Keeping it in the Family - Spring 2004

At the heart of Central's heritage - Jo Harmeling ’52 and her family celebrate five generations of Central’s legacy.

Born in the middle of a five-generation legacy that stems back almost as far as Central itself, Harmeling never had any doubt that she would one day attend the alma mater of both of her parents and grandmothers.

“It was so important to my parents,” said Harmeling ’52, whose two sisters also attended Central. “I just never had any other choice. I never was going to college. I was going to Central.”

Like many in the Central family, Harmeling not only gained a solid educational foundation for her future, but also met the man who would become her life partner, John Harmeling ’50. The couple had four children, three of whom went to Central.

Two of those children met their spouses at Central. One of those unions — that of Jennifer Harmeling Messer ’81 and Randy Messer ’82— has now created something almost unheard of at Central: a fifth generation student, daughter Joanna Messer ’07.

But that legacy was almost broken. Messer was determined to go to a state school because she wanted to be somewhere large and different than what she had heard about all her life.

Still, she allowed women’s basketball coach Mick Angel to woo her to the campus to at least check it out last year. By the time she got here, she realized everything she had heard from her parents and grandparents over the years was true. Central was more than the magical place where she attended football games and played around the pond as a kid with her grandma. It was home.

“In the end, Central had a lot more to offer me,” said Messer, who has been particularly impressed with the faculty she already has come in to contact with as a freshman. “A lot of the morals, values, standards and ethics the professors have really filter down and affect the students. I’m having a great time here.”

Messer is part of a growing trend at Central College: legacy students. In her own Class of 2007, 42 out of 417 students either had parents or siblings attend Central. Of the 15,899 alumni in the alumni database, 960 alumni have sent 1,477 of their children (current students and alumni) to Central College. More than 2,620 are siblings.

In other words, about 20 percent of Central’s alumni base has been connected to Central by a grandparent, parent or sibling. The numbers would skyrocket if friendships were included in that figure.

Don Morrison, Central College director of alumni and church relations, said the large number of children from legacy families can be summarized by one word: relationships.

“I think it relates to the very real sense of family and belonging that permeates the Central ethos,” said Morrison. “In my experiences with alumni, that sense of belonging is something I hear about regularly and I’ve discovered that it has existed since the early days of Central. It is not uncommon at alumni events to have two or three generations of a family present and nearly all commenting on the history and rewarding experiences of their family with Central College. It is a rich heritage of which we can be proud.”

Jo Harmeling believes Central makes an emotional connection to so many families because of the institution’s large sense of community. Simply put, nobody gets lost in the shuffle at Central College.

“I felt very cared for there. All my kids did too,” said Harmeling, who majored in elementary education and taught fourth grade in Lytton, Iowa, and sixth in Pella for a few years until retiring to raise her family. “They care for the individual at Central. It’s a school where children become adults in a very positive way.”

For Jenny Messer, a lifetime of Central College memories has helped her connect to her family’s past and her daughter’s future.

“I feel so blessed to be part of five generations,” said Messer, a project manager at Allied Insurance in Des Moines. “It is even more incredible to know that the tradition started and continued through the women of my family. I don’t think this really made an impression on me until my grandmother, Gertrude (Van Houweling) Vander Wal ’22, passed away at the age of 102. Even though I felt I knew her well, it was then that I learned so much more about her character, values and talents. I see those same qualities in my daughter and find pleasure knowing that they have been passed from generation to generation.”

Randy Messer said his life is forever rewarded for having attended Central. Both he and Jenny were worried about putting undue influence on Joanna, but ultimately were delighted to know she’d have the same opportunities to grow as a young person as they did.

“I learned a great deal about life and character issues such as being able to contribute to society and others,” said Randy Messer, the design director for an educational publishing company in Des Moines called Perfection Learning Corporation. “I learned about hard work, setting goals and working to achieve goals. Our professors challenged and helped us to learn even when we didn’t know it. It’s amazing how many times thoughts or comments from classes years ago still pop into my thoughts today.”

Having Joanna close by is a source of delight for Jo Harmeling, whose children have spread throughout the world to Okinawa and Alaska. Still there is one thing keeping them all together as their families grow and spread out even more: Central College.

And she hasn’t given up hope that any of her 11 other grandkids will end up here just like cousin Joanna.

“I’m proud that we are a Central family. It’s a part of all of us,” said Harmeling, who stays in Pella to remain close to her favorite campus. “If I go away, I miss things and I don’t like that.”

Living the legacy — One family's legacy at Central lasts for generations

“I can walk around Central’s campus and the town of Pella and know people,” he said. “It’s been 26 years since I graduated, but I still feel a part of the campus.”

He insists the college’s friendly atmosphere hasn’t changed either. “You walk across campus and everyone says ‘Hi’ and speaks to you. They did that then, too.”

With a twinkle in his eye, the Port Byron, Ill., resident recalls his college years, where he worked in the admission office and played football. Some of the John Deere industrial engineering manager’s fondest memories involve barbecuing on the rock-filled Scholte roof with his friends, the same friends with whom he continues to keep in touch.

