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1970's: Class Notes | Marriages | Newcomers | Deaths
Gray Visscher '76 was recently appointed deputy assistant secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Commission. He had been the vice president of employee relations for the American Iron and Steel Institute and has served in congressional staff positions.
Debra Bergsma Otte '72 is the new chair of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region II. She also is the program director for arts management at Long Island University, where she has been a professor of design for 13 years. In January 2001, she received the Kennedy Center Medallion for Service in Arts Education. Her husband, Michael Otte ex'69, is pastor of Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns. They live in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.
Gayle Newhall '74 is an elementary school art teacher in Arizona. She helped the Arizona State Department of Education develop or revise art programs across the state.
Diane Zwaanstra Chambers ex'72 serves on the core team for the Christian Businesswomen Association in Phoenix, Ariz. She is a sales representative for Brown & Brown Insurance.
Donald Swierenga '72, a dental surgeon, expects to transfer this summer to Goldsboro, N.C. as Commander of the Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base Medical Group. He and his wife, Cheryl Bunce Swierenga '71, currently live in Shalimar, Fla.
John Rienstra '71 has been promoted to Director of Client Services with Business Technologies Services, Inc., a telecommunications consulting firm in northeastern Ohio. Kent State University also has hired Jack to be a visiting instructor in the College of Business teaching Total Quality Management.
After 25 years in information systems organizations, Becky Helder Deardorff '72 now is an information systems audit manager for New England Business Service's internal audit team. She and her husband, Jack, have recently joined the Four Square denomination and are planting cell churches in the Boston area as well as training other church planters.
Rebecca Nelson '71 has sold her physical therapy clinic but continues to volunteer in her church as a Sunday school teacher, chair of the building committee and member of the prayer team. She also is active in the "Walk to Emmaus" retreat weekends in northern Indiana.
Norma Jean Vanders Eck '71 teaches seventh and eighth grade science, history and Spanish at Goshen (N.Y.) Christian School and cares for her elderly parents in their home.
Joy Haagsma ex'72 is a professor of nursing at Cape Cod Community College in Massachusetts. She serves on the board of trustees of Christ Chapel and is helping to start a local community health center. Joy recently returned from a trip to Brazil to "explore the education and health roots of our Brazilian population on Cape Cod."
Ann Bruinsma Orange '71 is in her fourth year of teaching at Hillcrest Elementary School in Big Rapids, Mich., after 23 years of being a stay-at-home mother.
Kathleen Nyquist Schellenberg ex'72 just graduated from Western Theological Seminary with a master's degree in religious education. She is the interim director of children's ministries at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids.
Richard Pennings '71 is the deputy director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Carol Start Pennings '71 tutors for the Michigan Dyslexia Institute and is studying at Calvin for a learning disabilities endorsement so she can teach in the resource room at a public school. The couple live in East Lansing, Mich.
Dorelyn Wiltjer De Graaf '72 works as a crisis intervention therapist for Ottawa County (Mich.) Community Mental Health, where she supervises admissions, discharges and individual and group therapy at the residential facility.
Maaryon Schravendeel '70 is the director of Family Court Services, an agency that provides forensic evaluations for the Family Court of Staten Island, N.Y. He also provides individual and marital therapy and mediation in private practice at the South Beach Psych Center.
George Vande Werken '70 is executive vice president of Sand Ridge Bank in Schererville, Ind. He has served on the boards of Pine Rest, the Back to God Hour and the Minister's Pension Fund of the Christian Reformed Church.
Larry Van Dyken '70 is pursuing a master's degree in traditional Chinese medicine at Five Branches Institute in Santa Cruz, Calif. He's hoping to be licensed to practice acupuncture.
Judith Medema Archambault ex'70 has been appointed bursar of the University of Maryland - Baltimore.
Donald DeVries '73 directs the Puyallup (Wash.) Diabetes and Thyroid Clinic and the department of nuclear medicine at Good Samaritan Hospital. He is a Fellow of the American College of Endocrinology.
Richard Feyen '72 is the senior pastor of the Congregation Church of Algonquin, Ill.
Barbara Visser Wagenaar '70 moved back to the Pacific Northwest in 2000 after teaching in the Ohio public schools. She now supervises the off-campus program for student teachers with Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.
Edith Benthem Bain '73 has been on staff for her local Bible Study Fellowship Day Women's Class for 12 years as a children's supervisor. "I am a 'professional volunteer,'" she wrote, "using my gardening skills at our children's schools. I do some catering and am a care coordinator for a friend dying of ALS." She also teaches Sunday school and hosts exchange students at her home in Eagan, Minn.
Mary Piersma Johnson '70 has helped to form a Parents as Teachers partnership between Gallup (N.M.) Schools and Rehoboth Hospital. Funded by the Department of Education, the early-childhood prevention and intervention program provides home visits focusing on brain and literacy development and parenting skills. Nearly all the families are Navajo.
