I received this letter near the end of my freshman year informing me that I was to enter the Intensified Studies program. This gave me some additional scholarship money and a lot of work!

These are three of the couples who were our neighbors in the Sherman Arms apartments. They’re standing in front of our apartment. We got along well with all of them, and some were in our weekly Bible study group.

This is Craig and Debbi Bersagel. Craig had been my roommate when we were sophomores, and best man at our wedding. After we were both married they were part of our Bible study group.

Dad sent me the above letter on the occasion of my 21st birthday in 1973.

The George Fox College choir in 1973 (photo from the college yearbook)

Summer at home after my freshman year at Fox was not great. Time with my family was good, but I was anxious to get back to my new life in Oregon. I had a job, but did not like it – I was working in an air conditioner factory on swing shift. This was my second summer in a row at that factory, and it must have paid relatively well. The factory was managed by our neighbor across the street, so he was doing me a big favor.

I went back to George Fox in the fall, ready to start my Religion major. My roommate in Hobson was Craig Bersagel, a great guy who became best man at my wedding. He was a Viet Nam war vet, three years older than me, but in the same class at school. We each had the privilege of watching the other fall in love with and marry a woman who was a perfect match. Craig had a Roadrunner car – it went “beep beep” just like the roadrunner in the cartoon. This (the car, not the beep) was very handy as we needed it to get pizza. There was no pizza available in Newberg – it was a VERY small town back then – and the nearest place was Dave’s Pizza up in Sherwood (8 miles away).

The only problem was that Dave’s Pizza was a bar. I was only 19 and couldn’t legally go in the place. Craig was old enough, but we were both under the restriction placed on all George Fox students: Thou Shalt Not Enter a Bar. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak: sometimes we just needed a pizza. So Craig and I would drive up to Sherwood in his car and park outside the bar. Craig would go in and get the pizza, and I’d wait in the car and watch for college officials. Not sure what I would have done if one showed up! But we never got caught.

Then we had to get the pizza home, intact. This was more difficult than it sounds. Our room was on the second floor, near the middle of a long hallway. The smell of pizza is pretty pervasive, and we had both observed others trying to smuggle some into the dorm. If you were caught, the cry “Pizza! Pizza!” would go up, you’d be tackled before you got to your room, and lucky to get one piece. We’d tiptoe up the stairs, open the hall door slowly, and check to see that the coast was clear. When the chance came, we’d run to our room as fast as we could and lock the door! Usually this worked.

Like me, Craig was a ministerial student. We both took New Testament Greek during our sophomore year, and we spent a lot of time studying it together. I loved it – it was great to read the New Testament in its original language. It was like digging for buried treasure. Our teacher was quite the scholar, but a poor communicator, and our textbook was not very helpful. So all of us in the class worked together on it.

I tried out for choir again, this time with a different director, but failed to make the cut. I was really disappointed. Craig was in the choir – he had a strong tenor voice. I decided to enroll in private voice lessons given by the choir director. It cost extra, but my parents gave permission, and I took lessons from him during the fall quarter. I must have learned something, or else he learned that I was a pretty good singer even though I gave a poor audition. Anyway, at the end of the quarter, he informed me that one of his baritones was leaving the choir and I was invited to join. I had to learn all of the songs quickly to be ready for tour during the spring break. I was happy to do that!

Being in choir was a great experience. I learned a lot about how to be a better choir singer, and from the director’s example I learned how to choose music, how to put together a program, and how to motivate a choir; all skills that I was later given a chance to put to use. I also made some good friends in choir.

I stayed in my work-study job in the audio-visual department through my sophomore and junior years. We did lots of interesting projects. My favorite a-v project was a slide show. Technology that connected multiple projectors to achieve a fade-in/fade-out effect was just being developed, and the college loved to use slide shows in their fundraising and recruitment events. We also made use of a technique for creating slides with just words on them, using a very-high contrast film which we could develop in our own darkroom. These word slides were used as part of various academic courses, where students would sit in study carrels and run through a slide set, learning whatever was being taught there. Freshman Chemistry used this system, as did several other courses. We hand-painted the slides using diluted food coloring to add color to the presentations.

