alumni
November 11, 2021
Girl Named Tom to continue on ‘The Voice’
The sibling band Girl Named Tom was voted into the semi-final round of The Voice this week, after performing for a nationwide audience in the competition’s live playoffs. The band, which consists of siblings Caleb, Josh and Bekah Liechty, is well-known to many at Goshen College, as both Josh and Caleb are recent GC alumni. Many students and community members attended their sold-out performance in Sauder Concert Hall this past October. Live playoffs on The Voice began on Monday and included performances from the twenty remaining acts. Girl Named Tom represented Team Kelly as the first of the night to...
October 14, 2021
Tending to his garden since 1986: Ervin Beck
Many students walk through the garden on the south side of Newcomer without a second thought. The garden is tucked away behind a wall, in between the communication wing and the rest of Newcomer Center. But for one man, the garden is deeply important. Ervin Beck taught English at Goshen College for over 30 years, retiring in 2003. He is the primary caretaker of the garden. “I come here almost every day,” Beck said. “Just to do a little bit of work.” Beck speaks in a gentle voice, choosing his words carefully and thoughtfully. Similarly, no aspects of the garden,...
September 30, 2021
Girl Named Tom debuts on ‘The Voice’
Members of the Goshen College community near and far watched last Monday as Girl Named Tom, a sibling band featuring two GC grads, sang for renowned musicians on NBC’s The Voice. After winning the favor of all four judges, the group will continue to perform on the 21st season of the popular music competition show under the tutelage of multiple Grammy award-winner Kelly Clarkson. The show’s other judges are John Legend, Blake Shelton and Ariana Grande. Girl Named Tom is a sibling band with three members: Caleb, Joshua and Bekah Liechty from Pettisville, OH. The two oldest are graduates of...
March 18, 2021
Longenecker Fox prepares for future SST students
A little over two months ago, Caleb and Nina Longenecker Fox left the United States for Ecuador. As leaders of the upcoming Study-Service Term units, there is a lot to accomplish before the students arrive in the fall. Caleb and Nina Longenecker Fox have been excited about this opportunity for a while. Caleb Longenecker Fox went to Nicaragua for SST when he was a student at Goshen and has been interested in leading SST ever since. The pair have always wanted to live abroad for a more extended period of time. With this in mind, Caleb Longenecker Fox said that...
November 19, 2020
GC alumnus cycles against cancer, conquers his own Everest
Jason Potsander lives to inspire. Since graduating from Goshen College in 2001, he has dealt with many setbacks in his life – including 17 cycles of chemotherapy for stage IV pancreatic cancer – but none have stopped him from pursuing his goals, which include a different kind of cycle. When he is not teaching his elementary school students or spending time with his family, he is training for bicycle races. “On one hand, cancer did not affect my life at all,” he said. “I kept doing all the good things I love and value, despite any circumstances, feelings, or side-effects...
October 8, 2020
GC alumnus talks decolonizing service work
The Goshen College Alumni Council and Yoder Public Affairs Committee hosted Shashi Buluswar ‘91, last Thursday, Oct. 1 during Homecoming, as a part of the new series: GC Talks. Buluswar, CEO of the Institute for Transformative Technologies and a 2020 Culture for Service awardee, presented on the history of international service work and how it came to exist in the form most widely recognized today, which he says has included a shift away from reliance on foreign aid agencies. When Buluswar first arrived at Goshen College as a business and computer science major, the idea of culture for service was...
August 27, 2020
GC alums capture activist momentum
Last Sunday, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by Kenosha, Wisconsin police officers as he attempted to enter an SUV. The event renewed the energy of many organized movements across the U.S. fighting for justice for Black men and women killed at the hands of police officers. The death of George Floyd on May 25 initially ignited a lot of these activist groups this summer and the story was the same for 4US, a group of Goshen activists fighting for social change. Goshen College graduate Abraham Medellin ‘19 started the group on June 10 as a Facebook...
February 16, 2020
Cross country runners honored with new character award
Neither the men’s and women’s cross country teams nor Jason Potsander, for whom the award was named, were expecting the addition of a new award when they gathered for the annual awards banquet on Sunday, Feb. 9. In years prior, head coach Rustin Nyce handed out “The GCXC Heart Award”, but this year it was presented to one male and one female athlete under a new name: “The Jason Potsander Character Award”. Jason Potsander is a 2001 graduate of Goshen College who has faced many physical challenges in his long history of running. As a student, he competed on the...
