Each August, familiar hello-goodbye scenes unfold across the Messiah College campus on Move-In Day. For students, the next four years will include new experiences, friendships and paths toward adulthood. Parents, too, find themselves standing at the crossroads of beginnings and endings during this time.
First-year nursing student Lindsay Koach ‘15 and her mom Peggy, the editorial assistant in the Office of Marketing and Public Relations, recently sat down at The Falcon to discuss this transition that a family experiences as a student leaves home for college. Read the rest of this entry »
Director for the Philadelphia Eagles Drumline
Music Teacher/Band Director
Norristown Area School District
Norristown, Pa.
Following a musical muse can take you to some unexpected places.
After her Messiah College graduation in 1978, alumna Vicki (Gilmour) Blum’s passion for music first took her to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico where she taught music to Native American junior-senior high school children. Now, as the director of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles new professional drumline, Blum, a lifelong fan of marching band music, spends her Sunday afternoons on Lincoln Financial Field, where her skilled percussionists entertain 70,000 football fans.
Children’s Tale Follows McBoo, a Galapagos Bird Trying to Fit In
A funny thing happened to Dwayne Magee, director of college press and postal services, on his way to earning an arts management degree at Messiah. The part-time sophomore student and College employee for the past six years became a published author, thanks to his in-class fictional creation–a blue footed bird named Solly McBoo. What began as a simple classroom assignment for Magee’s spring 2010 Created and Called for Community course has evolved into his first published book. Read the rest of this entry »
Attorney and Partner at Gager, Emerson, Rickart, Bower and Scalzo, LLC
Brookfield, Conn.
Faith and intellect. Discipline and imagination. Humility and aspiration. Students at Messiah College are regularly challenged to explore how two seemingly opposing entities can coexist and forge even greater strength when merged.
Peter Scalzo ’84, a business administration major and bible minor, can add two more:
Cancer and joy. Suffering and purpose. Since his cancer diagnosis in 2005, the 49-year-old alumnus has seen God use a six-year battle with cancer to not only solidify his faith, but to open new doors of ministry and service to individuals whose lives also have been similarly turned upside down by the disease.
For his final spring break, Steve Frankenfield ’11 journeyed to the rugged Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.
Again.
For three out of four spring breaks of his Messiah College career, the 22-year-old adventure education major has participated in the Agapé Center’s service trip to Mountain T.O.P. (Tennessee Outreach Project), an interdenominational nonprofit ministry that serves impoverished rural families in the scenic—yet isolated—Cumberland Valley.
For Joanna Matlak, circulation desk evening supervisor in Messiah’s Murray Library, each night spent working among the towering rows of books offers a quiet reminder of the first 33 years of her life spent behind the Iron Curtain in Communist-run Poland, where the free exchange of ideas and expression were mere words on a page.
“Everyday in my work at Messiah, I check out books to College students that were forbidden by the Communist regime in Poland,” she says. “These books, such as those written by George Orwell and Vaclav Havel, for example, would have had to be printed and distributed in the underground press. Under the totalitarian communist dictatorship we endured, you would have suffered terribly for possessing these books.”
Her long years under totalitarian Communism have fostered in Matlak a passion against injustice which informs her daily vocation within the Messiah community. Read the rest of this entry »
Like concentric circles in a stirred pond, a single gesture of gracious generosity affects multiple lives in its wake. One such selfless act involving soccer, suffering and an unexpected gift recently rippled through the Messiah College community, as a tangible display of servant leadership.
Just a few weeks after Messiah senior Geoff Pezon ’11 scored the winning goal in the 2010 NCAA Division III men’s soccer championship game, he offered a key assist to a seriously ill Messiah professor. Read the rest of this entry »
When Hope Johnson receives her undergraduate degree in English from Messiah College (currently anticipated to occur in 2014), that moment will serve not only as a personal and academic milestone for her, but for the college as well.
Because when she graduates, she will earn the distinction of being the first nonverbal, nonambulatory graduate of Messiah College. Read the rest of this entry »
Chair, Department of Management & Business; Associate Professor of Management
Hershey, Pa.
