Sojourn News Release

The Sojourn brought home Saturday, April 13 from Bloomington, Ind., nine awards from the Indiana Collegiate Press Association, the preeminent group of college journalists in the state. Three were all-level, meaning Indiana Wesleyan University students won against all schools in Indiana, even large programs such as Indiana University and Ball State. Four of the six awards within the paper’s size division were first places.

All-level

Third place: Jeremy Sharp, Ben Middelkamp and Elise Hulce, Best Breaking News Reporting Online; Jeremy Sharp, Ben Middelkamp and Elise Hulce, Best Special Presentation Online; Haley Page, Jeremy Sharp and Ben Middelkamp, Best Use of Twitter

Division III

First place: Staff, Best Overall Design; Staff, Best Single Issue; Josh Gales, Aaron Goshen and Jeremy Sharp, Best Photo Essay or Picture Story; Jeremy Sharp, Best Sports News Story

Second place: Staff, Best Front Page

Third place: Jeremy Sharp and Ali Cravens, Best News Feature Reporting

Sharp is the editor in chief of the paper. “I told the staff we don’t do what we do for awards, but it’s pretty great when they happen,” he said. “It’s a great reflection that we’re doing things right and all our hard work is paying off.”

Sharp also has won a Society of Professional Journalists student award for spot news reporting, another all-level statewide nod. SPJ is the top professional journalists’ association in the USA and Indiana.

“Jeremy is a fine student journalist who is very versatile in reporting on varying topics and in different writing styles,” said Dr. Kyle Huckins, The Sojourn’s faculty adviser. “The rest of our people at the newspaper also have done well in building skills and displaying these to an increasingly energized on-campus readership as well as students and professionals around the state and nation.”

Huckins will be receiving an SPJ statewide professionals’ award in column writing for religion pieces carried by the Marion (Ind.) Chronicle-Tribune and other area daily newspapers. This honor and Sharp’s will be presented Friday, April 19 in Indianapolis.

By Ali Cravens and Amanda Howard

The Dean of Chapel Office has planned a three-day prayer event at Indiana Wesleyan University. The event kicks off with a worship service, Still, from 6:30-10 p.m. on Thursday March 14. Following the service, there will be a prayer vigil ending at 8:30 a.m. Saturday March 16, when the closing prayer walk begins. All events will take place in or begin at the Chapel-Auditorium.

“I keep hearing about different organizations that are really in financial need, especially because of the economic situation,” Dr. Jim Lo, dean of the chapel, said.

In response, Sue Wampner, administrative assistant to the DOC, Kari Jenkins (jr), student chaplain for prayer ministries, and Lo, each in charge of a different days’ event respectively, combined their passions and created the three-part occasion to center around prayer for the community.

Still and the prayer vigil will have several specific prayer stations set up, one of which will be for the local organizations that will benefit from the money raised during the initiative. Those organizations are the Flannery Keal Home, the Women’s Shelter, Grace House for Recovery and Salvation Army. In addition, the events will have other prayer stations for World Hope International, the issues of human trafficking, the issues of abortion and the New Zealand Sports Ministry Blitz team, according to Wampner.

A prayer walk will immediately take place following the end of the prayer vigil.

“I think it’s a good time now, for us to do another,” Lo said.

When Lo first took on the position as dean of the chapel and he saw that different organizations had financial crises, he arranged a special prayer walk in order to support them. This occurred in 2009.

And such a time has come again.

The prayer walk begins at the Chapel-Auditorium and extends into the downtown area of Marion all the way to the Grant County Courthouse. Once at the courthouse, walkers will meet the government officials of the city as well as other students and people from other ministries from Marion, according to Kiersten Beagan (sr), Student Government Association director of ministries. Together, they’ll do a small devotional and have a worship service.

In addition to the prayer walk, an offering will take place. At the time of that first prayer walk, the DOC asked people to give $10 in support of local organizations. This time, the office is pushing for about $20 from each person.

“We’re really asking our students to – and our community – to be a little bit more sacrificial,” Lo said.

Lo also has high expectations for participation as well.

“The first time we did it we probably had around 500 join us,” Lo said. “We’re hoping now for a thousand.”

To achieve this goal, the DOC Office has asked multiple IWU organizations and groups to partner.