January 31, 2020
GC alumna makes history, college works to reconcile past
On Super Bowl Sunday 2020, Goshen College graduate Katie Sowers will make history as the first woman and the first openly gay coach to appear at the Super Bowl. 11 years ago, Goshen College denied Sowers a volunteer coaching position on the basis of her sexual orientation. An official apology released by Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus last week acknowledged the denial and has sparked conversations about the college’s past and present policies related to supporting LGBTQ+ students and faculty. Sowers, who attended Goshen after transferring from Hesston College, played basketball for the Maple Leafs. After she graduated, Sowers applied...
January 24, 2020
Recent graduate’s work rooted in experience with trees
While most Goshen College students need to complete an internship and senior project requirements to earn their degree, GC alumnus Aidan Freisen is taking those experiences one step further, using them to jump-start his professional career. A December 2019 graduate of the Environmental Science program, Friesen began his work of studying the local environment for his senior thesis project. As a student, he worked to calculate the effects that 80 years of climate change may have on the economic benefits of trees in the Goshen community. His project focused on the College Farm neighborhood, a residential area located just east...
January 16, 2020
GC Alumni take sibling band, ‘Girl Named Tom,’ on nationwide tour
There are three members in the band Girl Named Tom. But Tom isn’t one of them. A nickname for the youngest Liechty sibling, Bekah, “Tom” became the inspiration for Caleb, Joshua and Bekah’s sibling band that formed in the spring of 2019 and is now in the middle of a year-long tour across the country. The Ohio-based band stopped in Goshen last Sunday, sharing their acoustic sounds, light instrumentation and tight harmonies with the several hundred attendants at Goshen Brewing Company, convincing many that the Liechty siblings have been singing together for years. And in some ways they have. “Music...
November 29, 2019
Alumni exhibition brings energy into art
A new art exhibit, featuring work by Emma Gerigscott and Nick Loewen, was unveiled in the Music Center’s Hershberger Art Gallery this past Sunday. Gerigscott, who grew up in Goshen, graduated from Goshen College with an interdisciplinary major in art, environmental science and social policy in 2014. After graduation, she spent some time working as a farmer in various capacities, both in New Zealand and in Goshen in the hopes of putting her degree to practical use. When burnout with farming hit, she got a job at Goshen Brewing Company as a line cook and a dishwasher. Eventually, Gerigscott realized...
November 13, 2019
GC alum qualifies for Olympic trials
Ryan Smith crossed the finish line of the Hartford Marathon last month with a grin on his face. The Goshen College graduate had not only won the race, but qualified for the Olympic trials as well, becoming the first male Maple Leaf to do so. The race, which took place in Hartford, Connecticut, on Oct. 12, was Smith’s third attempt to qualify in the 26.2-mile distance. His first attempt was at the Hartford Marathon last year where he finished in second and missed the 2-hour-19-minute cutoff by 3 minutes and 36 seconds. This year, Smith returned to change the books....
October 9, 2019
Exhibit shows peaceful coexistence amidst diversity
For many Midwesterners, the cornfields and plains that dot the central United States are just that: plain. But for Abner Hershberger, there is opportunity for beauty to emerge from the simplicity. Since graduating from Goshen College with an art degree in 1960, Hershberger has become both an active artist and a teacher. In fact, after teaching art in the Indiana public school system for four years post-grad, he returned to his alma mater as one of the arts professors from 1965-1999. He was the one who began Goshen College’s gallery program in 1968, which was renamed in his honor when...
October 2, 2019
Alumni, students to present original shows
Homecoming for Goshen College is about to get a lot more theatrical. This weekend, three performances from four alumni and one current senior will take the stage at Umble Center. Peter Eash-Scott ’99, Greg Wendling ’99, Michelle Milne ’95, Heather Kropf ’94 and Violet Smucker ’20 are involved in three unique shows for the Goshen community past and present. The theater events begin Friday, Oct. 4 with Smucker’s senior theater recital, “Working Between the Lines,” at 8 p.m. in the Umble Center. The show consists of original plays and scenes written by current GC students. Admission is free, and seating...