A 2009 Messiah College Preview Day, held to give prospective students and their parents an in-depth view of the school, became much more to Michael Zigarelli, chair of Messiah’s Department of Management and Business. For him, it was also a firsthand chance to see God at work. Read the rest of this entry »
For Royce Saltzman ’48, music has always been an integral part of life. “As a boy living in Abilene, Kansas, I attended a church that did not allow musical instruments in worship,” he says. “The congregation sang unaccompanied hymns in four parts … .” In 1940, his parents moved to Grantham, so Saltzman and his sister could attend Messiah Academy. His love of music, nurtured during the years he spent at the Academy and the Junior College, became a lifelong career. Read the rest of this entry »
Christian ministries major Kristopher Sledge ’13 experienced a summer he won’t soon forget. The 19-year-old Selinsgrove, Pa., native says he was grateful to spend time this summer as part of a 15-member team from his church doing mission work in Bwaise, Uganda, a suburb of the capital, Kampala. However, on July 11, he was also one of the people hurt in a terrorist bombing that killed 74 and injured many others. Read the rest of this entry »
Dr. Minh Nguyen ’80
Chemistry/Pre-Med Alum
Bethlehem, Pa.
When Minh Nguyen ’80 stepped onto American soil for the first time in 1975 as a 17-year-old refugee from Vietnam, he was not discouraged. He applied—with the help of his sponsoring family—to more than 20 colleges, wanting to follow his dreams to become a doctor. Out of those 20 colleges, only one—Messiah—responded. The College’s then-registrar gave Nguyen a challenge: prove yourself in one semester. Nguyen did just that, and he has never looked back. Read the rest of this entry »
Zachary Eyster ’07
Biblical and Religious Studies
Atlanta, GA
For Zachary Eyster ’07, a Messiah College education meant more than just getting a degree. Instead, his four years at the College taught him a new outlook on life and changed his vocational direction completely.
Leigh McCauley ’12
Communication major
Hershey, PA
At first glance, Leigh McCauley ’12 is like many other Messiah College sophomores: happy, bubbly, bright, and carefree. But, she has overcome more than the average 21-year-old and now uses those difficult childhood experiences to inspire others.
When most people think of rest and relaxation, they conjure up images of a warm, sunny beach or a lazy weekend, curled up in a hammock with a favorite book. Not Margeaux Monsour ’09. After graduation, the family and consumer science education major decided to “take a breather” by going through the rigorous training necessary to teach whitewater rafting, one of the most dangerous and difficult outdoor programs available. Read the rest of this entry »
David Ben-Avraham ‘08
Nursing alum
Eatontown, N.J.
While living in Israel, David Ben-Avraham (left) backpacked with friends along the Red Sea coast in Egypt, where he spend a few days with a nomadic Bedouin tribe. During his visit, he befriended a young Bedouin man over hot tea and a pipe. Read the rest of this entry »
Clarence Sakimura (pictured with his wife, Herta)
Attended Messiah Academy 1950-1951
Joined Messiah College faculty in 1955 to teach Greek
Walk in front of Climenhaga Fine Arts Center, and you’ll notice a cherry blossom tree. Beneath the tree, stands a plaque with the following inscription:
“If someone wishes to know the essence of the Japanese spirit, it is the fragrant cherry blossom in the early morning.”
Motoori Norinaga
How does this quote from an 18th-century Japanese scholar converge with the history of Messiah College? The plaque and the tree are gifts from Clarence Sakimura, a man integral to the campus’ multicultural fabric. Read the rest of this entry »
Ryan Scott Bomberger ’93
Marketing major
Atlanta, Georgia
Adopted into a multi-racial family of 15, Ryan Scott Bomberger’s acceptance into a loving Christian home fostered his own passion for adoption and seeking God’s purpose in his life.Today, he and wife Bethany Koopalethes Bomberger ’97 are co-founders of The Radiance Foundation (www.theradiancefoundation.org), a life-affirming organization that seeks to empower people by building their sense of purpose.Read the rest of this entry »
Tshana (Guiswite) Jamara ’09 Broadcasting major Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
Contributed by Erin Kriner ’09
As a broadcasting major with an emphasis in production, Tshana Jamara ’09 took full advantage of her Philadelphia campus experience by landing an internship at the local ABC television affiliate, WPVI-TV, Channel 6.Read the rest of this entry »
Every Tuesday afternoon Rachel Moffett ’09 boards a bus to work with inner-city youth at the Allison Hill Community Center in Harrisburg.After four years of helping with homework, cleaning, serving meals, and lending a shoulder to cry on, this elementary education alum bids farewell to the individuals that have helped shape her life, broaden her horizons, and strengthen her fortitude.Read the rest of this entry »
Lindsay Koach ‘15
Dr. Minh Nguyen ’80
Zachary Eyster ’07
Tshana (Guiswite) Jamara ’09
Rachel Moffett ’09