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From Bethel to NASA isn't a stretch.
Your Bethel degree prepares you to pursue graduate studies, participate in volunteer organizations or propel your career, right after commencement.
Explore how some alumni have turned their degree into success in space, on the stage, in athletics, on addressing world issues. Consider how you can reach new heights with your Bethel degree.
Become one of the countless graduates who achieve great things in all different arenas.
Johns Hopkins life support technician
Patented inventor
World Series strength & conditioning coach
Urban dance director
Black Lives Matter activist
NASA scientist
Broadway star
Symphony conductor
International business leader
Pro football CFO
Hasbro engineer
Critical care transport CEO
Global women's advocate
International entrepreneur
New York Philharmonic musician
Memory research psychologist
National sports game changer
Investment entrepreneur
Haitian health advocate
International stage performer
National Audubon Society conservationist
Political change maker
Nonprofit marketing business founder
Victims' advocate and Oprah consultant
Disaster psychologist
Big 10 athletics assistant A.D.
Interfaith bridge builder
Bug doctor
Nonprofit CEO
NOAA weather nerd
Royal illustrator
Mass General chief resident
Law and peace mentor
Krishna Phifer '11
Biology/Chemistry
Approaching high school graduation, Krishna Phifer wasn't sure she was ready to leave the world she knew. But her mother was. "She wanted me to branch out and have a college experience away from home" – the metropolitan vastness of Houston.
Recruited to play basketball, Krishna came to Houston's polar opposite, a tiny town in Kansas, where she found a community and her life's passion.
"My teammates were one of the most influential parts of being at Bethel," Krishna says. "We were all from different places, including different parts of Kansas, and backgrounds. They were a big part of my life then, and still are."
She also was steeped in the sciences at Bethel and began looking at sports medicine before making a change to allied health. When she did, she discovered cardiovascular perfusion.
"You work in cardiothoracic surgery. You operate the heart-lung machine and keep people alive during [heart or lung or liver] surgery, such as triple and quadruple bypass." Krishna has her master's degree in cardiovascular perfusion from Rush University, Chicago.
She worked for two years in Richmond, Virginia, then moved to Baltimore to be closer to her mom, who now lives in northern Virginia, and to take a position at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center.
The university setting provides a fast pace, challenge and diverse surgery cases, which has given Krishna the opportunity to branch out professionally, she says.
Bethel prepared me well – making sure I was well-rounded, not just [expert] in one subject. My studies in psychology and physics made me much better prepared for my life outside Bethel.
Glen Ediger '75
Art/Industrial Arts
Glen Ediger says he got his "first and best" education growing up on a wheat farm in western Harvey County, Kansas. "I was always taking things apart and putting them back together. I would just go in the shop and start building with whatever I could find."
That native ability, honed on the farm, found focus at Bethel College, where Glen studied fine arts and industrial arts under important mentors such as Bob Regier, Rodney Frey and Emerson Wiens.
Glen is now nearing 30 years as director of design at Vornado Air Circulation Systems. He is listed as inventor on more than 100 U.S. patents and about as many foreign ones – on Vornado products as well as a hand drill and other tools found in hardware stores worldwide.
True to his liberal-arts education, Glen has found another passion in the second half of life – writing. His first book harkened back to his farm boyhood, his rural Mennonite roots and his Bethel years.
Glen got interested in the threshing stones that Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the late 1800s brought to the Great Plains. He researched across North America (as well as China and Ukraine) to document and photograph as many of the stones as he could find, chronicling that journey in the award-winning book Leave No Threshing Stone Unturned (2012).
Glen helped recover the threshing stone, long Bethel's somewhat mysterious athletic mascot, as a powerful symbol – of immigrant resilience, of positive transformation, of a college student's growth and change.
The response to my book showed me it's important to keep historical symbols alive in people's imagination.
Jarret Abell '12
Jarret Abell came to Bethel knowing two things: he wanted to play football and he wanted a career in sports as a coach or another professional role.
Jarret is now in his fifth year with the Kansas City Royals. In his second season with the Royals' AA affiliate, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, Jarret oversees in-season strength and conditioning for all position players and pitchers, and helps with off-season development of Royals athletes in Arizona.
Jarret is grateful for the chance to play football after high school that also put him into an environment that helped him chart his course.
"Classes in athletic training and health and physical education paved the way for knowing what I wanted to do. Professors interacting with me personally and being hands-on with the learning process. Coaches taking an interest in my life and career beyond the field. The close friends that I still to this day talk to and see."
Jarret accepted unpaid internships right out of grad school, first at Texas Christian University working with football, baseball and basketball athletes, then with EXOS (Athletes' Performance) in Florida.
In his final month at the latter, the Royals offered him a job as a rookie ball strength coach for the Idaho Falls Chukars in the Pioneer League. Since then, Jarret has been part of two World Series runs and a World Series Championship in 2015.
"The community, staff, coaches and genuinely good people [at Bethel] are what helped me achieve where I am today," he says.
The whole experience of Bethel was, all together, extremely influential in my life and career.
Katrina Toews '98
Fine Arts/Elementary Education
Katrina Toews wanted to dance and she wanted a Bethel College education, so she figured out a way to make both things happen. She developed a "fine arts" major (before the days of Bethel's Individualized Major option), finding ways to study dance off campus, in addition to completing the elementary education program.
She followed that up with a master's degree in dance education from American University in Washington, D.C., and then a 14-year career with The Washington Ballet, most of that time as director of The Washington Ballet@THEARC. Pronounced "The Ark," the acronym stands for Town Hall Education, Arts & Recreation Campus, which serves the historic, and historically under-resourced, Anacostia neighborhood in Ward 8 of the District of Columbia.
Katrina cites "a Mennonite work ethic, tenacity and a go-get-'em spirit" gleaned from her upbringing in a small, rural Kansas community, and which she says carried over at Bethel, as being key to helping her survive and thrive at THEARC.
That's at the heart of her time with TWB@THEARC. One of the community stakeholders in the planning process for THEARC, a local pastor, spoke up early on for making Katrina the ballet program director. "She could see," Katrina says, "that I was there for the community and the kids. Those are values I found at Bethel."
Another important lesson reinforced at Bethel: "Community is at the core of my Mennonite faith. I have realized through experience we are stronger together, we have more in common than different. We can make powerful change when we come together.
Jalane Schmidt '91
Jalane Schmidt was born in the watershed year of 1968, on the South Side of Chicago, almost six months to the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
A bi-racial child adopted at birth by her white Mennonite parents, she grew up in Newton in a Mennonite congregation that was also part of the "intentional Christian community" movement of the 1960s and '70s. From an early age, she was steeped in the social justice implications of the Bible and the Anabaptist faith, which she carried into her Bethel years as a campus activist.
After earning graduate degrees at Harvard Divinity School and Harvard University, Jalane began her college teaching career, which landed her in 2007 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville – and in the middle of the 2017 #SummerOfHate and the community's organized effort to resist the Aug. 12 Unite the Right rally and associated white supremacist and neo-Nazi activities in and around that small Southern city. Intimidation tactics by the alt-right, and informal bodyguards, became part of Jalane's reality.
When she speaks publicly, Jalane's message to white people is pointed and unapologetic.
"Resist white supremacy. Inconvenience yourself. Stop being polite. Get comfortable with making racists uncomfortable.
"Do what you can to throw a monkey wrench in this thing called white supremacy. It doesn't take that many people to stop cooperating or colluding for white supremacy to fall."
You are joining in a struggle that people of color have been carrying on for centuries. You have to give up that need to be 'in control,' and take your cues and directions from people of color.
G. John Dick '61
G. John Dick grew up in eastern Montana, majored in math and physics at Bethel and got a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California-Berkeley. From 1986 until he retired in 2008, John worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Among John's NASA projects: technology for the Deep Space Network, which communicates with and enables space science experiments – for example, with the Cassini mission that brought back photos of the rings of Saturn; developing a cryogenic clock that uses synthetic sapphire as the resonating element; and working with the Low Temperature Microgravity Physics Facility, being built to take experiments to the International Space Station.
John is well-known in the field of frequency standards (clocks) for predicting a noise process that has been named the Dick Effect and is now recognized as a primary performance limitation for state-of-the-art frequency standards.
It's important to have the vision of ourselves as a human race that is probing the frontiers, both physical and scientific.
Rachel Kasper Fitzsimons '88
With Bethel's main drama professor and voice instructor at the time as her parents, it's no wonder Rachel de Benedet (née Rachel Kasper) considered the Krehbiel Auditorium stage her playground and was singing as soon as she could talk.
After majoring in fine arts at Bethel, Rachel made her Broadway debut in 1998 as the third nun from the left in The Sound of Music. She later played Baroness Schraeder in the national touring production opposite Richard Chamberlain's Captain Von Trapp.
Among Rachel's music theater credits on Broadway: Nine, with Antonio Banderas, Chita Rivera and Jane Krakowski, which won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical ; The Addams Family with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth; Muriel in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with both John Lithgow and Jonathan Pryce; and Paula Abagnale, a role she created and for which she was nominated for a Fred Astaire Award, in Catch Me If You Can.
Off-Broadway roles Rachel has created include Lureena in Adrift in Macao (which garnered her a Barrymore Award for Best Actress in the original Philadelphia Theatre Company production) and Lily in Tommy Tune's Turn of the Century, opposite Jeff Daniels at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.
Being in a Broadway show is amazing and exciting and something to strive for, but it doesn't make you a different person. You're still you, you're just you in a Broadway show.
Daniel Hege '87
Music and History
After learning discipline, consistency and a work ethic growing up outside Denver and later on a farm in Aberdeen, Idaho – where he made his first profound discoveries about music – Daniel Hege brought a passion for music to Bethel, the place he learned to channel that passion.
Dan credits his parents with encouraging his many interests, ranging from music to sports to academics, and Bethel faculty for allowing him to keep exploring – which led to his conducting epiphany one day when he was asked to direct a choir rehearsal.
Dan's first orchestral post came after he won a prestigious competition, following graduate school: music director and principal conductor of the Young Musicians' Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles.
He went on to associate and resident conductor positions with the Kansas City Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony, respectively. In 1999, Dan became music director and principal conductor of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, he assumed the same positions with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.
Bethel had great musical training for me and also allowed me to be involved in many things, including earning a history major. It led me to a window where I was able to look out and see what was possible.
Rick McNary '95
A self-described late bloomer, Rick McNary started college at age 29, after working as a carpenter and then being called to pastor a Disciples of Christ congregation.
A hungry little girl in Nicaragua, whom Rick met on a mission trip, changed the course of his life. From that moment on, he knew he wanted to feed as many hungry people as he could and get as many people in the United States as possible to help.
So Rick founded Numana Inc. in November 2009 – which turned out to be almost exactly two months before Haiti suffered a massive earthquake Jan. 11, 2010. The Salvation Army dropped the first packaged high-protein meals, put together by Numana volunteers working in the El Dorado (Kan.) Civic Center, later that month.
Now, Numana staff travel across the country to organize thousands of volunteers who have packaged tens of millions of meals for starving people around the world.
Numana is not me but it's God working through me.
Toshihiro Fukudome
As a teenager, Toshihiro Fukudome dreamed of leaving rural Japan to study in the United States. He wanted to perfect his English and pursue a career as a professor or a politician.
His English teacher, a graduate of Freeman (S.D.) Junior College and Bethel, connected Hiro to both institutions. At Bethel, Hiro's admiration for his professor J. Lloyd Spaulding led him to earn a degree in economics and business as his early dreams of academia and politics gave way to international business.
Hiro's first job out of college was with Sanrio, associated with Hallmark Cards and perhaps best known for its Hello Kitty brand. After completing an MBA, Hiro held management positions with the Japanese subsidiaries of Polaroid, Tupperware and Mattel Toys and finally became president of ACCO Brands-Japan, an office products and supply company.
Hiro's immersion in Japanese and American culture and his extensive global experience have helped him relate effectively to people of diverse backgrounds.
I prefer challenges to the status quo.
Jeff Goering '95
Accounting and German
His own sport may have been basketball, but Jeff Goering has made a career out of financial management for the 2012 Super Bowl® champion Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League.
He is now the team's vice president and chief financial officer, overseeing all functions of the Ravens finance department, including financial reporting and budgeting processes, and serving as the chief financial liaison with the club's audit/tax advisors and various stadium partners.
He joined the club in 1999, starting out as controller before being promoted to senior director of finance and finally CFO.
After finishing his undergraduate studies in business administration and accounting, Jeff was an audit senior at Ernst & Young, Kansas City, Missouri, during which time he earned his CPA certificate. He then went to the University of Massachusetts for his master's degree in sport management, working as a consultant in the evaluation and preparation of Boston Red Sox salary arbitration cases and as a graduate assistant for the UMass Athletic Department business office.
Before joining the Ravens, Jeff was a senior consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dallas, for two years, working with a number of sports organizations to prepare financial feasibility studies, market assessments and economic impact analyses for proposed new or expanded facilities.
I could have been an accountant anywhere, but I wanted to take my passion for sports and figure out how to connect that to accounting.
Steve Unruh '95
Steve Unruh has found a way to infuse his life with music.
He majored in music performance with education certification as an undergraduate, then earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Kansas. He was a public school music director for three years and now has completed a decade with the Hasbro Toy Group.
