandpa was not an eager student at that time, he recognized the value of education.

My grandmother, Ella Amstutz Rohrer, dreamed of becoming a teacher but didn’t have the same opportunity my grandfather had. Coming from a family of 12, her family did not have enough money to send her to college during the Great Depression. Instead, following her high school graduation in 1931, she moved to Canton, Ohio where, for $10 a week, she cooked and cleaned in the homes of Canton’s wealthy. To assist with family expenses, she kept only $1 a week and sent the rest home to her family.

After both returned home to Wayne County, Milton and Ella started dating and then married in 1935. Recognizing the growing importance of education, Grandma recalls that before she and Milton even had children, they had conversations about the importance of their children receiving a college education. By 1972, all five of their children graduated from college and three later received master’s degrees and two earned Ph.D.s.

Milton and Ella then turned their attention to securing their grandchildren’s educational futures. In the early 1980s, they had two grandchildren at Goshen, when Dan Kauffman, director of college relations from 1971 to 1986, approached them about helping build the college’s endowment. Seizing the opportunity to contribute dollars to directly benefit their grandchildren at the college, Milton and Ella promised a “living endowment” by encouraging and financially supporting all of their grandchildren who chose to attend a Mennonite college. Citing studies that showed that Mennonites who attend Mennonite colleges were more likely to remain active in the church, they decided that supporting Goshen was the way to encourage the educational and spiritual development of their grandchildren.

In May, my 99 year-old grandmother, Ella Amstutz Rohrer, traveled to Goshen to see her youngest grandchild, my youngest brother, Eric, graduate from Goshen College. Standing after Commencement with other Rohrer family members who came to celebrate with Eric, it became clear how much of my family’s story has been shaped by Milton and Ella’s faithfulness and love.

Jeff Hochstetler, the student apartments manager at Goshen College, is pursuing a Master of Divinity at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.