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Pacific Union College's Symphonic Wind Ensemble will perform its final concert of the school year at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17, in the college's Paulin Hall. Admission is free.The concert, which includes contemporary masterworks and established standards of wind ensemble literature, takes the audience on a musical tour of four continents. Robert W. Smith's Africa: Ceremony, Song and Ritual is based on the folk music of Western Africa and uses an expanded percussion section. Courtly Airs, written in 1995 by Ron Nelson, is a collection of short pieces in the style of various European countries. The award-winning Las Playas de Rio is a collection of movements, each named after a beach in Rio de Janeiro and each expressing the beauty and flavor of Brazilian music. From North America, John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever will be joined by Percy Grainger's Children's March, a light-hearted exploration of the tune "Over the Hills and Far Away." And finally, the concert's centerpiece, Watchman, Tell Us Of The Night, is not associated with any one continent, but is a tribute to the survivor of child abuse. It portrays the elements of loneliness, loss of innocence, and enduring hope....

Pacific Union College's newest varsity sport has proven to be a swinging success. This year's first-ever men's varsity golf team won the California Pacific Conference division championships at the Bayonet Club in Monterey. Senior physical education major Scott Reed, who helped lead the Pioneers with a score of 82, was also named the 1997 Cal-PAC Golf Player of the Year."It was a great honor," said Reed. "I feel that it was certainly unexpected and a little undeserved." He pointed out that because of the weather, everyone else wasn't shooting very well and he was lucky to shoot so low. "Conditions were pretty crazy. There was wind going everywhere," Reed said.After winning the Cal-PAC division, PUC competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Far West Regional Championships held at the Rancho California course in Temecula.The championships pitted Division I champs Point Loma Nazarene and the runner-up Cal Baptist against Division II champs PUC and their runner-up Dominican College.For the championship game, Reed led the Pioneers once again with an 80 on the first round and an 83 on the second."I think our guys played extremely well, given the kind of competition they faced," said coach Chuck Evans. "We definitely...

Greg Schneider, professor of behavioral science, enjoys celebrating rituals with good food. Every Friday, he prepares braided Jewish challah (pronounced "hala") bread for consumption that evening, when he and his family celebrate the coming of the Sabbath. Their Friday night meal also includes a special grape juice, like Navarro or Sparkling Catawba.Schneider appropriated the Friday night celebration from the orthodox Jewish tradition, where the challah bread is a standard remembrance of the temple service and table of shewbread. "I believe in the importance of ritual and tradition, and I wanted to make this part of a family ritual," he said.Schneider makes two varieties of challah bread: a milk and honey version, favored by his teenage sons, and an orange juice-cranberry version which his wife Candy prefers."The milk and honey bread is easier to make, so things often go the boys' way," said Schneider.Preparing challah bread every week involves a certain dedication, although Schneider is aided in his task by an automatic breadmaker which kneads the dough and lets it rise. "If can use a mechanical toy, men tend to get involved in things," he said. But it's up to Schneider to manually shape and braid the bread, glaze it with...

High mountains are beautiful, challenging, and often dangerous; they also have much to teach us. For 60 years, Dr. Charles Houston has climbed on the world's highest mountains, including K2, Nanda Devi, and Everest. For thirty years he has also been exploring how the body responds to a lack of oxygen, both at great altitude and during illness. Houston has authored or co-authored five books and 100 scientific papers, and he has practiced medicine all his adult life.Houston will speak in Pacific Union College's Dauphinee Auditorium at 7 p.m. Monday, April 14. In this free, illustrated lecture, he will describe some of his pioneering Himalayan climbs and high-altitude research, relating his discoveries to work and recreation at lower altitudes, and to some life threatening illnesses.Dr. Houston's presentation is the first in a series of annual lectures, called "Breakthroughs in Bioscience," to be held at Pacific Union College....

Ken Koyama will lecture about the need for alternative fuels in transportation at 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 13, at Pacific Union College. Koyama is program manager for the California Energy Commission's alternative fuel vehicle demonstrations and infrastructure development program. He has general responsibility over methanol, natural gas, and electric vehicle programs and their infrastructure. The California Energy Commission oversees the largest and most diverse fleet of alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure networks in the country.Koyama's lecture is part of Pacific Union College's Joint Sciences Seminar and is the second of a series of seminars on alternative energy vehicles...