As a senior electronic engineer, Steve has worked with many of Hasbro's best-known toys, including Star Wars®, GI Joe®, Transformer® and Playskool® items.
I've engineered electronics for a large number of products over the past 10 years. I think I've designed more than 100 products that made it into production.
Nor has he given up making music – literally, as he builds electric violins for fun. In addition, he's part of Resistor, a progressive rock band for which he plays flute, guitar and violin in addition to singing.
He has credits on 22 albums (eight of them solo; four with Resistor). One reviewer calls Steve sickeningly talented, adding, He is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist in all of these genres [jazz, folk, progressive rock] as well being a great songwriter, engineer and producer … the epitome of a solo musician.
Suzanne Wedel '76
[Note: Dr. Suzanne Wedel died March 31, 2016, at age 60 after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer.]
No surprise: after majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry, Suzanne Wedel went on to study medicine at the University of Kansas, complete a critical care fellowship at the University of Maryland and eventually take a full-time faculty position in surgical critical care at Boston Medical Center.
However, Suzanne also completed a second major, peace studies. I had diverse interests and at Bethel I was encouraged to keep my options open, she said. She was accepted into a graduate program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, in political science focused on international relations and peace research, but ultimately chose medicine.
Until the time of her death, Suzanne was CEO of Boston Med-Flight, a critical care transport service (helicopter, jet and ground) for patients in New England, supported largely by the six major teaching hospitals in the Boston area.
As it turns out, Suzanne said, I'm in a very political arena, very competitive in some parts of the country. One thing I learned at Bethel – you always invite everyone to the party. From all our game theory discussions, I learned how to get everybody [into a position] where they can all win.
At Bethel, everyone can succeed and be recognized in something. At a larger institution, you're not always able to do that. I developed the skills I needed to succeed.
Palwasha Kakar '99
Palwasha Kakar was born in Seattle to medical-student parents – father from Afghanistan, mother from south-central Kansas. She chose her maternal grandmother's alma mater and did her undergraduate work in global studies, and Bible and religion.
Since 2010, Palwasha has been on the staff of the Asia Foundation, where she is currently director of women's empowerment and development programs, based in Kabul.
Palwasha earned a master's degree from Harvard University in gender, religion and politics. She's now considered an expert in managing programs in an Afghan context – for which she calls on skills learned through the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (KIPCOR) at Bethel and in which she focuses particular energy on environment, education and social justice issues that affect women.
Her experience includes managing a small grants program under the auspices of the United Nations in Afghanistan's civil society initiatives and serving as program manager in charge of establishing the Gender Studies Institute at Kabul University.
Afghan society is very interesting, says Palwasha (who is fluent in Arabic, Dari and Pashtu). The war, almost three decades long, has caused many traditional societies to come apart – and resulted in opportunities to include and incorporate women's rights.
Po Shin Chang '58
His friendship with a Mennonite mission worker helped Po Shin Chang achieve the dream of many ambitious young people in Taiwan in the 1950s – a U.S. college education. After completing his business major, he went on to earn an M.A. in economics at the University of Tennessee, where he also did post-graduate work.
When family obligations called him back to Taiwan, Chang brought his experience working with ENESCO Corp. in Chicago, an importer/distributor of housewares, giftware and tableware from Japan, Hong Kong and Europe. ENESCO was in at the beginning of the Precious Moments® collectibles phenomenon while Chang still worked with the company.
At home, Chang started his own import/export firm. I returned to Taiwan at the right time [mid-'60s], when the economy was just taking off, he says.
He founded two more companies that operated in investment, construction and importing luxury cars and high-end European fashion apparel and leisure-wear for wholesale and distribution in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and all over China.
He also went into the family business – banking. His father retired as chairman of the board of Chang Hua Bank in 1972, the same year Chang became an executive member. He assumed the chair from 2000 until retirement in 2007, during which time he restructured and re-engineered an institution more than 100 years old into a bank for the 21st century.
Arlen Fast '74
Arlen Fast didn't touch a bassoon until he was in high school and didn't play a wooden one until his senior year.
At Bethel, Arlen explored what I was interested in. A few life detours later, he finally ended up in a college music program and with his first professional music job, second bassoon in the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.
Arlen went on to spend 17 seasons with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and San Diego Opera, where he first took up the contrabassoon – two times as long as a bassoon with twice the problems, Arlen says.
In 1995, Arlen won the job of his dreams: contrabassoonist for the New York Philharmonic.
But it didn't stop there. After figuring out that the contrabassoon's problems had to do with the register key system – essentially unchanged for a century – Arlen set out to solve them.
Arlen played his Fast System contrabassoon in its American debut in Brahms' German Requiem, performed in memory of the thousands who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There are now Fast System contrabassoons in orchestras and symphonies across the nation and the world.
Though Arlen has come far from a farm in Moundridge and a small Kansas college, he credits Bethel with being the place that first began to expand my view of the world.
Angela Troyer '88
Angela Troyer came to Bethel from Denver with an interest in health sciences.
Bethel gave me a good head start in the sciences. [As an undergraduate,] I was getting graduate-school experience, working closely with professors, doing research.
She went on to earn both masters and doctoral degrees in clinical neuropsychology. A practicum on memory testing with older adults changed the course of her intended Ph.D. research. I got really interested in memory and aging. There's a lot known, but a lot that we still have to learn, she says.
In 1994, a postdoctoral fellowship took her to Baycrest, a system in Toronto that combines care for aging patients with one of the world's top research institutes in cognitive neuroscience. That led to a job where in addition to her administrative duties, she has an active research program in assessment and intervention for memory changes associated with normal aging and early cognitive disorders.
One recent project was a new online memory test comprising a series of exercises and an almost instant final score. This brain thermometer could help with early detection of problems but also hopefully reassure people that not every memory lapse is worth fretting about. Even though we hear a lot about Alzheimer's disease, not everybody gets it, Angela says.
Cynthia Doyle Perkins '77
Cynthia (Alexander) Doyle Perkins has played the game – and she knows the game.
As a Bethel student, Cynthia was a member of four championship volleyball teams. In her senior year, the Threshers went 26-0 and Cynthia was named KCAC 1st Team.
Cynthia was also on the track team, completing her career holding part or all of 13 KCAC women's track and field records (some still stand). She was inducted into Bethel's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.
With her degree from Bethel and a master's in guidance and counseling from Lamar University, Cynthia became an administrator within the National Federation of State High School Associations. She helped high schools across the nation handle everything from Title IX enforcement to transgender athletes to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In addition to being the editor of multiple sport rule books, Cynthia was also responsible for advances that increased safety measures in a variety of high school sports. She currently serves as a school administrator in the Metropolitan School District of Pike Township in Indianapolis.
Diversity isn't about being comfortable with every aspect of everyone's culture. It's about establishing a standard, when there's a difference, that's acceptable to both cultures.
Christine Jantz '78
What can you do with a degree in mathematics? If you're Christine Jantz, you can co-found Jantz Management – an investment firm for which she built a quantitative model for stock selection that outperforms the S&P 500.
While completing her math degree at Bethel, Christine got hooked on probability theory. She went on to earn two graduate degrees – in statistics at the University of Iowa, plus an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management.
She met future company co-founder Sean Morgan at MIT and they began imagining the application of system dynamics, a methodology for studying and managing complex feedback systems, to investment.
Christine gained great job experience in an array of positions and companies, but realized that if she wanted to build investment models she was going to have to start her own company.
Once she did, she could finally concentrate on what really excited her: creating and testing models, combining system dynamics and other quantitative methods with fundamental financial principles and her own observations. Christine is currently president and portfolio manager at Jantz Management, Boston, responsible for the business strategy and investment process, as well as portfolio management, research and development.
It's much more fun to run your own business than to work for someone else.
Wildy Mulatre '94
Wildy Mulatre, a native of Haiti, took a course in accounting following high school. But he dreamed of more.
In 1990, he successfully applied to the Peace Scholarships program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which took him to Kansas to earn his college degrees.
I am grateful to Hesston College and Bethel College, Wildy says, because if I am what I am, it is firstly due to God and second to these two Mennonite colleges.
Wildy's goal was always to return and give back to his community. Since 1996, Wildy has worked as a public health administrator in Hinche, Haiti – planning, organizing and implementing community health projects such as vaccination campaigns and malaria eradication, and working with partners to oversee different hospitals, dispensaries and clinics in more remote areas.
He regularly hosts groups of Bethel students who come to Haiti to serve and learn, and he recently completed his studies for a law degree.
I can say my dreams came true, because I feel happy in my job.
Arthur W. Marks '93
Music and Social Work
Arthur W. Marks' off-Broadway credits are numerous – perhaps most notable, his role as the Ugly the Duckling in HONK! , winner of the 2000 Olivier Award for Best Musical. Arthur appears in the first American cast recording of HONK! , with Music Theatre of Wichita.
Even before graduating from Bethel, the native of Kansas City, Kansas, made his professional singing debut with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. He went on to solo with orchestras in Baltimore, Des Moines and Wichita, and to perform on stages and classical venues in Rome, London, Berlin, Leipzig, Paris and Vienna.
I find, more and more, as I direct and choreograph pieces, now as I get older, that I use a lot of my social work skills in handling different crises that may come up during the course of a production, Arthur says. A lot of those tools I learned are what I do in my performing and musical theater life as well. It's really quite extraordinary.
Little did I know that my experiences and the people surrounding me at Bethel would have such a profound effect on my career path and choices.
The many lessons I learned not only came from being in the arts, but also in the other disciplines offered on campus. Thank goodness for the liberal arts.
Stanley Senner '73
Environmental Studies and Biology
The theme of service that runs strong at the college left a deep mark on Stanley Senner. Dwight Platt, professor of biology, pointed me to environmental conservation as a career, and stewardship of God's creation as a lifelong form of Christian service.
That commitment led him to positions with The Wilderness Society, the U.S. House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and the Ocean Conservancy. He has worked a total of 15 years with the National Audubon Society, where he is now vice president for bird conservation-Pacific Flyway, working from Alaska to California and south to Chile.
As staff for The Wilderness Society, Stan worked to secure passage, in 1980, of the federal Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. In his 10 years as Audubon's Alaska state office executive director, Stan worked to balance oil and gas development and wildlife habitat protection in the Arctic.
He was chief restoration planner and then science coordinator for the state-federal Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council in Alaska, and he led Ocean Conservancy's restoration science team following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Dwight and other faculty members embodied the ideal of living simply and in ways that are consistent with our values and faith, Stan says.
Both these themes – service and simple living – have been guideposts throughout my career and life.
Matt Watkins '99
As treasurer of the Kansas Democratic Party, Matt Watkins says, my name has been on more than half a million pieces of mail in the past four years. This is what he calls my real passion – working for change by helping candidates and communities through politics.
Matt started working on the local level by serving as a member of the Wyandotte County Democratic Party, holding almost every position in the organization, from precinct committeeman to chair.
He came to Bethel from Lawrence on a basketball scholarship and is no stranger to leadership roles. While here, he served four years in the Student Senate, including as student body president his senior year. In addition, I was fortunate to work closely with President Doug Penner on institutional advancement projects.
Following graduation, Matt moved to Kansas City for a job as a money manager and a stockbroker selling bonds. And then 9/11 happened. The bond market went to zero, he says. I transitioned into real estate after that.
Matt credits his liberal arts education for helping to ease the transition. He's now focused on commercial real estate as a specialist in the Kansas City, Kansas/Wyandotte County market for Reece Commercial Real Estate.
It's quick-paced, and different every day, with flexibility to stay involved in politics, Matt says.
My education and skills learned at Bethel continue to help my career. A passion for community was instilled by the thoughts and actions of great teachers like Jim Juhnke, Keith Sprunger and Doug Penner.
Cara Kliewer '97
Cara Kliewer graduated from Bethel in 1997 and jumped right into a marketing role for a Kansas City-area business. However, she quickly realized her path was leading her away from the traditional route.
A move to the Kansas Health Foundation two years later allowed her to use traditional marketing techniques for social good, which continued in her nearly a decade with Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters.
During Cara's tenure, KBBBS grew to serve more than 6,500 children each year and earned recognition as the #1 Big Brothers Big Sisters in the country.
Cara, who now lives in Wichita, started her own business, CK Communications, in 2012 specifically to serve nonprofits and small businesses.
Many [of these] can't afford a full-time marketing staff, she says. I have found this to be a great solution for organizations that need an experienced marketing professional in a cost-effective form.
As a business administration major (communications emphasis), Cara knew early on that she wanted to pursue a career in marketing. But Bethel's focus on community service also proved to be formative.
I thoroughly enjoyed volunteering for various organizations on campus, in my church and in the larger community, and it was great preparation for what I would do later in life.
No wonder the Wichita Business Journal recognized Cara in two consecutive years – in 2013 as one of 40 Under 40 and in 2014 with a Woman in Business Award honoring the area's top 20 businesswomen.
Diana Schunn '87