VanderLinden’s father, Bob ’51, was one of his main influences growing up, so it was a natural choice to go to school at his dad’s alma mater. He said he felt a connection to Central even in high school.

VanderLinden was later thrilled when his children decided to attend Central as well. He insists he tried not to influence Katie ’04 and Andy ’06, when they were seniors in high school.

“I stayed completely out of (the college decision),” the former business major said. “I didn’t even come when Katie was visiting (Central.) I didn’t want her to feel pressured.”

“I don’t think I ever came out and said I was going to Central for sure,” she said. “It just kind of evolved. I had a lot of subtle pressure. He wouldn’t let me visit Simpson at all!”

Katie and Andy, like their father, feel positive about the education they are receiving from Central.

Andy, a sophomore business major, said, “My biggest deciding factor was that I’d seen family and friends graduate from Central who were successful and had many opportunities open to them. I wanted to experience that.”

VanderLinden is convinced in today’s work world, Central fits the bill for students to be successful.

“If you look at today’s workplace, you rarely wind up doing the same thing year after year,” he said. “I think liberal arts prepare you for doing many different things. The job market keeps changing. You need to be well-rounded.”

To continue his support and renew his ties to Central, VanderLinden and his wife decided to create the Mark and Michele VanderLinden Endowed Scholarship.

According to Katie, the scholarship will be given to college seniors. She said her parents recognized the need for seniors to be given scholarships.

“By the time you’re a senior, your financial aid goes down, tuition rises, and your scholarships aren’t worth as much,” she said.

Though VanderLinden has generously donated to Central through the endowed scholarship, he insists that isn’t the best thing his family could give.

“The two greatest gifts we gave to this school were sending both of our children here,” he said.

Planning today for tomorrow — The 529 college savings plan helps future Central students

Like most working moms, Jennifer Urban Aguirre ’96, a Spanish teacher in Chicago, Ill., is already thinking about her newborn’s future.

She knows that future includes a college education, and from her own recent experience, anticipates it to be a tremendous financial burden.

However, paying for college in the future may not be such a worry for Aguirre and her Mexican-born husband Chava thanks to the new Independent 529 Plan. This plan provides a way for families to pre-purchase tax-free tuition for future generations.

“We’re not independently wealthy people,” said Aguirre, who hopes to alleviate some of the student loan debt for her child she has endured as a working adult. “So for us, it sounds like a potentially good way to plan for our son’s future.”

Central College President David Roe said he knew 529 was something Central had to consider when he first started hearing about it a couple years ago in professional circles. After careful research, Central became one of the 200-plus colleges and universities nationwide participating in the plan, which officially launched in fall 2003.

According to Roe, the Independent 529 Plan locks in college tuition at today’s tuition costs. In addition, the plan protects parents and grandparents from having to garner tuition money through possibly unstable investments, such as mutual funds or the stock market. The plan also guarantees freedom from federal taxes and tuition inflation.

“We’re trying, as a general rule, to make families aware of the need to plan for college,” Roe said. “One of the distresses I have is that families are putting the full burden of college on their children.”

When children eventually make their college decisions, the plan allows them to apply to and choose any participating college or university in the United States. The purchase of a 529 Plan does not guarantee acceptance in to the college of the student’s choice.

If a child decides not to attend college or receives a college scholarship, refunds are available.

Roe believes it’s hard to predict what tuition will look like years down the road, but if tuition keeps on rising in the same proportions, he said students may be forced to pay $400,000 to attend college
Aguirre hopes to be prepared to fight that potential high cost.

“I like the whole concept of putting money away so we aren’t socked with one big bill later,” she said. “It’s all about getting ahead where we can.”

For more information about the Independent 529 Plan visit www.independent529plan.org on the Web, or call Don Morrison, director of alumni relations, at (641) 628-5280.

Catharsis of creation — Iowa artist Tilly Woodward fights racism, promotes diversity and splatter paints pick-up trucks.

A two-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Drawing, Woodward has stroked hundreds of portraits to highlight diversity education in the state.

Red, yellow, black or white; Tilly Woodward uses the unique curves of a face and the twinkle of an eye to explore the visual and social dynamics of a community.

“I choose to work for a solution and initiate positive conversation,” said Woodward, Central College visiting assistant professor of art and director of the Mills Gallery. “My work is more than personal; I have taken an interest in the world.”

Woodward put herself on the map as an Iowa artist in 1992 through both creating a series of portraits for a statewide conference concerning immigration and breaking through the hatred surrounding racial tensions and Ku Klux Klan cross burnings in Dubuque, Iowa. In response to the negative news surrounding the community, Woodward called for Dubuque residents to nominate neighbors committing acts of kindness for Portraits of Dubuque.

With the help of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Woodward collected 338 nominations and produced 92 pastel portraits of those who taught Sunday school, befriended neighbors, sacked leaves or touched others’ lives.

