Alumni Profiles
CPS alumni honor Nelson
Lund succeeds in theatre, voice-over
Schulle honors grieving mothers
Alumni bicycle across the country
CPS alumni honor Nelson with surprise reception
By Cara Miller
Just a few months after retiring last spring, Dr. Doug Nelson, professor emeritus of history and political science and former chair of the Center for Public Service, got a big surprise. Several of his former CPS students from the class of 1979 traveled from all parts of the United States to Anderson to reunite and to give Nelson and his wife, Karen, who had already retired from Anderson University’s Kissinger Learning Center, a proper send-off. They threw a surprise catered picnic the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.
“When we learned that Dr. Nelson was retiring, several members of the CPS class of ’79 wondered if there was a way to get back for the official reception to honor Doug and Karen,” said Deb (Broka) Coulson BA ’80. “Because of other pressing responsibilities with our families and jobs, the original timing wasn’t possible, but the desire to be there and say thanks never faded. In fact, over the course of the summer, it got stronger and the momentum to make something happen strengthened.”
Sparked by Christine Evans-Klock BA ’79, who works in Geneva, Switzerland, for the UN’s International Labor Organization, e-mails among old CPS classmates began to circulate and several more ’79 CPS students were located. They decided to reunite in the Nelsons’ home in Anderson, with some alumni traveling from as far away as Cape Cod, Washington, D.C., and Texas.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a surprise party without a decoy. In this instance, Evans-Klock had let the Nelsons know that she would be passing through town on a visit to her parents and that she wanted to stop by. Knowing that the Nelsons would be home and expecting company, she and six other CPS alumni hopped in their rental cars filled with goodies and pulled into the Nelsons’ driveway.
“Doug and Karen had no idea it was anything other than a quick visit by Chris,” Coulson explained. “The look on Doug and Karen’s faces when Chris alighted from the first car was delight. Their jaw-dropping looks when the rest of us drove up one by one was nothing short of shock!”
Nelson explained that he had looked outside at about the time he expected Evans-Klock to arrive and was stunned to see a “parade” of cars. “What a major surprise!” he said. “Sally [Hostetler] came from Washington, D.C., Lois [Andre] from the Boston area, Andrea [(Staples) Ether] from northern Indiana, Steven [Harrison] and his wife from Indy, [and] Deb from Texas. … Mark Bailey arrived later from Indianapolis. It was pretty unbelievable, to be sure. To say I was astounded would be pretty close.”
The group gathered together in the Nelsons’ living room, where the students had gathered nearly 30 years ago to share their ideas and goals. It brought back memories for everyone, as Coulson said, “transporting us back to a time of some of our fondest memories, appreciating Doug’s wise counsel and outrageous sense of adventure and fun. Great professors and inspirations like Doug and Karen Nelson are once-in-a-lifetime treasures we will always celebrate.”
Along with his full-time teaching career, Nelson served for 32 years as director of CPS, an honors program for students pursuing careers in public service. Nelson managed the selection process and also played a large role in helping students find meaningful internships and attend major conferences around the country.
“The specific interests that students pursued ranged from things in the predictable sectors of social services to things that were clearly different, like those interested in environmental programs that took them into zoological gardens, nature preserves, and ecological projects of various kinds,” Nelson said. “Quite a substantial number of our graduates have landed in positions where their work is making a difference in the lives of many. … I greatly appreciated the opportunity to work with these individuals and see them move into the world beyond AU and demonstrate their skills to a much larger audience.”
The group sat around and talked until the early morning hours, catching up with one another and reminiscing about old memories. Their final gift to Nelson was a group donation to the CPS scholarship fund in his honor.
“It was an amazing affair,” Nelson said, “and quite surprising!”
Center stage: Alum enjoys successful career in theatre and voice-over work
By Cara Miller
Since graduating from Anderson University, Mark Lund BA ’89 has forged a career in show business, performing on stage, working as a scenic and sound designer, and free-lancing as a voice-over professional in many nationwide projects. According to Lund, many of his experiences at AU have helped lead him to where he is now.
He explained, “The broadcasting degree led me to working in radio during and right after school, and later in Seattle. My four years working with the IMC led to my working for several years in corporate audio/visual. And my time in the theatre department helped lead to the many years I have spent working in professional theatre. I spent the better part of four years being involved in a lot of different, but related, interests. And that has pretty much been the story of my life ever since. My choices at AU taught me that I enjoy having my options open.”
Lund got a job in radio right out of college, and then moved to Seattle a year and a half later on a “whim,” with no job lined up. “The first thing I did was get a gig running lights for Taproot Theatre, a very small group at the time,” he explained. He moved on to a full-time job in audio/visual, and later began to also perform in various shows for Taproot Theatre. It was during the preparation for one of those shows that he met his future wife, Karen, also a performer.
“Having recently become a Christian, she felt God wanted her to do some work for this small Christian-based company,” Lund explained, “even though she had worked at professional companies all over the country.”
The couple began dating and got engaged very soon afterward. They continued working on the side for Taproot. But just a few months into their marriage, they decided God was calling them to something more.
“We both left fairly lucrative jobs to join the growing staff of Taproot,” Lund said. “May marked our 15th year on staff at Taproot.”
As design director for Taproot, Lund oversees all of the production and design aspects of the mainstage and touring productions. He is involved in set design, scenic backdrops and paintings, sound design, as well as administrative work for the theatre.