Diana Schunn was the first nurse in Kansas to specialize in taking evidence of sexual assault and is still considered by many to be the best.
Her involvement with sisters who were longtime victims of sexual abuse by family members resulted in her being part of a segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show during which Oprah interviewed the girls.
They decided I needed to be in Chicago, to be available for the girls and to consult with the producers about how to prepare the audience for hearing this difficult story. Because you can be sure there will be other victims of sexual assault in that audience, Diana says.
Diana came to Bethel from Henderson, Nebraska, to be a nurse and play volleyball.
Her experience with compromise, teamwork and time management has stood her in good stead.
My grades were actually better when I was playing volleyball. I had to be very disciplined during the season to get everything done.
She began her nursing career on an orthopedics/surgical floor, then moved to the emergency room, where she began to encounter victims of sexual abuse, and where her vocational trajectory changed. She eventually trained in sexual assault examination, death investigation and forensic nursing.
She moved into administration and has been executive director of the Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County since 2008.
Aimee Voth Siebert '10
Psychology and Communication Arts
Aimee arrived at Bethel sure she wanted to study psychology. An "Aha!" moment in Christine Crouse-Dick's Media Analysis Class turned her onto her second major.
"I thought: 'This is it,'" she recalls. "Communication is both the bridge that connects and the fog that obscures how we share our internal experiences."
As staff for The Bethel Collegian, Aimee traveled to Greensburg after one of the most powerful tornados ever recorded destroyed the small western-Kansas town in spring 2007. That experience made her "really interested in community resilience and post-traumatic growth," she says. "Only 10 percent of the town was left, but they chose to stay, rebuild and rebuild greener."
All this, combined with Aimee's interest in working internationally (cultivated through a high-school immersion course in France and travel courses at Bethel), caused her to look for the kind of graduate program she eventually found at the University of Denver. She earned a master's degree in international disaster psychology, and is a disaster behavioral health specialist in Colorado's Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
"I started the job right after the wildfires of summer 2012 took off," Aimee says, "literally a trial by fire. And there was the Aurora theater shooting that July." In September 2013 came flooding in 20 Colorado counties following rainfall of historic proportions, and in 2015, Aimee deployed to Sierra Leone with the Centers for Disease Control, responding to the Ebola outbreak. "I've gotten a serious introduction to all kinds of disasters."
Tim Allen '86
Tim came to Bethel to play football for his former high school coach and to get an education he hoped would help him fulfill a dream of coaching himself.
When Tim's collegiate playing career ended, he became a Bethel admissions counselor and joined Kent Rogers' football coaching staff – meaning he was part of the Threshers' legendary 1984 season, when they went undefeated and won the conference championship.
He's convinced having that on his resume helped him "move up," to the University of Kansas Jayhawks football program, following graduation from Bethel. Eleven seasons later, the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hired Tim as assistant athletic director for football operations.
Since 2008, Tim has been assistant athletic director for football operations at Michigan State University. In the last six years, the Spartans have won three Big Ten titles (including a Rose Bowl championship in 2014), played in back-to-back Cotton Bowls and reached the College Football Playoff Final 4 (2015). In all, Tim has been part of 18 post-season appearances, starting with Bethel's NAIA playoff in 1984.
Bethel prepared him for where he wanted to go, Tim says. "I owe every opportunity I have received in this business to Kent Rogers and Bethel College," he says.
"One thing I learned at Bethel is the ability to persevere, to hang in there and not quit – and to set your goals as high as you possibly can."
Aziza Hasan '03
History and Social Science
Aziza spent the first years of her life in Jordan, one of four children of a Christian mother from the Midwest and a Palestinian Muslim father. The family later moved to Halstead, Kansas – where Aziza's senior English teacher noticed something she hadn't: her interest in conflict resolution. "You should consider Bethel College – they have a conflict resolution program," the teacher said.
At Bethel, Aziza studied and worked with professors who became mentors she considers important to this day. At the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (KIPCOR), she not only earned a certificate in conflict resolution but organized the Peace Lecture series, coordinated the Peace Oration contest and was the driving force behind the Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility that KIPCOR offers graduating seniors each year.
Aziza continued to hone her skills in conflict resolution, organizing, leadership development and interfaith dialogue (with which she was intimately familiar from growing up in a multicultural, interfaith family) – leading her to where she is today, executive director of NewGround: Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change.
"I'm constantly asked 'What's the point of interfaith dialogue?'" she says. "It's not about rhetoric, but action."
"My parents were constantly putting their faith into action, and when I was at Bethel, I saw the same thing. It wasn't just talk, it was also service. At NewGround, part of engaging with the community is serving the community."
Aziza's service will now have a wider impact – in 2016, Barack Obama appointed her to the President's 3rd Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Brian Stucky '02
Brian had made a hobby out of computers by the time he came to Bethel, and he didn't have another clear direction, so he decided to make computer science his academic discipline. "I liked the classes, and I kept taking them," he says.
Another of his many interests was insects – he'd maintained a collection through high school. Working full-time at Bethel for Information and Media Services and as an assistant forensics coach, he started thinking about graduate school – and those insects. He began to collect again, especially cicadas.
Understanding that natural history and biology were clearly a passion, Brian decided to go for it – a doctoral program in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "I finally felt like this was something that if I didn't do it, I'd always regret it," he says.
Since then, Brian has done research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, discovered a new species of cicada in New Mexico, and garnered a post-doctoral position at a major U.S. research facility, the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.
The encouragement of Bethel professors, who told him he'd do well in a graduate school environment, and the rigor of his computer science courses prepared him well, he says.
Most of all, at Bethel he was able to cultivate his curiosity.
"People sometimes think we've pretty much found everything there is in biodiversity, and are shocked to find out how little we actually know, especially when it comes to insects," Brian says. "I'm just trying to fill in some of the millions of blanks."
Miriam Krehbiel '83
Miriam counts herself lucky to be part of the extended family of Adolph Goering, for whom Bethel's Goering Hall was named. Her uncle never married, but he helped make it financially possible for his nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews to attend Bethel.
"I always wanted to be a nurse," she says. "My mother once showed me a paper I wrote in 2nd grade where I declared that's what I would be when I grew up."
When she began to practice nursing, however, she discovered she was not as excited about the hours as about other aspects of the work. She moved from managing a clinic at Baylor University in Dallas to VP of operations for a temp agency in Los Angeles, and then president and CEO of Century City Chamber of Commerce. She headed Kern County United Way, Bakersfield, for almost a decade before taking her current position as president and CEO of United Way of Greater Topeka (Kansas).
"At Bethel, I learned more than I ever imagined possible, and expanded my mind in ways I hadn't expected," Miriam says. "I formed amazing relationships with people not like me. I sang in the Gospel Choir and got to go places I never would have otherwise."
"Bethel pushed me outside my comfort zone, and I realized I was OK there," she adds. "That has made it possible for me to do what I do, and I'm forever grateful."
Jonathan Rich '76
Jonathan Rich traveled around the world and ended up in Silicon Valley.
Until he was 12, Jonathan and his siblings were Bethel campus kids. Then the family moved to Japan. When it was time for college, Bethel seemed like home. He already knew many of the professors, and friends from elementary school were among his classmates.
Two years after graduating from Bethel, Jonathan and a fellow physics major started an around-the-world trip. Jonathan ended up in Thailand, got a job working for the International Rescue Committee – and stayed for almost 11 years.
When he came back home for graduate school, his performance on a nationwide math exam called the Putnam, taken at Bethel under the careful tutelage of Professor Emeritus of Math Arnold Wedel, made Jonathan's application to Northwestern University stand out. He earned a Ph.D. there.
In 2000, his best friend invited him to jump into the tech start-up world in northern California, just as the dotcom boom was beginning.
"When I was at Bethel," Jonathan recalls, "there was a teletype machine in the basement of the Ad Building, connected to a central computer in McPherson. We could play computer games on it. I became fascinated with UNIX and LINUX [operating systems] – and that knowledge got me the job I have now."
Which is, after passing through several start-ups, working for a former one called Vudu, an internet movie-streaming service, recently acquired by Walmart. Jonathan is a software engineer, working in quality assurance (QA).
"I love my job. I consider myself a key player at Vudu and do a multitude of varied tasks that are always changing and never boring."
Kate Becker '04
T01M52S https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g-uTr-vjjJk/hqdefault.jpg https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/g-uTr-vjjJk2018-06-211
As long as Kate Becker can remember, she has been going to the Kansas Cosmosphere – visiting with her parents, attending Space Camp. As long as she can remember, she has been paying attention to volatile Kansas weather along with her professional pilot dad, Bob. And yes, at one point she dreamed of being an astronaut.
At Bethel – the only place she ever considered going, she says – she played basketball, volleyball and soccer, sang in the Concert Choir as a senior and, as club president, instituted "sharing our mathematical joys and concerns" into the Math Club agenda.
Her life took a turn when she decided to pursue a seminary degree, completing an M.A. in theology and ethics. She eventually earned a second masters, in international science and technology policy, at George Washington University. "Policy," she says, "is really about bringing science and ethics together."
She's now a program and policy adviser for the Satellite and Information Service, which provides environmental data from space, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C.
"A policy person's job is really that of a translator," she says. "There are scientists, lawyers, engineers, marketing people, government ofcials to the Cabinet level, all speaking different 'languages.' I sit right in the middle at NOAA, between the government and the private sector, helping all these people understand each other and work together to accomplish big projects."
"That's what I learned from my Bethel liberal arts education – to see multiple perspectives and to think critically. You can't solve any problem without understanding another person's language."
Jesse Graber '00
Art and Education
According to Jesse Graber, all kids do what adults call "art" – singing, dancing, drawing, making music. "Some of us," he says, "just don't stop."
Jesse has been drawing something since he could hold a pencil. Yet one reason he came to Bethel was because he knew he could not only study art, but also explore other things that interested him.
And, most important, "[I learned] how to learn," he says.
Following graduation, Jesse did voluntary service in Indiana, then went to the American Academy of Art in Chicago. "In a lot of ways, it was back to square one to learn how to do art all over again. I couldn't have done it without that Bethel [liberal arts] education."
Discovering illustration was a milestone. "Art is a big concept. An illustrator puts a box around it, uses the 'constraints' to make it accessible."
Such as, most recently, general physics, in a book authored by retired Bethel professor Don Lemons. "He wanted 'simple' drawings to communicate vast ideas, to make it seem like anyone could draw, for example, 'the state of the universe.'"
Or drawing the entire Kansas City Royals line-up as animal characters. The team office loved and bought, though ultimately didn't use, Jesse's images. Nevertheless, he says, "That was the most fun I've ever had."
One of Bethel's best gifts was "all the learning in things I wouldn't have pursued on my own" – not only music (violin and more) but also math and science.
Amy Ortman '96
Although Amy Ortman wouldn't say she has "always wanted" to be a doctor, there is that family photo of her giving her dad a "shot" with the Fisher-Price® doctor kit she got for her 4th birthday.
After working her way through Bethel, medical school and a residency in obstetrics and gynecology, she finally settled on anesthesiology. "It's a great t for me. I get to meet lots of people and take care of them during a really important moment in their lives. It is usually pretty routine and straightforward, but it is a specialty where things can happen incredibly fast and I love the challenge of remaining calm and focused while I deal with the problem."
She chose Boston hospitals for a residency in anesthesiology and a fellowship in cardiothoracic anesthesiology. "I had always wanted to live on the East Coast," she says. "And I wanted to know if I could be competitive at what are arguably some of the most prestigious medical centers in the world." In fact, she could, serving as chief resident at Massachusetts General, the Harvard medical school hospital.
Amy currently serves as attending anesthesiologist and assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Amy can pick out some special classes and professors at Bethel – but, she says, "all the professors stand out in that I felt like they cared about me as a person, not just as a student. In talking with friends who attended major universities and colleges, I think that is the biggest difference in our respective experiences."
"You can get a great education anywhere if you are willing to work hard, but few people will be lucky enough to feel like a valued member of a community during their time in college."
Reginal Williams '89
When Reginal Williams was still in high school in Florida, an older man at his gym became his workout partner and mentor. That man "encouraged me to go to college to expand [myself] and open myself to different things."
When Bethel football coach Kent Rogers came through on a recruiting trip, Reginal hesitated about going so far from home, among these "Mennonites" of whom he knew nothing.
His mother told him: "You go there, you stay there and you come back here with your education. We'll support you." He was the only one of four high school teammates to graduate from Bethel.
With some interest already in pursuing a law-enforcement career, Reginal majored in social work at Bethel and then returned to Fort Lauderdale, where he graduated from the police academy at Broward College.
In 26 years on the Sunrise (Florida) police force, Reginal says that as an officer, he was "a general practitioner. [In almost every role], I was working with people who were in crisis in some way."
"Police work is social work – with enforcement added. If we're doing our job correctly, we're connecting people with the resources they need."
Just retired from policing, Reginal now focuses on making and writing music (he has a YouTube channel, Reggie W Unite) – and on mentoring young men just as he once was mentored.
"Bethel provided an excellent formal educational setting. But in addition, it provided me a safe place to engage with others and be exposed to and involved with different things than I'd known before."
Will Academic Center #215
800-522-1887 305