Jessica Verwys Powell '72 closed her word processing business in 2000 and has since appeared in productions of Angels in America, Richard II, My Fair Lady, On Golden Pond and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, the last four working with her husband, Jack, also an actor. The couple welcomes guests at their home near San Francisco.
Curt '77 and Candy Baars Door '78 own a kennel of nine Alaskan racing Huskies in Sidney, Neb. "Many of our winter weekends are spent traveling from our home to Colorado and Wyoming, where our daughters participate in sled dog spring racing," Curt wrote. "We have the distinction of having the only sled dog racing team from Nebraska. This family enterprise is great family 'glue,' and we're creating a lifetime of memories." Daughter Erin was recently ranked third in the world in the 4-dog speed class and Anneka was "getting her sled legs' racing in the 6-dog class.
Steven House '77 has been appointed founding dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences at Elon University in North Carolina. Previously, he was associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, where he also was a professor of biology and director of health professions. His research specialties are blood flow regulation during health and disease as well as enhancing teaching and learning using information technology.
Two days at the Skip Barber High Performance Driving School - a 1993 Christmas present from his wife, Karry Daniels Wieringa '75 - helped to inspire Tom Wieringa '74 to form Sigma Autosport, his own CART racing group. His team recently participated in the CART FedEx Series. Tom, a resident of Oakbrook, Ill., has started companies in real estate, aviation, food distribution and investments.
The National American Camping Association gave Jim Van Wingerden '76 its National Service Award at its annual conference in February. For nearly 30 years, Jim has been associated with Camp Roger in Rockford, Mich., first as a camper, then as kitchen staff, counselor, program director, camp director and now executive director. The ACA recognized him for his service to its local and national chapters. He is president of the ACA Michigan Section.
Peter '71 and Ruth Kuiper Nobel '69 own a farm in Dorr, Mich., and recently celebrated the birth of their 19th grandchild.
After 26 years of teaching at Southwest Minnesota Christian High School, Robert Schoone-Jongen '71 is working toward his doctorate in American history at the University of Delaware.
Philip Hamberg '71 has been appointed as an adjunct associate professor at Calvin after teaching a class in the psychology department (Mental Health in the Classroom) for seven years. He is also the program director for Michigan Family Resources in Grand Rapids.
Mary Tupper ex'72 recently accepted a position as geriatric physician with Spectrum Health Continuing Care in Grand Rapids.
Dan Koeman '72 has taught in the Hamilton (Mich.) Community Schools for 30 years.
James DeHoog '72 trains tutors and teaches through the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. He is retired from teaching sixth grade in Grand Rapids, Mich.
James Holtrop '72 is mayor of Hudsonville, Mich., and also serves as a trustee of Zeeland Community Hospital and as chair of the Southwest Ottawa Community Foundation. He works as manager of human resources and technology at ALTL Inc., in Hudsonville.
Janice Schregardus '70 teaches human services at Grace Bible College in Grand Rapids.
James Botts '73 is the head teacher in the Grand Rapids Public Schools adult education program, which offers high school completion classes for adults.
Betty DeVries Bouwman ex'73 is a nursing supervisor at Christian Rest Home in Grand Rapids. She has been involved in the Coffee Break program at West Leonard Christian Reformed Church for 14 years.
Maria Koole Bajema '70 has a birding website, www.birdperch.com, where she places photos for educational purposes. She is president of Micro Solutions Computing, Inc. in Lowell, Mich., where she lives with her husband, John Bajema '69.
Jana Brunsting Brasser '71 has returned to Grand Rapids for a year after teaching in China for the last three years. She will go back to China this summer with a mission team.
Gerrit DeVries ex'73 and Dianne Kiekover DeVries '74 have completed eight mission trips to Honduras with World Gospel Outreach. Gerrit, an optometrist, provides vision care while Dianne helps clients choose from an assortment of recycled glasses. "All patients are then ministered with the Gospel of Jesus Christ," Gerrit writes. "On this 2002 trip, 108 Honduran people accepted Christ as their savior for the very first time."
Nancy Vandenbosch Nykamp '70 donated a kidney in the summer of 2000 to a fellow member of North Blendon Reformed Church in Allendale, Mich. "We are both doing well," Nancy wrote, "and are very grateful to God for his blessing." Nancy is a resource room specialist at Excel Charter Academy in Grand Rapids. Her husband, Ronald Nykamp '69, is a cabinetmaker for Superior Wood Products.
Christine Bandstra Kloostra '76 and Randy Commeret Sr. '71: 8/6/01.
Judith Wrahlstad and Thomas Vander Molen '72: 6/16/01.
Lila Teerman Scholten '70 of Holland, Mich., on 11/1/01.
