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The annual Fall Festival was held in PUC’s Pacific Auditorium on Sunday, November 5. The Asian Student Association, business club, French club, Polynesian club and many others took part in the event which raised funds for the respective clubs and provided students with the opportunity to sample ethnic cuisine from various regions of the world as well as enjoy other non-gastronomic forms of entertainment. One of the largest attractions of the festival was the “Islands of Polynesia” show, presented several times throughout the night by the Polynesian club. Cultural dances of Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Hawai’i and New Zealand were performed by student-members of the club who graciously offered dancing instruction to several members of the crowd during each show. Also present for the afternoon and evening festivities were approximately 350 high school seniors from 16 academies in California and Hawaii. The prospective students were invited to PUC for the weekend and given the opportunity to experience the spiritual, academic and social activities that the campus offers. Tyler Len, a senior from Hawaiian Mission Academy and the brother of junior aviation major Chris Len, particularly enjoyed the Polynesian club’s show. “It was really well done. Everybody looked like they were having...

On October 24, 2006, the Napa County Board of Supervisors presented a proclamation to Pacific Union College for the celebration of its 125th anniversary. Richard Osborn, president of PUC, and John Collins, vice president for financial administration, accepted the framed proclamation from Supervisor Bill Dodd at a Board of Supervisors meeting in Napa. Pam Sadler, vice president of advancement, and Herb Ford, professor emeritus, also attended the presentation. PUC was established in Healdsburg in 1882 but moved to Angwin in 1909. PUC is Napa County’s only four-year college. More than 1,000 graduates currently occupy positions of service in the county. PROCLAMATION WHEREAS, academic classes commenced in early 1882 in Healdsburg, California, for an educational institution that has today become known as Pacific Union College, and that in its 2006-2007 academic year is celebrating its 125th anniversary; and WHEREAS, the college in 1909 moved its campus from Healdsburg to Angwin in Napa County, with classes commencing on September 19, 1909, in buildings of Edwin Angwin’s former widely known resort; the resort had been built on “the best 200 acres” of George Yount’s 4,400-acre La Jota land grant that included all of Howell Mountain; and WHEREAS, Pacific Union College has grown from...

Following his graduation from PUC in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Scot Blackburn decided to test his skills in the business world. His efforts paid off, and the result, is an award-winning strategy-meets-trivia board game he named Brain Chain. Brain Chain was co-created with current PUC Campus Chaplain Roy Ice, Kris Harter (Columbia Union graduate) and Brigit Warner (Southwestern graduate and Santa Rosa resident). Recently, Games Magazine honored Brain Chain as one of the 100 best board games. Blackburn credits his PUC education with a large part of this success. “Creating a game was a lot of fun, and Pacific Union gave me the tools I needed to succeed and the confidence to use them,” say Blackburn. He specifically credits professors Kopitzke, Voth, Neergaard, Hardcastle and Toledo with not only his understanding of the theoretical and practical business world, but instilling in him the confidence and drive to be an entrepreneur. “Although PUC does not yet have the name recognition as Harvard or Wharton, I was pleasantly surprised with the instant respect I, as a PUC graduate, was accorded within the business world.” Blackburn also credits current PUC Campus Chaplain Roy Ice and other Seventh-Day Adventist University...

Pacific Union College’s annual Phonathon kicked off on October 9 and will run for five evenings a week until December 7. A total of 34 students are staffing the phones in order to reach this year’s goal of $165,000, an amount that will be allocated to scholarships, residence hall renovation, and faculty development through PUC’s annual fund. The generous support from alumni has Phonathon on track to meet its goal, and Tonya Kamaloni of the alumni and advancement office is confident of the program’s success. “We have been receiving a steady number of gifts each evening and are optimistic that this generosity will continue over the next seven weeks so we can reach our goal of $165,000,” says Kamaloni. Phonathon was originally supported by faculty and staff volunteers. Twenty phone lines were set up in the side rooms of the cafeteria where the first Phonathon workers made their calls. Now entering its 31st year, Phonathon employs nearly twice the number of callers and has become a student-driven affair, a characteristic unique to the college’s fundraising campaigns, and one that provides the students with an opportunity to directly contribute to supporting PUC and its future....