Standing on the hotel balcony looking across gently sloping lawns to the lake, the only sound the gentle splash of a fountain, it was difficult to imagine we were just a short distance from Sheffield city centre. Kenwood Hall in Nether Edge feels a million miles away from the crowds and traffic.
This tranquil oasis was once home to esteemed cutlery maker George Wostenholm, who bought land in Nether Edge in the mid-19th century and had it laid out to look like parts of New York state. He made frequent business trips to America and turned down the role of Master Cutler three times because of these commitments, before finally accepting in 1856.
Kenwood Hall is now a Best Western hotel with a spa, a modern building accompanying the original family home. A spacious lobby with sweeping staircase and jewel coloured chairs greets guests. We were on a one-night spa break and our double room had a super king size bed, a good selection of drinks and biscuits, and a well-stocked bathroom. There was a nod to the hall's history with a picture of cutlery designs on the wall. The balcony was an added bonus, although the table was rusty and one of the wicker chairs had a hole in the seat.
Robes and slippers for the spa were in the wardrobe so we headed off to be pampered. We had the hydromemory facial, which is a deep hydrating treatment to replace moisture. It was just what my skin needed in this scorching summer and the experience was so relaxing I fell asleep at one point. When I've had facials previously, my skin has been examined first and I've been given advice on how to care for it, which didn't happen here although we were asked what our skin types were. I read in the brochure afterwards that there is a relaxation room to use straight after treatment but we weren't told about this so went back to our room.
We had a table right by the window for our three-course evening meal in the appropriately-named Lake View restaurant. The menu had plenty of variety but after selecting the steak from the specials the waitress returned to say there were none left, which was surprising because it was only 8pm. The food was good though and portion sizes were large. I can recommend the plum, pear and ginger crumble with cinnamon ice cream, which was delicious.
The spa beckoned the next morning, after a self-service breakfast which had a good selection of options, from full English to croissants. The spa receptionist was welcoming but there was no tour of the facilities – as mentioned in the brochure – and we were just directed to the changing rooms and swimming pool. When we saw towels hadn't been provided we had to return to reception to ask for some. There was no toilet paper in one of the cubicles and no paper cups in the water cooler next to the swimming pool, which was disappointing because it meant another return to reception for this to be remedied.
Next to the pool is a Jacuzzi, with a steam room and sauna to one side. There is also a fitness suite but we didn't use that. The steam room was good, with soft coloured lighting to add to the mood, which we followed with a blast in the Jacuzzi and then the pool, which is in a glass house giving views of the gardens. The sauna was tiny and we had to squeeze in past another guest who was sitting on the floor.
After another dip in the pool we took advantage of the glorious sunshine and grabbed a couple of plastic sun loungers to indulge in some sunbathing to dry off. The loungers were stacked up outside and as we were lugging them into position it occurred to me that it would have been nice if these had already been set out ready for guests to use, as they are in hotels abroad.
Kenwood Hall has some activities available during the summer and there were people having a go at archery when we decided to take a stroll round the lake. Unfortunately the footpath was broken up and uneven in places, some of the hedges were overgrown, and there were fence posts lying on the ground, which was a shame considering what a great asset these gardens are.
As we left the hotel there was an empty beer bottle on a wall by the door and litter on the red-carpeted steps. Kenwood Hall is a beautiful location and staff were polite but, like one of Mr Wostenholm's pieces of cutlery, it feels like it needs a polish to truly shine.
Room rates from: £65 per room/night. 1-Night Spa Break: from £89.00 DBBpp with 25 min spa treatment, use of the leisure facilities & pool. Price based on 2 people sharing a double/twin room.