During my senior year I worked at the business in Newberg that had invented this teaching tool, called a Slide-Sponder, which used slides, cassette tape, and an electronic gizmo that allowed the teacher to set up multiple-choice quizzes. It read a notch cut in the top of a slide – the location of the notch signified which answer was the correct one – and compare it to the button (in a series of buttons) pushed by the student. Correct answers were rewarded by advancing to the next slide. I created a lot of word slides that year, building lessons of various types, using a Leroy Letraset and a copy stand-mounted camera.

In the spring of my freshman year I applied to join the Intensified Studies program starting as a sophomore. It featured a financial scholarship and the opportunity to do a two-year independent study project – something like a master’s thesis – for college credit. The sophomore year was devoted to a wide range of field trip experiences and readings; the junior and senior years were devoted to the project. Since I was a ministerial student working in the audiovisual department, my project was focused on the use of technology in the church. I don’t think it was very helpful! But I got the scholarship money.

In the spring of my sophomore year I decided to try out for that year’s musical theater production, “Carousel.” I got a fairly major role – I was the main bad guy, I guess because I have a loud voice and am kind of a large size. Karen and I were newly engaged at the time and she was surprised to see me as such a bad person. I got a nice note from Dr. LeShana saying that he “didn’t know you had it in you.”

As a senior I ran – unopposed – for a student government role, “Student Union Board Chairman.” I think I became interested in this role because I’d spent so many hours down in the basement of this building playing ping pong. The Student Union Board managed the Student Union building, which was owned by the student body and paid for out of required student dues. Our board, which met monthly, was responsible for managing the building and its budget. It was my first experience with managing something and dealing with other people’s money. I had an office and a desk and everything. This was great preparation for my first job after college.

During spring break of my sophomore year Karen and I became engaged. At the time, I was living in Hobson Hall, rooming with my friend Craig Bersagel. When I came back for my junior year I knew I’d be getting married in December, so I was placed in married student housing (by myself) starting in the fall quarter. I lived in one of a block of six apartments known as Sherman Arms, actually pretty close to Hobson Hall. Karen moved in with me after our wedding, and we were very happy there. Looking back, it was a pretty terrible place; poorly constructed, poorly heated, and very small. But we didn’t know that, and the monthly rent was only $75. All six apartments housed married students from George Fox. We soon got to know our neighbors, a very interesting mix of people, and we established a weekly Bible study in our living room. Grandma and Walter came to visit once, and there was no comfortable chair for her to sit in. So she took us to a furniture store in downtown Newberg and bought us a comfortable chair!

Karen worked full time as a bookkeeper during the rest of my junior year and through my senior year at a lumber store in Tigard, about 15 miles up the road towards Portland. Her boss, the manager of the store, was Al, one of the guys we knew from House of the Risen Son, and one of the guys who used to give me rides to and from Newberg when I was a freshman. Her salary, plus my work-study wage and (later) my job in Newberg barely kept us afloat for that year and a half while I finished college. She really earned her “PHT” degree, and you can see her certificate on this page.

As a ministerial student I was assigned to intern at Maplewood Friends Church in Portland. This, like most Quaker churches, was a small and struggling congregation. I was a volunteer – I may have got some college credit for it, I’m not sure. At first I served as the leader of the high school group, but it was soon obvious that I was not gifted for that and I didn’t enjoy it. Later I became the choir director and taught adult Sunday School class. I had taken a choral conducting class in college, and I enjoyed leading the choir. But teaching adult Bible class at the age of 20 was a bit overwhelming for me. I got some advice from Barry Craig, Karen’s brother-in-law, who was a seminary student. The “old” Quakers that I was teaching were patient with me and I soon discovered that I really liked teaching the Bible. I’ve been doing it ever since, almost 50 years now. I preached my first sermon ever at Maplewood, at the end of my senior year, as part of my Intensified Studies project, and used a slide projector during the sermon!

On my graduation day in June 1974, I was sad to leave George Fox. My years there had completely changed my life, as I understood things at the time. Our choir sang at the commencement ceremonies, and it was sad to realize that I’d never sing with them again. But I was excited about the future, and I was certain of my success. Karen and I headed off to California and Fuller Seminary.

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