FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 4, 2008
CELEBRATION TO HONOR BETHANY IN LINDSBORG
LINDSBORG, Kan.—The close relationship between Bethany College and Lindsborg will be celebrated with several family-oriented events on Sunday, April 13.
The celebration will be the conclusion of a week of inauguration festivities at Bethany College. On April 12, Edward F. Leonard III will be formally inaugurated as the thirteenth president of Bethany College.
Joined by his wife, Sheila, and their son, Quade, Leonard will lead community members on a walk down the Välkommen Trail in Lindsborg. Participants are invited to gather at Bethany Lutheran Church at 1:30 p.m.
The Leonard Family “Sundae Stroll” will be followed by an ice cream social on the Bethany College campus from 2 to 4 p.m. A variety of children’s activities, including balloon animals and clowns, will be available. The Lindsborg Children’s Choir will perform at 3 p.m.
Also during the event, Bethany College will dedicate a new daisy bed on campus. Participants will have the opportunity to plant seeds in the bed, to be located just southeast of Wallerstedt Learning Center on campus. A plaque featuring B.G. Gröndal’s famous photograph, “Bethany Daisies,” will be unveiled.
The photograph was taken on campus in 1906 with Bethany summer school students as subjects. Historically, daisies have been a symbol of the college. The college’s annual yearbook was known as “The Daisy” until the early 1960s.
Gröndal, born in Vesteros, Sweden, in 1855, earned the title “Dean of Kansas Photographers” because of his long and distinguished career in Kansas photography. Dr. Carl Aaron Swensson, the founder and second president of Bethany College, first invited Gröndal to establish a studio in Lindsborg. Gröndal served Lindsborg and surrounding communities from 1887 to 1945.
Gröndal’s studio still stands at the southeast corner of Main and State in Lindsborg. He died in 1948, and is buried in Lindsborg’s Elmwood Cemetery.
Bethany College archives include many Gröndal photographs in yearbooks, including individual photographs and montages. The Old Mill Museum also has an extensive collection of his work. In 2006, the museum featured the exhibition “Lindsborg’s Legacy: the Photography of B.G. Gröndal.”
Bethany College, established by Swedish Lutheran immigrants in 1881, is a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The mission of Bethany College is to nurture and challenge individuals in their search for truth and meaning as they lead lives of faith, learning and service. Bethany College is on the Web at www.bethanylb.edu.
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