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moviejoltz
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Flash Movie Review: The Promise
Posted by moviejoltz
LOOKING at him there was nothing that distinguished him differently from anyone else. The only thing one could say about him was his height; he was one of the tallest boys in the neighborhood. He was a friend of mine who lived across the street from me. What did make him stand out from everyone else in the neighborhood was his name. No one had a name even remotely close to his or anyone else in his family. Their last name as well as some of his siblings' first names had so many syllables. As far as I knew no one really cared that they had unusual names compared to the rest of us in school. I remember at some point being told by him that his family was Armenian. It sounded so exotic and far away compared to the rest of the families on the block. This bit of information was treated more like a footnote; all it meant to our circle of friends was his family had traveled halfway across the world from a place none of us had ever heard about before. THROUGHOUT my schooling; I am talking elementary, high school and college; I cannot recall ever hearing or having a discussion about the historical events that were depicted in this dramatic movie. I do remember the events that led up to World War I started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. With World War II a prominent part of its history was the systematic extermination of people based on their faith, heritage, sexual orientation, among other distinctions. Regarding the First World War, I cannot recall part of its story involving a particular group of people targeted for elimination. Sitting through this film a part of me was shocked by the action taking place in several scenes. Not because it was especially graphic, gratefully it was not, but due to the historical significance that somehow was missing from my education. The story in this picture was something larger than what I had imagined. MEDICAL student Mikael Boghosian, played by Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), always wanted to be a doctor. The Ottoman Empire had other plans for the Armenian man. This film festival winning movie also starred Charlotte Le Bon (The Walk, The Hundred-Foot Journey) as Ana Khesarian, Christian Bale (The Fighter, The Big Short) as Chris Myers, Shohreh Aghdashloo (Rosewater, The Story of Soraya M.) as Marta Boghosian and Marwan Kenzari (Ben-Hur, Loft) as Emre Ogan. Oscar who I think is a gifted actor did not disappoint in this movie; however, Christian Bale was miscast. His role not only did not offer him much to work with, but was more involved with the 2nd story line that I found did not belong in this film. The culprit for this film not reaching full potential was the script. I get the idea studios believe a story needs a love interest, but the whole love triangle scenario in this story was a distraction. There were so many opportunities to mine dramatic intensity that instead was passed over to focus back on the relationship between the three main stars. It was sad because based on what I saw this picture really could have been memorable. After the film was over I had to stay seated and think about how extraordinary it was for my friend and his family to have been living across the street from me.
Posted in Drama
Tags: 2 1/3 stars, armenia, based on true events, charlotte le bon, christian bale, drama, film festival winner, history, marwan kenzari, oscar isaac, shohreh aghdashloo, turkey
Flash Movie Review: Rosewater
Humor is the soothing balm that cures the mind's ailments. A good laugh can expel the dark clouds that build up to weigh down one's thoughts. My sense of humor leans more toward the satirical instead of cracking a joke at someone's expense. Since humor is a personal thing it may be hard to know when someone is making a joke when they are not familiar to you. There has been so many times where I have met someone new who said something they thought was funny but I did not get it. I may not understand their joke because when a person tells me something I assume they are telling me the truth until proven otherwise. Now I am guilty of doing the same thing regarding telling jokes to strangers; however, with a straight face I try to say things so outrageous they would be hard to believe. Of course there could be the issue of gullibility; some individuals go through life with a non-skeptical mind. My brain on the other hand has skepticism as its first filter for processing. Once two people understand each other's sense of humor, the possibilities of eliciting laughter are endless. UNFAMILIARITY with a television show's humor would lead to dire consequences in this biographical drama. Based on journalist Maziar Bahari's book, "Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love;" this movie covered the time Maziar Bahari, played by Gael Garcia Bernal (Bad Education, Letters to Juliet), was held captive in an Iranian prison while he was there covering the country's elections. Unable to make contact with his mother Molloon, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Lake House, The Stoning of Soraya M.), he was only aware of his Iranian captor Javadi's rosewater scent, played by Kim Bodnia (Bleeder, Pusher). Maziar could not believe his captors thought he was a spy due to what they saw on a television show. Using this story for his screen writing and directorial debut Jon Stewart (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) had a good grasp on what was needed to make an engaging film. With well done cinematography, the pacing was consistent even when a scene would jump to a different time period. The cast's acting was exceptionally good which I felt made Jon's job easier. For me the story was one of those stranger than truth type of stories where I sat there thinking how could this have really happened. My main issue with this film was how everything stayed on the same emotional level. It lacked intensity for me; however, I may be projecting here. Considering the scenarios, I thought this movie would have been an intense ordeal; maybe the book went into more detail. No matter, with this being Jon's first time as a director he has no worries of anyone laughing at his creation.
Tags: 3 stars, biographical, drama, gael garcia bernal, iran, jon stewart, maziar bahari, shohreh aghdashloo, true story
Flash Movie Review: The Stoning of Soraya M.
After I was done watching this movie I sat and wondered if this story would have ever gotten out if the French journalist's car had not broken down. The movie, based on a true story, stunned and horrified me. The idea that everything was in place for this tragic event to become public, only reaffirmed my belief that there were no accidents, there was a reason for everything. The year was 1986 in a small town in Iran. Journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, played by Jim Caviezel (Deja Vu, The Thin Red Line) met Zahra, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo (X-Men: The Last Stand, The Lake House), while waiting for his car to be fixed. She wanted to tell him the story about her niece Soraya, played by Mozhan Marno (Traitor, Charlie Wilson's War). However, the town had eyes on this outsider. Despite being told by some townsmen that Zahra was crazy, Fredidoune managed to meet and listen to Zahra's story. Told in flashback, the story was about Soraya and her husband Ali, played by Navid Negahban (Brothers, Charlie Wilson's War). When Soraya refused Navid's wish for a divorce so he could marry a 14 year old girl, Navid came up with a plan that would use Sharia law to solve his problem. Though I prefer to give as little information as possible in reviewing a movie, there is no getting around the fact that Soraya was to be stoned. Watching the scene was brutal for me. And just as horrific was the idea that this could still be happening to women in this day and age. I understood it was more dramatic to have a narrator tell the story in flashback; however, I had this constant feeling of dread, knowing the outcome. With all the men of the town being portrayed as evil, the story seemed a little heavy handed to me. Irregardless, I do hope you get the opportunity to see this film and hear Soraya's story. Persian with English subtitles.
3 1/3 stars — DVD
Posted in Foreign
Tags: 3 1/3 stars, drama, iran, jim caviezel, mozhan marno, navid negahban, sharia law, shohreh aghdashloo
Flash Movie Review: Anna
Flash Movie Review: Midsommar
Flash Movie Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home
Flash Movie Review: Child's Play
Flash Movie Review: Yesterday