“One of the things as a missionary I’ve always contended is that if we’re going to do God’s work, you can’t just do it in isolation, you have to do it in community,” Lo said. “We have a wonderful community here, and we have leaders already. Why then try to reinvent something if we can just try to come along and say, ‘SGA, you’re good at this, help us in this area,’ or ‘Doulos, you’re good in this area’? So the idea really is, we want this campus to see how partnerships can really work in ministry.”

Organizations involved in helping with the prayer event are adult education, Spirit Care, the Prayer Furnace, community outreach, The Well, Love Revolution, Doulos and the IWU Athletic Department, according to Wampner.

“All of those students have kind of formed a committee or a team, so to speak, and taken on different parts of this to bring everybody together and make it happen,” Wampner said. “Plus we want that engagement of students from all different facets of the community to be involved.”

“Our goal in SGA is getting the word out to all of the senators, academic reps and class reps in order to make this prayer walk put on by the DOC Office well known so that students are more encouraged to attend,” said Beagan. “We want to make this campus a prayer-oriented campus in all we do.”

Some students already show excitement for the prayer event.

“I think prayer is a powerful tool,” said Laura Schmitz (so), “because it opens the door to communicating with God. Through that, we can learn and experience a lot from Him. I think the prayer walk will be beneficial, because it is a specific time where we are all calling out to God for ministries of Marion.”

“I feel like prayer walks are not only powerful, but they also bring everyone together to understand and really feel for what is going on around us,” Emma Stahl (so) added.

The DOC Office recognizes that IWU’s student safety is the No. 1 priority during the prayer vigil, according to Beagan. Because of this, the DOC Office has formatted the vigil to provide male students to walk female students to and from dorms from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., according to Wampner.

By Erika Drake

A new dance class is open to Indiana Wesleyan University students at the Community School of the Arts. Thanks to the request of Caryn Rehm (sr), IWU students have the opportunity to participate in beginners dance classes.

Rehm — an intern at CSA — approached Director Mark Fauser about organizing a dance class for college students.

“We don’t have dance classes here,” Rehm said of IWU. Fauser and Rehm believe it’s vitally important to get college students involved in dance, so they collaborated to make Rehm’s idea a reality.

Brandy Revennaugh (alumna ‘85) — head of Dancer’s Edge, a competitive traveling dance company — instructs the lessons.

No prior dance experience is needed. The class covers the basics of jazz technique, hip-hop and some musical theatre aspects, according to Revennaugh.

“I enjoy teaching college-age classes. There is something about young adults that brings excitement to the classroom and an eagerness to learn,” Revennaugh said. “They want to be here and have a great time.”

The class begins with an informal greeting, then loud music and warm-ups. Revennaugh slowly explains the steps to the students, who mimic her actions. Then comes fast-paced routines, accompanied by music ranging from the raps of Pitbull to the stylings of Michael Jackson. Between steps, students share in laughter over missteps, being off beat or getting completely lost in the movements.

Sharla Ball (so) attended and hopes to continue going because of her love of dance.

“[Revennaugh] is very laid back and has a sense of humor that she shares with the class to lessen the nerves in the room,” Ball said of the instructor. “She knows what she is doing and it’s easy to follow her instructions.”

The class is open to all IWU students for $10 every Wednesday. Rehm encourages anyone who has questions or wants to attend to email her.

After the first class, Ball believes it is well worth the small cost. The class will be held 3:15-4:15 p.m. every Wednesday for the remainder of the semester.

Several churches in Grant County have been burglarized in the past month, stealing sound equipment and electronics, according to the Marion Chronicle-Tribune.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Department reported Richland United Methodist Church was broken into Jan. 3, Maple Run Friends Church Jan. 8, Victory Free Will Baptist Church Jan. 16 and Oak Chapel United Methodist Church Jan. 22.

“Local pastors say they don’t know what they can do much to prevent the same thing from happening to them,” said the Chronicle-Tribune.

Maple Run Friends Church said its burglary occurred in the middle of the night. The combined cost of the damage and stolen equipment came to about $6,000.

The church said in order to make do in their services, they’ve borrowed some equipment and people have stepped up and put together some things they needed. “We’re doing fine,” a church spokesman said.

With most of those churches being in Marion, College Wesleyan Church’s pastor of congregational life, Judy Huffman, assured that CWC is wired with an alarm system and that members are always careful to lock up.

The cases are still open, so the Grant County Sheriff’s Department is currently not releasing further information. However, they recommended to wait, then contact detective Erin Keppeler, who is on the case and can provide more information later.