Alumni Profiles
Coppock ministers to families
Deyo moves on to solo career
Hardman nurtures AU friendships
Katsu balances family, teaching and Christian witness
Coppock ministers to families
By Heather Lowhorn
Dennis A. Coppock BA ’96 was 42 years old when he felt God calling him into the ministry of working with families. He had no counseling experience; his background was in marketing. He didn't have a degree. He didn’t have a trust fund to support the ministry or his family. He didn’t have any idea where to start. But he and his wife, Karen, had one important thing. They had faith.
Acting on that faith, they founded Families Forever Ministry, a biblically based organization that offers free services with the goal of helping families. To prepare for his drastic mid-life career change, Coppock enrolled at Anderson University, double majoring in family science and psychology. “I felt blessed being able to go to college after thinking it had passed me by,” says Coppock.
After graduating, Coppock worked at AU as an admissions counselor and recruiter for the School of Adult Learning. While he worked at AU, he and Karen carried out the administrative tasks of running the ministry out of their home. He also became an ordained pastor during this time and began serving as an associate pastor in a local church. Between his job at AU, being an associate pastor and his work with Families Forever, Coppock was juggling a lot of responsibilities. But he and his wife always knew the goal was to keep building Families Forever Ministries. In December 1999 he resigned from AU, and three months later he resigned his position as associate pastor. He said goodbye to steady paychecks and embraced a full-time ministry that doesn't charge a cent for its services.
“Nobody puts money into their budget for counseling,” says Coppock. “I don’t want anyone to say, ‘I’d go to marriage or family counseling, but I don’t have the money.’ ” While Families Forever tries to keep somewhat normal office hours, Coppock will work on evenings and weekends when needed. He says he felt God leading him to remove the barriers of money and schedule in order to make his ministry accessible.
Families Forever Ministries is funded by donations from individuals, churches, businesses and “by God’s grace,” says Coppock. Some have tried to convince Coppock to charge for the ministry's services. “The thought is, if you don’t charge, then your service has no value,” says Coppock. Yet the ministry continues to grow, with the number of counseling hours quadrupling from the first six months to the second and doubling from the first year of the ministry to the second. “We’ve seen huge growth, and we know that it can double, triple, quadruple again because, unfortunately, there are a lot of people hurting,” says Coppock.
Coppock credits God with meeting the needs of the ministry. Recently a local construction company offered the ministry office space that is much larger than their current space, and it includes a much-needed conference/classroom. The ministry recently added a second counselor part-time and two volunteers to serve as education director and office administrator. And Coppock believes God still has big plans for Families Forever.
“We refer to ourselves as missionaries in America, and our mission field is the families in America,” says Coppock. “We’ll go wherever God opens a door.”
Deyo moves on to solo career
By Bethany Warner
Ever since he was a kid, Jeff Deyo BA ’92 wanted to be a musician. With a Dove Award and a Grammy nomination already on the shelf and a new solo album on the racks, he is doing exactly what he feels called to do.
“My number one goal is to see people come into the presence of God and be connected in a different way,” Deyo says. “There are moments in worship or prayer or sitting listening to a sermon when we really engage with God. It’s at that moment when your spirit is surrendered to the Lord. My goal is to help people see more of those moments.”
Deyo’s moment became a significant step in his career. “I’m one of the few people doing what I studied to do,” he says of his music business degree. “For me, [AU] was a great place to learn.”
After graduation, Deyo moved to Nashville, Tenn. He began his music career with the band Zilch, which changed its name to SONICFLOOd. His first album, SONICFLOOd, became a certified Gold record and earned a Dove Award for “Praise and Worship Album of the Year.” The follow-up album, SONICPRAISe, was nominated for a Grammy in 2002.
Now Deyo is out on his own. For SONICFLOOd fans, Deyo’s venture into solo albums and the continuation of the band without him is a quandary.
“People don’t always see eye-to-eye,” Deyo says of the split. “Everybody had different ideas about the way they wanted it to go.” The band, Deyo explains, wanted to continue without him and asked him to leave. “I agreed to take off, which was not my desire,” he admits. “We’re trusting the Lord.”
Praise and worship music on Saturate (released in March by Essential Records) is a continuation of Deyo’s SONICFLOOd vision. He is excited about the new project, though he admits there is pressure for it to do well since the SONICFLOOd album received a Dove Award.
“God blessed SONICFLOOd,” says Deyo. “Whether or not this album sells or gets a Dove, it’s really not important to me.”
On the new album, he’s written nine original songs and covered three other familiar worship songs.
“I wanted to write songs that are modern hymns,” Deyo says. “The music style is not hymn-like, but the lyrical content is more theological.”