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: If $p$ is prime, then for any integer $m$, $0 < m < p$, there is a unique $n$, $0 < n < p$, such that $mn$ is congruent to $1\pmod p$ So far I know that $1 \bmod p$ will always be $1$ as the lowest $p$ can be is $2$, meaning that $mn \bmod p$ will have to $= 1$. This means either $mn < p$ or $mn = p + 1$.
I've also figured out that to prove the above statement I would need to show the following

*

*$n$ exists (obviously)

*$n$ is unique

*$0 < n < p$
This is were I get stuck. I can see that this is the case (and show that there is an n such that this is the case,) however, I am having trouble proving that n is unique.

A: Suppose you have 0 < n < p and 0 < n' < p such that mn = mn' mod p = 1 mod p.
Then you would get that m(n-n') = 0 mod p.
But multiply this by n and you get n-n' = 0 mod p.
So n - n' is a multiple of p, but -p < n-n' < p so n-n' can only be 0.
Thus, we have n = n'

A: Hint:
Since $p$ is prime and $0<m<p$, $m$ and $p$ are coprime, hence there exists a Bézout's relation $um+vp=1\quad(u,v\in\mathbf Z)$.
Furthermore, all integer solutions of the equation $xm+yp=1$ satisfy the relations
$$\begin{cases}
x=u+kp\\
y=v-km
\end{cases}\quad(k\in\mathbf Z). $$
There remains to show you can find an $x$ s.t. $0<x<p$.

A: Hint: Consider the map $x \mapsto mx$ in the classes mod $p$. Prove that it is injective. Conclude that it is bijective.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Monday was Art Reactor! If you missed it, no worries. It's now every Monday from 7:00pm to 10:00pm! Tonight, a General Meeting ay 7:30pm. Wednesday is the first Arduino class! Sunday night at 7:00pm is the Arduino workshop. You can come to the workshop even if you're not in the class. Things are picking up!
Starts at 7:30pm tomorrow. Sign up for classes! Meet your fellow members! Perhaps see the space for the first time as a guest! Please be respectful of parking. Please park in the lot behind the building, enter through the black gate on Cherokee! See you there!
The Arduino Class starts February 24th! Enroll now! Space is limited!
Put it in 4WD and come check out to the Hackerspace at 7:30pm tomorrow night!


In a single transition, is it possible to increment the revision and then create a PDF of the drawing displaying the new revision? I have a workflow that increments the revision, and I added a task to create the PDF, but the resulting document showed the old version of the PDF. Did I do something wrong?
Are you updating the data card?
Is the data card linked to the document?
If you open the document after the pdf is created, do you see the new revision value?
Yes, the transition increments the pdm revision of the drawing file and model, for example from A.03 to A.04. The drawing file is linked to the pdm revision.
Did you ensure that you set the Revision to the "Next Rev" in the transisiton? If you miss that step then when the Drawing is opened by the task the revision will still be old value - not updated. When you open the Drawing yourself SolidWorks updates the Properties from the variables.
To create pdf is easy when you enter the right code.Besides,if you have a pdf process tool,that's ok.i usually create pdf by this one,you can have a look.
If you are just setting the revision on the transition (set variable) but not incrementing the revision (Inc. Rev), then you need to look at solution S-061104.
The solution will use the value of the variable instead of the value of the counter.


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Face | Anti-Aging
3 Extinct Beauty Treatments
By NewBeauty Editors | April 28, 2014
Beauty trends come and go and the same holds true in the world of cosmetic surgery. As New York dermatologist Dennis Gross, MD, explains, people get caught up in the hype of a new trend before knowing if the treatment provides results. The following aesthetic treatment are on longer in favor. If a doctor tries to sell you one of these, be wary—it may not be the real thing!
1. Collagen - "Collagen was the 'it' filler back in the day," syas Dr. Gross.
DEBUT DATE: The 1990s
WHY IT FELL TO THE WAYSIDE: Collagen injections for the lips were big back in the 1990s and early 2000s. But, the effects lasted no longer than three months at most, allergy testing was required and the results weren't reversible (hyaluronic acid used today is). In fact, the two largest manufacturers of collagen, Zyderm and Zyplast, don't even make it anymore.
WHAT REPLACED IT: Today, doctors inject the lips with hyaluronic acid fillers like Restylane, which lasts longer, gives better-looking results and doesn't require allergy testing. If a doctor tells you he or she is using collagen, chances are it's not actually collagen and may not even be an FDA-approved or safe-to-use filler.
2. Thread Lifts - "Lots of doctors jumped on the thread lift bandwagon—even nonboard-certified plastic surgeons were doing it. But, the results couldn'tbe maintained," says Dr. Gross.
DEBUT DATE: Early 2000
WHY IT FELL TO THE WAYSIDE: A quick facelift-like procedure that didn't require large incisions or a long recovery time, the thread lift used permanent strings made of a suture material under the skin. "Anytime you use a permanent suture as a suspension technique it can cause problems," says Chicago plastic surgeon Julius Few, MD. Patients were left with hard-to-treat lumps, knots, broken threads, asymmetries, a pulled-too-tight look and skin that didn't stay lifted.
WHAT REPLACED IT: More standard facelift procedures (some which use shorter incision points) have replaced the thread lift, completely abolishing the use of barbed sutures for this type of facelift. Today, many plastic surgeons also address volume loss at the time of a facelift to produce a more natural appearance, which typically was not done with a thread lift.
3. Lipodissolve - "At the time, there was a big momentum with mesotherapy," says Dr. Gross. "It was highly promoted in the U.S. as 'the' way to get rid of fat."
DEBUT DATE: 2000
WHY IT FELL TO THE WAYSIDE: Popularized in France, mesotherapy has basically become extinct stateside. "Although some benefits may have been seen from mesotherapy, appropriate clinical research and protocols were not performed to develop a safe, reliable and consistent technique for fat reduction," says Newport Beach, CA, plastic surgeon Dr. Sanjay Grover, MD. Practiced in doctors' offices and medi-spas and by nonboardcertified practitioners, the post-treatment results that started to arise were both painful and disfiguring.
WHAT REPLACED IT: There has yet to be anything that works like mesotherapy, but patients have options when fighting fat and cellulite. Procedures like CoolSculpting, which freezes fat, radio frequency-based Vanquish and cellulitereducing Cellulaze and VelaShape III have all become popular and offer moderate results in the appropriate patient.
Body •
Dr. Sanjay Grover
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Brown Varnished Wooden Dining Table Korean Interior Design Bedroom Black Leather Comfy Arm Chairs White Laminated Modern Chair Brown Furry Rug Brown Laminated Wooden Table is one of gallery from Contemporay and Natural Nuance from Korean Interior Design and also lebeled with Interior. Posted by Padgett. Or Hit here to back to Main Post.


Shapes and colours are some of life's most fun lessons, so why not get them started with this wonderful shape sorter from Wooden Story? Watch them learn which block fits where as they get their little brain working through the challenge.
If they're still into tasting everything they touch, that's fine too because every one of Wooden Story's toys is 100% natural, made from perfectly smooth FSC-certified wood, earth-friendly dyes and botanical oils. Might not taste as great as your home cooking though.


These are totally going to be the cookies we make for Santa this year!
I posted a recipe for snickerdoodles not too long ago. Here is the same recipe with a festive/holiday twist, now known as Holiday-Doodles! These are the cookies we sent around to some neighbors and friends. These would be great for leaving out for Santa. I love these cookies. I bake them on the shorter end of the time (recipe calls for 7-10 minutes). I like to pull them out when they barely look done and they are soft and chewy. I love eating them warm with a glass of ice cold milk!
In a mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
In another mixing bowl beat butter for 30 seconds; add 2 cups sugar and beat until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add eggs, milk and vanilla; beat well. Add dry ingredient mixture to butter/sugar mixture and mix until well combined.
In two separate bowls mix 3 tablespoons of green colored sugar or green sugar sprinkles and 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and the same thing with red. Form dough into 1 inch balls and roll in the two different colored cinnamon-sugar mixes. Place balls of dough on a silicone-lined or greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart; flatten cookie dough ball with the bottom of a drinking glass. Bake for about 7-10 minutes (see note about bake time). Let cookies cool on baking sheet 1-2 minutes before removing to cooling rack to cool completely.
Note: Depending on how long you bake these, they will turn out slightly different in taste and texture. If you bake them on the shorter end of the bake time, they will be softer and chewier. If you bake them a bit longer, you'll get a crisp and slightly crunchy cookie. Remember that when you pull them out and let them set for one to two minutes they will still cook a bit more.
Recipe Source: adapted from Diana K.