In April, a high school student, who had been hiding her pregnancy, delivered her baby in a bathtub, cut her own umbilical cord, and then proceeded to wrap her baby in a plastic bag. The infant was later found dead under her bed. It is a horrific crime but one that is not uncommon. Each year, an alarming number of young women, hide their pregnancies, then abandon their newborn babies. While many infants survive, others have encountered devastating fates. The situation is especially tragic considering there is a law in place to protect those unwanted babies. Since 2001, the safe surrender law (also called Safe Haven or Safely Surrendered Baby) allows parents to anonymously give a newborn to a hospital, police or fire station within 72 hours of the baby’s birth, without criminal implications. The problem is that the majority of young people don’t know the law exists. “A lot of education has gone to health-care workers and adult audiences,” says Jaynie Boren, vice president for strategic planning and business development at San Antonio Community Hospital. “What’s been missing is information geared toward junior high, high school, and college audiences.” But all that is about to change. This past summer,...

On October 7, 2006, a special concert commemorated the 25th birthday of the Rieger organ at Pacific Union College. With Del Case, professor emeritus of music, on the organ and guest musicians on the violin and harp, the concert featured a wide range of composers with music from the 17th century to the present. The Rieger organ was installed in the spring and summer of 1981, culminating over 30 years of dreaming and planning by organists Warren Becker, Lowell Smith and Del Case. Under Case’s direction and research, the college decided to have the organ constructed by Rieger Orgelbau of Austria. Case also determined the tonal design, headed the fundraising effort, and supervised the installation and voicing of the organ. With four manuals, 58 stops, 85 ranks and over 4,700 pipes, the organ remains the largest mechanical tracker action pipe organ in the Western United States. Many prestigious organists from the United States and Europe have performed on the Rieger, and three recordings have been produced. In his comments at the performance, Case explained that the organ cost $380,000 when it was installed; if we were to replace it today, it would cost at least $1.5 million....

Tim Gillespie, the campus chaplain at Loma Linda Academy, has been the speaker for this year’s first Week of Prayer at Pacific Union College. The week’s thoughts, summed up in his theme, “The Shallow End of the Pool,” are drawn from Gillespie’s life-long passion for swimming and offer humorous twists to otherwise serious topics like freedom and belonging. While morning sessions retained their typical format, Gillespie utilized an innovative format in the evening meetings in which the audience takes over the microphone and dialogues within itself about the day’s topic. PUC holds one week of prayer near the beginning of each quarter in order to infuse the student body with a sense of spirituality. Morning classes are shortened from fifty to forty minutes in order to accommodate the additional meeting time....

A sunny Sabbath morning in September found a group of Angwin residents, including several Pacific Union College faculty and staff members, holding their Sabbath school class in an unlikely location: a high school track in Calistoga. But they weren’t the only people there; a Relay for Life was in full swing, with members of about 50 teams walking or running laps in an event that celebrates survivorship and raises money to help the American Cancer Society. The TLC4 Sabbath school class, a group started and led by PUC education professor Jim Roy, signed up a team for the 24-hour event. “We felt it was a good way to spend our time and energy,” says Maggie Roy, the team captain and a social work department staff member. The team had a member on the track at all times, while holding their Sabbath school class and running an on-site fundraiser. The team’s creative fundraiser won them a “Best Use of Humor” award during the event. They had paper bras and boxer shorts pinned to a large umbrella, and when people came up to ask what they were all about, they were told that for any donation amount they could take the paper...

The first all-school colloquy of the year took place on Thursday, September 28, complete with the traditional procession faculty members in full regalia and bearing the school banners, the singing of hymn #1, and a church full of spirit as the college steps into a new academic year. College president Richard Osborn introduced the program with an emphasis on this year as PUC’s 125th anniversary. Director of public relations Julie Z. Lee and professors Cynthia Westerbeck and Bill Hemmerlin talked about their experience of PUC as a learning community, especially in light of last year’s decision to maintain our name as a college rather than changing to “university.” They reminded the assembly that that it’s about growing, learning, and finding one’s way; that a liberal arts education provides students with “freedom from single-minded servitude to your profession”; and that teachers are truly invested in their students as individuals both in and out of the classroom, before and after graduation....

School is back and the Pacific Union College Student Association kicked off the academic year with an al fresco fiesta, complete with a live mariachi band. Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff gathered at the track and field on Monday evening, September 25, to socialize and dine picnic-style on the grass. The annual event is a farewell to the summer, an opportunity for people to reconnect, and a celebration for the start of the fall quarter. “I think [the All School Party] is a good segue into the year. It starts everyone off on a good note and in a friendly atmosphere. It shows that PUC likes to have fun,” said Kristina Reiber, a sophomore English major. The majority of the college’s student body returned to campus over the weekend in preparation for classes, which began on Tuesday, September 26. The incoming freshmen, however, started moving into the residence halls last Thursday. In another campus tradition called Porter Power, campus volunteers helped the new students get settled by carrying boxes and suitcases to their rooms. “I think it’s really important to make the students feel welcome,” says Linda Cochran, assistant professor of nursing. She has been helping with Porter Power...