Aside from his job at Taproot, Lund also freelances in voice-over work, which he explained is a very difficult industry to break into. “You need an agent to get work, and you need to have done work to get an agent,” he said. Lund was able to get his first few jobs through Karen, who was a talent agent at the time. A few years later, he’d built up enough experience to get on with one of the top talent agencies in Seattle.
Lund has become a recognized voice-over professional, having played roles that range from video games (HALO 3 and F.E.A.R.), documentaries (Bounty Hunters), audio books (Twinkie, Deconstructed), and one regional spot where he played a guy underwater at the Oregon Zoo being attacked by an octopus. He has also been the voice for various radio and television commercials. In 2006, he was the voice talent for Qwest, a major phone carrier in 14 western states, and over the past year, his voice has been in a number of TV spots for Steak ’n Shake.
Lund and his wife live in Seattle and have two children, Jake, who is in fifth grade, and Hannah, who is in second. Sharing in their parents’ gift for drama, both children have participated in numerous drama camps at Taproot, have a talent agent, and have done voice-over and on-camera projects. Lund says they are also regular kids who go to public school, swim, and play instruments.
“We feel blessed to be in the unique position of being artists, making a living working in the arts,” Lund said. “But we also own a home, live in the suburbs, and have two great kids. It’s almost like we’re normal people.”
For more information on the Taproot Theatre Company, visit the Web site at www.taproottheatre.org.
Schulle honors grieving mothers with cantata
By Deborah Lilly
As a child in Brazil, Luciana Schulle BA ’05 remembers television stories of women in white headscarves marching the streets of Argentina demanding to know where their children were. “It had a huge impact on my life,” she explains. Years later as a graduate music composition student at Butler University, she brought their struggle together in a cantata named for their organization, The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
The cantata tells the story of the many mothers who lost their young adult children in Argentina during what Schulle calls a “dirty war” from 1976 to 1983. Their children, often college students, trade unionists, or activists, were kidnapped, tortured, and many times killed for protesting the military government. The families never knew what happened to the children after they were ripped from their homes.
“Everybody was afraid to speak up because they could be next,” says Schulle. “And the families were never given any explanation of where they were.”
Then Azucena Villaflor DeVincenti, who had been searching for one of her sons and her daughter-in-law for six months, began to ask questions. She gathered other mothers of missing children, and on April 30, 1977, they began demonstrating at the Plaza de Maya. DeVincenti was later abducted and never found, but her legacy in the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continues to this day.
“I grew up knowing their story,” says Schulle, who was born in 1979. When it came time to write her master’s thesis at Butler University, she found inspiration in these women. “I wanted to give them a musical voice and write this as a tribute to them.”
The cantata, which is performed by female singers with chamber orchestra, is sung in Spanish and Latin. It has nine movements, beginning with the night the children are taken from their homes and ending with the mothers of today still asking what happened to their children.
In November, the women from the Anderson University Chorale, directed by Dr. Richard Sowers, performed Schulle’s cantata. “I never imagined that it would be performed so soon in such a wonderful way,” says Schulle of her piece. “I’m so grateful my alma mater is still supporting me.” Ultimately, Schulle would like to see her piece performed in Argentina.
Schulle graduated from Butler in December. She is the music minister at the Church of the Crossing in Indianapolis and hopes to one day pursue a doctorate in music. Eventually she says she and her husband, Anderson, will return to Brazil. Anderson is currently a student at the School of Theology. They hope to use what they learned at AU to encourage the people of Brazil.
Alumni bicycle across the country
By Deborah Lilly
One weekend Mark Price BA ’08 was driving home from Anderson to Ohio when he began to wonder how long it would take to bicycle the trip. The more he thought about it, the bigger the trip became, and soon he and his two friends, John Lugar BA ’08 and Nick Huffman BA ’08, had mapped out a route from Anderson to California. It was no longer a general musing; it was going to be a reality. The three track team members, who had only biked across campus, began to rev up their workouts. They determined a purpose for the trip — to raise money for the ALS Association (Lou Gerig’s disease). And on June 15, they set off from Anderson heading west.
The month-and-a-half long trip took the three alums through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, ending in San Francisco. Before they left, Price had contacted churches along the route to see if the bicyclists could spend the nights in their buildings. Every day, they rode anywhere from four to ten hours, averaging 60 miles a day. Having never truly been bicyclists before, Price says, “The first two weeks were really rough, but the trip got easier as we went along.”
Mentally, Kansas was the biggest challenge. In the eastern part of the state, they were constantly riding up and down hills, feeling as if they were gaining little forward distance. And the flatlands of western Kansas were just, well, boring to them.
“Colorado was physically the hardest riding,” says Price. “But it was so beautiful you didn’t really notice it.” The morning they road through Rocky Mountain National Park, they began at an elevation of 6,000 feet. By noon they were at 12,500. “We were sucking air the whole way,” says Price. “But the scenery was gorgeous. And then we got to go downhill.”
Overall, the trio raised $2,500 for the ALS Association, much of the money coming from friends before they left and churches along their cycling route. Their story also landed in newspapers from Indiana to California.
Once on the west coast, Price hung out for a couple of weeks, staying wherever he could find an empty couch. He returned to Ohio in early August, just in time to start medical school at Ohio State.