Exhibiting for the 10th consecutive year, the divisions showcased their trading, manufacturing and marketing expertise with a well-integrated range of mass-market food products, ingredients, related derivatives, intermediates and services. Visitors at the stand were also treated to food sampling, live cooking and warm hospitality.
The outlet is the first of 45 branches expected to be launched over the next five years in the GCC by Al Ghurair Retail, for an area development agreement signed with the international smoothie brand.
With a product offering that is fully customisable and includes a wide variety of nutritional smoothies, Smoothie King's value proposition has been unmatched for nearly half a century. With the focus shifting to international market growth, expansion in the Middle East is an important step forward in Al Ghurair Retail's ambitious growth plans of opening more than 1,000 new franchises worldwide by the end of 2017.
Al Ghurair Centre took centre-stage during the 44th National Day celebrations with a colourful tribute to Emirati art, heritage and culture. The celebrations struck a particularly poignant note, also serving to highlight "Martyrs Day" in honour of the nation's fallen heroes.
In support of the local and expat talent in the UAE, over 50 renowned Emirati and expatriate artists featured a "time capsule" view of the UAE, from ageless desert landscapes to modern representations of Burj Al Arab and other iconic symbols – marking the unrivalled urban development of the UAE since its formation on December 2nd, 1971.
In an effort to raise awareness among the community about the perils of waste, Al Ghurair Centre hosted a consumer campaign on October 22nd and 23rd, 2015.The campaign directly targeted the community through an "edutainment" programme of events aimed to raise public awareness of waste-related issues. A recycling game taught participants how to separate recyclable from non-recyclable waste with the aid of a series of stress balls thrown into green and black bins among other activities.
The move to organise this campaign was necessitated by a report released at the Eco-Waste conference hosted by Masdar, the Abu Dhabi sustainable energy company, which revealed that waste generated by the UAE will increase from 6.6 million tonnes to 8.4 million tonnes by 2017.
Coinciding with the UAE Cancer Congress that took place from October 29th to 31st, 2015, Al Ghurair Centre organised a health awareness campaign in conjunction with the UAE Ministry of Health. The event took place at Al Ghurair Centre's Al Naadi Health Club where women turned out in large numbers, opting for free health check-ups.
In 2015, there were more than 2.8 million women with a history of breast cancer in the US. This included women under treatment and women who had finished treatment. With breast cancer cases growing at an alarming rate, healthcare stakeholders and corporate and business entities have been joining hands to reduce the threat of breast cancer in the UAE.
UAE-based Al Ghurair University, one of the premier universities in the Gulf region, has appointed Prof Basem Alzahabi as its new president ahead of the opening of the 2017-2018 academic year.
Al Ghurair University (AGU), one of the premier universities in the Gulf region, has appointed Prof Basem Alzahabi as its new president ahead of the opening of the 2017-2018 academic year.
AGU, a unit of UAE-based diversified conglomerate Al Ghurair, said in his new role, Prof Alzahabi will oversee the development of the university in terms of elevating the standard of education and adopting global best practices for advanced learning.
He joins AGU from Kettering University in Michigan, US, where he had been director of the office of international programs and chair of engineering design since 2011.
In his previous position, he provided leadership and support for relationships with international universities, companies, governments and other institutions, and working in developing international programs.
He also officially represented Kettering to US and foreign government agencies concerning international and cultural issues while developing new funding opportunities for the university.
Alzahabi initially joined Kettering as Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1998.
On his new role, Prof Alzahabi said: "I am thrilled to be entering a new stage in my career as president of one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the Gulf region. AGU has made a name for its progressive approach to education while staying connected to the heritage that makes it utterly unique."
Educated to doctorate level, Prof Alzahabi holds a Ph D in Civil Engineering and two MS degrees in both Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Ibrahim Al Ghurair, a board member at Al Ghurair, said: "We are absolutely confident that Prof Alzahabi's esteemed career in education will be a tremendous addition to the university. AGU will surely be leveraging his experience in further raising our institution, together with our students and faculty, to new levels of academic excellence."
"With his arrival, we will see a fresh new approach to training and educational collaboration that will elevate AGU's global competitiveness," he added.


Integration solutions are key mechanisms in almost every company, regardless of their size. They enable an enterprise to extend its ERP systems, online stores, CRM applications, industrial automation and many other critical components that support the business.
Without integration, business processes cannot be productively and efficiently implemented either in small enterprises or structurally complex organisations. Integration includes not only processes carried out within the company, but also provides an effective flow of information with customers, suppliers and government institutions.
We specialise in the design and implementation of integration solutions using a variety of technologies and environments. Our key advantage here is our know-how and experience regarding ERP systems.
We offer integration products designed for small and medium-sized enterprises such as the Comarch Optima ERP system as well as for large corporations, primarily SAP ERP.
A properly designed and implemented integration with the participation of the ERP system guarantees savings in terms of time and financial outlay. It also ensures the safety and reliability of end-to-end data exchange processes.
An online shop requires the harmonisation of various external mechanisms and systems. The processes involved in updating the product range, inventory control, logistics, invoicing and customer service are just some of the examples where integration can be make or break.
We have the know-how and experience in the integration of small SaaS sales platforms as well as in enterprise-class products such as Magento. Our projects have involved cooperation with SAP ERP as well as third-party systems for both corporate clients and SMEs.
The design and implementation of network integration for automated fuel terminals with SAP in sales, transaction authorisation and risk management for one of the largest fuel companies in Europe.
Implementation of SAP ERP integration with external logistics, production and sales systems, supporting the sales and distribution processes as well as industrial automation for several companies listed on the WIG20.
Integration of online shops and B2B platforms based on Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and tailor-made solutions with ERP systems, logistics operators and inventory software.


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Q: org.apache.poi.POIXMLException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException when deployed in JBoss6 I have to upload an excel file in a JBossSeam application. I am using poi3.6 jar. The excel upload is successful in application server JBoss5.1. But I got the an exception when I used JBoss6. How could I resolve this problem? Could any please help me to solve this issue?
The stackTrace is as follows :

2011-02-09 10:20:00,247 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1) org.apache.poi.POIXMLException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
2011-02-09 10:20:00,247 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFFactory.createDocumentPart(XSSFFactory.java:61)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocumentPart.read(POIXMLDocumentPart.java:256)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocument.load(POIXMLDocument.java:196)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook.(XSSFWorkbook.java:179)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at com.ey.SkillTracker.parseutility.EmployeeUploadExcel.parseXlFile(EmployeeUploadExcel.java:113)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at com.ey.SkillTracker.bean.administration.EmployeeBean.importEmployeeDetails(EmployeeBean.java:902)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,263 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,278 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,278 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,278 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,278 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.util.Reflections.invoke(Reflections.java:22)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,278 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.RootInvocationContext.proceed(RootInvocationContext.java:32)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.SeamInvocationContext.proceed(SeamInvocationContext.java:56)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.transaction.RollbackInterceptor.aroundInvoke(RollbackInterceptor.java:28)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.SeamInvocationContext.proceed(SeamInvocationContext.java:68)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.core.BijectionInterceptor.aroundInvoke(BijectionInterceptor.java:77)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.SeamInvocationContext.proceed(SeamInvocationContext.java:68)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,294 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.core.MethodContextInterceptor.aroundInvoke(MethodContextInterceptor.java:44)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,309 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.SeamInvocationContext.proceed(SeamInvocationContext.java:68)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,309 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.core.SynchronizationInterceptor.aroundInvoke(SynchronizationInterceptor.java:32)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,309 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.SeamInvocationContext.proceed(SeamInvocationContext.java:68)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,309 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.RootInterceptor.invoke(RootInterceptor.java:107)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,309 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.JavaBeanInterceptor.interceptInvocation(JavaBeanInterceptor.java:185)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,325 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at org.jboss.seam.intercept.JavaBeanInterceptor.invoke(JavaBeanInterceptor.java:103)
2011-02-09 10:20:00,325 ERROR [STDERR] (http-10.120.10.19-8086-1)     at com.ey.SkillTracker.bean.administration.EmployeeBean_$$_javassist_seam_18.importEmployeeDetails(EmployeeBean_$$_javassist_seam_18.java)

A: I got the same issue. I used POI 3.8 and JBoss6.0. The root cause is Classloading conflict between POI lib and JBoss Lib of xmlbeans


1. Complete your Market Structures Chart.
Who are they? What is OPEC? What do they do? Where is OPEC?
I will collect hwk when I get back tomorrow.
OPEC is the Organizition of the Petrollium Export Countries. Opec is located in Algeria, Angola, Equador, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. OPEC imports oil and sells to the US and other Countries.