“Portraits of Dubuque was a significant project for me in which I tried to go beyond merely reporting a visual situation which I found moving,” said Woodward, who received the 2002 Iowa Arts Council Individual Artist Award.

A billboard of the portraits was installed in eight locations across Dubuque and the collection was displayed at various locations in Dubuque before traveling to other venues.

Granting dignity and compassion to those in illness or death was Woodward’s goal in creating the AIDS Portrait Project.

“I often heard that ‘AIDS was a punishment from God’ or ‘AIDS can’t happen in Iowa,’” said Woodward, who studied at both the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Kansas. “I wanted to influence positive dialogue about AIDS.”

Woodward began meeting with people who had AIDS or were HIV positive in 1994. After four or five pencil sketches, and subject approval, Woodward produced 18 portraits in conjunction with the AIDS Project of Central Iowa. The series traveled to galleries, museums, churches, conferences and schools, such as Jefferson Elementary School in Pella.

“I think it is important for children to be aware of AIDS because it can impact their lives in a tremendous way,” said Woodward, who is also mother to Adrian Bell ’07 and Walker. “I often brought my own children along to visit the participants because it was such a powerful education tool for both them and me.”

Woodward’s works also have played an interactive part on the Central College campus. During the third annual Conference on White Privilege, large panels of tiny mirrors hung between paintings of a jubilant choir, Muslims worshiping at the Des Moines Mosque and people of many different races — Chinese, African American, Caucasian and Indian.

“I used the mirror panels to make the audience feel as neighbors in the community painted before them,” said Woodward, whose paintings are often on display in campus buildings such as the Maytag Student Center and Vermeer Science Center.
Victims of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence are Woodward’s current focus when she debuted The Ribbon Monument in February with V-Day 2004 and the Vagina Monologues production at Central.

“I invited rape or abuse survivors or their loved ones to write their stories on ribbons and help me make a monument,” said Woodward, who tied the ribbons to thin metal posts that were installed on campus. “Monuments have healing effects, and my hope is that this monument will lift the burden from these hearts.”

Woodward also teaches classes on campus such as Art for Elementary School Teachers and 3D Design. As director of Mills Gallery, she has welcomed Bolivian weavings, Tibetan thankas, and visiting artists such as Tim Rollins.

Woodward also offers her talents to the Pella community as founding director of the Pella Community Art Center program.

“During Art Center in the Parks in the summer, I travel to different parks with my truck full of clay, sewing machines, wood, anything. You name it, we’ve got it,” said Woodward, who was inspired by Kansas City’s Mattie Rhodes Counseling and Art Center. “Working with children and teaching gives me a chance to share my love of art with the students.”

“The first year we covered the truck in masking tape and spray painted it. Then we splatter painted for two or three years and now we have started to decorate the truck with glitter. I really think the paint is holding that truck together,” said Woodward, who also embellished a fellow faculty member’s van. “It’s fun because kids around town will point at my truck and say, ‘Hey, I did that!’”
As an Iowa artist, Tilly Woodward believes opportunities are relative.

“It’s not where you live, it’s what you do,” said Woodward. “I exhibit my work and at the end of the day I come home to my studio and paint. I love that.”

California resident and retired attorney Mike Denekas ’32 has donated $251,623 to Central College to set up an endowed scholarship that he will give in honor of his late parents the Rev. Wolbert and Matilda Van Oosterloo Denekas.

Mike Denekas ’32

Denekas was born in 1909 in the parsonage of the Reformed Church in America in Dempster, S.D., the third of six children. His father was the pastor of two parishes there, preaching in Dutch, English and German every Sunday. After World War I, the family settled in Pekin, Ill., where his father was a pastor at the Second Reformed Church for 27 years.

Denekas earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Central in 1932. After World War II, he attended Marshall Law School in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to California with wife Ruthie where he was a general attorney in the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Justice Department. He later went in to private practice in San Fransisco in 1970.

He is currently retired and living at Spring Lake Village in Santa Rosa, Calif. His wife Ruthie, a nurse, passed away in 1994 after battling encephalitis for nine years.

Photos from throughout the year. Central celebrates its 150th birthday!

Clockwise from upper right
1. The Rumbles perform at the Gala;
2. Pat Joachim Kitzman is amazed by magician Tim Gabrielson;
3. Patricia Ireland shares her story;
4. Don Lubbers speaks at the Past President’s Convocation;

5. Norma De Bruin Van Rheenen ’61 enjoying the Living Legends luncheon;
6. Harry Smith ‘73 meets with politically-minded students;
7. Central celebrates its Living Legends.

Please direct questions or comments regarding editorial content of the Central Bulletin to Abby Gonzales, News & Marketing Writer.
Phone: 641.628.5157 | Email: gonzalesa@central.edu

For alumni-related issues, please contact Sunny Eighmy, Director of Alumni Relations.
Phone: 641.628.5280 | Email: alumni@central.edu