Deyo notes that many worship songs are happy and giddy, but he says real life is not always that way. He looked at David in the Psalms struggling and crying out to God. The song “Satisfy,” expresses darker lyrics: “My heart has grown so cold/I’ve let the darkness in.”
Looking back, Deyo sees how greatly AU has influenced his life. He met Martha Cameron BA ’92, now his wife of 10 years. In addition to the opportunities offered through the music business program, Deyo was glad for the spiritual growth he experienced. Anderson University was a safe place for him to grow as a person and mature in his faith. Going through that struggle was a part of his becoming a musician.
“Seek first the kingdom of God. All that stuff will be added in the Lord’s time, in his way,” says Deyo. “Until you become someone like Jesus, God has a hard time using you in a large scale to do something great for him.”
Hardman nurtures AU friendships
By Deborah Lilly
Staying in touch with people has been one of Ken Hardman’s strengths. As a college freshman at AU, he set out to befriend as many people as possible. His interest in people and his alma mater have proven value not only to him but to the university as well.
Hardman came to Anderson in 1955 from Chicago. Like most of his classmates, he struggled with the financial requirements of college. “I’d get up enough money to take classes, then I’d run out of money and have to drop out of school and work again.” After six years, he decided to concentrate on helping his future wife, Francis Schnuck BA ’67, finish school. But even when he wasn’t taking classes, the students at AU were a big part of his life. “I knew everybody,” Hardman says. “I just enjoyed being around them.”
A resident of Anderson, Ind., Hardman has joined other local alumni from the 1950s who make keeping in touch with classmates around the world a priority. Among their efforts is the “1950s tent,” a regular fixture at homecoming. Hardman estimates that nearly 500 people stop by the tent each year to meet friends, browse through old yearbooks or enjoy a cup of coffee.
Hardman has remained dedicated to his alma mater. While working as a traveling salesman, he carried brochures from the university to pass along to clients with college-age children. He enjoys helping the coaching staffs when needed — after all, several of them were his classmates 40 years ago. “I’ve always been of the opinion that if somebody needs help, you help them,” he explains. Over the years, he has organized volunteers to take water to referees during football games, worked in hospitality rooms at basketball games and helped raise money for athletic programs.
When his son came to AU a few years ago, Hardman advised, “You’d better get to know a lot of people because these people will be your friends for life.” That has certainly been true for Ken Hardman.
Katsu balances family, teaching and Christian witness
By Deborah Lilly
As the mother of five children, Janis (Trimble) Katsu BA ’76 has faced the challenge of balancing a career and motherhood. Fortunately she met two other women with the same careers and concerns. Together they operate a music school, which allows them to use their teaching talents and still spend time with their families.
Katsu began her career as a music teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. After the birth of her second child, Katsu decided, “I’m not going to teach and have children at the same time. But in order to keep my sanity, I decided to take trombone lessons.”
Katsu studied at nearby Towson State University, and over time she joined the symphonic band, worked in the band’s library, earned a master’s degree in music education and accepted a job as the assistant band director. At the same time, she was involved in the youth ministry, handbells and choir at her church. And she had her third child. In 1991, Katsu says, “I decided my life was too full. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Katsu left Towson State to focus on her family and become involved in her new church. And that’s when new possibilities opened up for her.
“Life’s experiences lend to life’s choices, but then life’s choices lend to life’s experiences,” Katsu has learned.
God led Katsu on a journey that found her in the same church as a woman named Kathleen Schwartz, who directed a Kindermusik center. She asked Katsu to come and help with the four- and five-year-old students.
Katsu was reluctant at first. “Here I was coming from a university scene, and then boom, down to early childhood music,” she explains. “It’s not as simple as you would think. Children are so literal. You can’t assume they know what you’re talking about. You have to explain everything, and you have to explain it in their terms. It was a real growing experience for me.”
Soon Schwartz joined another local music teacher, Sandy Pietrowiz, to open Joyful Sounds School of Music in Forest Hill, Md. During the school’s first year, they welcomed Katsu into the partnership.
Katsu, Schwartz and Pietrowicz joined together not only with a love for music but also a strong commitment to God and family. All three women are active in their churches. They each have large families to care for at home. By working together and hiring additional teachers, they effectively balance work, family and church.
For Katsu’s part, she teaches private lessons and conducts a jazz ensemble made up of area home-schooled children. She also handles the administration part of the business.
More importantly, Katsu can share her Christian values and faith in a way she couldn’t before. “We’re all committed to seeing that others around us know the mercies and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Katsu says. “We don’t preach it. We demonstrate it.” Such as taking time during a lesson to pray with a student facing tough times. “You can’t do that in a public school system.”