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Chesapeake v. Hyder - Royalty Owner Wins Gas Royalty Dispute
Wilson_Inc March 12, 2014, 7:01pm #1
http://www.oilandgaslawyerblog.com/2014/03/chesapeake-v-hyder---royalty-o.html
Nice to see the courts taking the lease language for what it says.
Assuming this case continues to the Texas Supreme Court do you think the high court will uphold the lower court's decisions?
Clint_Liles March 12, 2014, 8:22pm #2
Wilson,
Thanks for posting this decision by the lower Courts. Mr McFarland is good about keeping mineral/royalty/property owners informed. No, I don't think the Texas Supreme Court will go along with the lower Court's decision. That bunch in Austin is a bunch of Supreme Crooks looking out for the welfare of the oil companies and their own pocketbooks. Just my opinion.
Clint Liles
Kitchen March 14, 2014, 1:53pm #3
http://www.search.txcourts.gov/Case.aspx?cn=04-12-00769-CV
Here are some more documents of the court proceedings.
Wilson_Inc March 16, 2014, 3:57am #4
Clint,
Four of the justices have their term ending this year. I have no clue how any of them have ruled on oil and gas industry issues or how to find out. Knowing would make voting much more interesting.
Current Texas Supreme Court Justices (Wikipedia)
Date Service Began
Term Ends
Nathan L. Hecht
Don R. Willett
Debra Lehrmann
John P. Devine
Paul W. Green
2014[a]
Jeffrey S. Boyd
Eva Guzman
[a] Term ends in 2018 but must run in 2014 to keep position.
After reading the court case opinion it is hard for me to see how the Supreme Court would arrive at different conclusions but I think more like a redneck than a lawyer.
Your opinion may prove to be correct.
Kitchen,
Thanks for posting the court documents. The opinion issued 03/05/2014 is the first court case opinion I have ever read. Even though I have no education in the legal field and having just a general knowledge of the issues I was surprised that it is easy to read and comprehend.
Clint_Liles March 16, 2014, 6:30am #6
http://http://www.oilandgaslawyerblog.com/2009/04/texas-supreme-court-record-on.html
Texas Supreme Court Record on Royalty Owner Cases
6 April 6, 2009 By John McFarland
In a previous post I discussed a recent Texas Supreme Court case, Exxon v. Emerald, reversing a multimillion-dollar judgment against Exxon for intentionally sabatoging wells so that they could not be re-entered. This nudged me to look at other royalty-owner related cases handed down by the Texas Supreme Court over the last ten years. The court's record is not a good one for royalty owners. Highlights of the Court's work:
HECI v. Neel (1998). HECI sued an adjacent operator for illegal production on an adjoining lease that damaged the common reservoir underlying both leases, and recovered a judgment for more than $3.7 million. HECI did not inform its royalty owners of the suit and did not share any of the judgment proceeds with the royalty owners. When HECI's royalty owners found out about the suit, they sued HECI to recover their share of the judgment. The Supreme Court held that the royalty owners had waited too long to bring their suit, even though they did not find out about the suit until five years after the trial. The Court held that the royalty owners should have known that the adjacent operator was damaging the common reservoir by its operations.
Yzaguirre v. KCS Resources (2001). Plaintiffs were royalty owners who received royalties under a lease operated by KCS. KCS sold its gas under a 20-year contract with Tennessee Gas Pipeline, and the price under the Tennessee contract greatly exceeded the spot market price of the gas. But KCS paid royalties based on the "market value" of the gas, using comparable spot sale prices, well below the price it received from Tennessee. The Court held that KCS did not owe royalties based on the Tennessee price -- and, it held that the Tennessee contract was not even competent evidence of the market value of the gas.
Wagner & Brown v. Horwood (2001). Plaintiffs sued Wagner & Brown for deducting excess compression fees from their royalties that were charged by a Wagner & Brown affiliate. The Supreme Court ruled that all claims for royalties paid more than four years prior to the suit were barred by the four-year statute of limitations. Plaintiffs argued that Wagner & Brown had falsely told them, when they inquired about the fees, that the fees were only 12 cents per mcf, rather than 25 to 30 cents, so Wagner & Brown should not be allowed to rely on the statute of limitations. The Court rejected this argument, holding that the Plaintiffs' claims were not "inherently undiscoverable," even if Wagner & Brown lied to them about the charges.
Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America v. Pool (2002). Plaintiffs sued NGPL claiming that two leases had terminated due to a lack of production. The trial court entered a judgment for lessors on a jury verdict, which the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed. It held that, if the leases had terminated for lack of production, the lessee had subsequently re-acquired title to the leases by adverse possession. This is the first case in the country to hold that adverse possession statutes apply to recover title to an expired oil and gas lease. In re Bass (2003). Plaintiffs owned a royalty interest under a ranch owned by the Bass family. The Basses refused to lease their land for oil and gas exploration, and the royalty owners sued them for breach of an implied duty to develop the land. The Supreme Court held that the Basses had no implied duty to lease or develop the minerals under their property.
Union Pacific Resources Group v. Hankins (2003). Royalty owners in Crockett County brought suit against Union Pacific, alleging that UPRG was selling gas to an affiliated company at a low price and then reselling it at a higher price, but paying royalties on the lower price. The plaintiffs sought to make the case a class action brought on behalf of all royalty owners in UPRG wells in Crockett County.The Supreme Court held that the case could not be brought as a class action because the royalty language in the leases could be different.
Kerr-McGee Corp. v. Helton (2004). Kerr-McGee drilled a well, the Holmes 17-1, in Wheeler County which produced more than 8.7 billion cubic feet of gas. The well was located 660 feet from the Heltons' lease. Kerr-McGee did not drill an offsetting well on the Helton lease, and the Heltons sued Kerr-McGee for failing to protect their lease against drainage from the Holmes 17-1. The trial court awarded $860,000 in damages, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. But the Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the plaintiffs should have no recovery. The Court held that the plaintiffs' expert witness had not adequately explained how he had measured the amount of gas that would have been produced from a well on the Helton lease if Kerr-McGee had drilled it; the Court said that there was "simply too great an analytical gap between the data [relied on by the expert] and the opinion proffered." The Court refused the plaintiffs' request to remand the case for a new trial.
Forest Oil Corp. v. McAllen (2008). In 1999, Forest Oil settled a lawsuit with McAllen and others who own the McAllen Ranch in Hidalgo County, over claims for royalties and leasehold development. In 2004, McAllen filed a separate suit against Forest to recover for damages caused by burying mercury-contaminated and radioactive material on the ranch. Forest claimed that McAllen was obligated by the 1999 settlement to arbitrate any disputes over its operation of the lease. McAllen claimed that he was fraudulently induced to sign the settlement and was not bound to arbitrate his claims. The Supreme Court held that McAllen was contractually bound to arbitrate. It held that language in the settlement agreement, providing that McAllen was not relying on any statement or representation of Forest in executing the agreement, prevented McAllen from arguing that he was fraudulently induced by Forest to sign the settlement agreement. In so holding, the Court overruled a prior case it had decided in 1997, in which it held that a settlement agreement must "clearly express .. the parties' intent to waive fraudulent inducement claims" in order to preclue a fraudulent inducement claim.
I was unable to find any Supreme Court case in the last ten years that ruled in favor of royalty owners.
K_Dawn March 25, 2014, 7:39pm #7
Royalty owners better show up to vote…get those guys out if there. Not one ruling for royalty owners? There needs to be laws about manditory royalty owner notification on any different activities other than what was previously established in the leases. Royalty owners have no idea what is going on with there mineral rights… I'll give you an example…The boom in Grady and Stephens county. Chevron has been plugging my vertical wells since 2002 that are leased to them. I had no idea this was going on. After I started getting noticed for new leases, I began to look at my property. I used the occeweb to research as many court documents as I can find. Chevron is plugging and making me think my property is not worth anything when the reality is there is lots of resources. Does anyone have any feedback on this?
Bigfoot March 25, 2014, 7:47pm #8
And the majority of us think the only thugs are Mafia and the ones in the White house! Obviously we have a few right here at home! I once worked with an older gentleman that was very active in politics and his motto was, never, never vote for an incumbent politician. Vote a new one in and then vote them out before he/she has an opportunity to understand the system well enough to be a supreme crook!
Clint Liles said:
http://http://www.oilandgaslawyerblog.com/2009/04/texas-supreme-cou...
r_w_kennedy March 25, 2014, 8:26pm #9
When a judge says that the language of cost free or free of cost in a lease means the lessor does not have to pay for his portion of drilling and completing a well, it is an incredible disconnect!
What would be the purpose of leasing if you stll had to pay for your proportionate part of the well? Why wouldn't you just be a working interest, collecting 100% less cost of production, if you would have to pay for your part of a well under a lease?
We need to get all of the judges out [congress too], there may be a few that should stay but the great marjority I think should not and when you are cutting out a gangrene, you can't be afraid to remove a little healthy flesh along with it to be sure.
Personally, I think we, as a nation, will do nothing. The infection will reach the brain if it has not already and a persistent vegetative state will ensue.
Bigfoot March 25, 2014, 8:29pm #10
Here, here, I'll vote for that!
r w kennedy said:
Kitchen March 25, 2014, 8:41pm #11
Kind of like the minimum royalty percent in Pennsylvania. Why even have such a law if it still allows deductions below 12.5%? Why not just give your minerals away at that point! If a lessee is crafty enough to get that low of a royalty rate to begin with, I'm sorry but they should not be allowed ANY additional deductions. They already have 87.5% to profit from. How much more greed do we need to be happy? What a joke. Let's pay them 12.5% on a market value 20% of actual because we inflated all of the gathering charges because no law exists to regulate those charges. Pennsylvania is the only hope to start fixing these problems in my opinion. If they are successful, other states may have a chance.
Don't mention that too loudly since this administration and if Hillary gets in it will even be worse, would like to have the government own all of our minerals. This would allow them to take more free vacations and waste more on their whims.
Kitchen said:
Kind of like the minimum royalty percent in Pennsylvania. Why even have such a law if it still allows deductions below 12.5%? Why not just give your minerals away at that point! If a lessee is crafty enough to get that low of a royalty rate to begin with, I'm sorry but they should not be allowed ANY additional deductions. They already have 87.5% to profit from. How much more greed do we need to be happy? What a joke. Let's pay them 12.5% on a market value 20% of actual because we inflated all of the gathering charges because no law exists to regulate those charges. Pennsylvania is the only hope to start fixing these problems in my opinion. If they are successful, other states may have a chance.
Go_Fast May 8, 2014, 3:23pm #13
Wow, those cases cited by Clint make it pretty clear that the TX courts 'supreme rulers' are 'bought & paid for' by the oil companies. They are a disgrace to their profession. Oh, wait, everyone already knows that many lawyers are a disgrace to their profession.
It must be hard to be an honest attorney when so many of your counterparts are thieves.
system Closed August 15, 2018, 12:51am #14