Kurt Harder,
49
Friends,
family want scholarship to inspire teaching as Kurt Harder did
Kurt Harder
may have grown up on a farm in the Buhler-Moundridge area, but his curiosity
about the world blossomed early.
Harder, a
teacher and farmer who died of cancer Dec. 4, 2007, at 49, never lost his
inquisitive nature or his desire to inspire others to be curious. His family
and his Bethel College mod-mates, in consultation with him before his death,
have set up an endowed scholarship at Bethel in his memory, to help young
people who also want to inspire through teaching.
Harder's
mother, Dorothy (Regier) Harder, who taught third grade in the Buhler schools
for many years, used to make her three children, Kurt, David and Lynn, watch
'The CBS Evening News' with Walter Cronkite to keep them out of the way while
she made dinner.
Years later,
Harder's desire to keep exploring the world put him on a bus to Meridian,
Miss., for a week of work camp. Harder and Dwight Peters, another Kansas farm
kid but from Hillsboro, first met on that bus and, says Peters, 'found that we
had a lot in common, including our sense of humor.' They decided to room
together at Bethel when both started as freshmen a little over a year later.
Also at the work camp, Harder met Dorothy Stucky from Moundridge, who would one
day become his wife.
At Bethel,
Harder played trombone in the orchestra and jazz band - as his son, Benjamin,
who will be a junior at Bethel, now does. He participated in forensics, going
to the national competition one year. He graduated with a major in history, a
minor in communication and certification in secondary education, and went on to
teach history and social studies and coach basketball, at Newton High School
(1982-86), Santa Fe Middle School (1986-87), Maize High School (1987-91) and
Hesston High School (1991-2005). In 1991, he took over his family's farm and
began farming in addition to teaching.
'Kurt wanted
to know why things were the way they were,' Peters said. 'This coupled with a
sense of adventure allowed him to experience and comprehend a wide variety of
events.'
Peters
continued, 'As he matured, he began to show how much he really cared about
things that were important to him. This really became apparent in his teaching
methods. Since he knew he could not take all the students literally back to the
events they were studying, he did it figuratively, by going into historical
character. I found it to be a very profound way to teach, and I have relatives
that went through it as students that found it equally inspiring.'
Among
Harder's historical characters over the years: Johann Sebastian Bach, Samuel
Clemens (Mark Twain), Christopher Columbus, the Fonz from TV's 'Happy Days,'
Sigmund Freud, Ulysses S. Grant, Lyndon Johnson, Karl Marx, pacifist A.J.
Muste, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Socrates and figures from Kansas history. His
mother-in-law, Milly Stucky of North Newton, made many of his costumes.
'Of all us
that lived in the mods with him, he was the only one that stuck around in
central Kansas, and as such was our lifeline to each other,' says Peters, who
lives in Sugar Land, Texas, with other former mod-mates scattered from
Lancaster, Pa., to Fargo, N.D., to Los Angeles. 'I bet Dorothy saw quite a
parade of old friends come through the house on a moment's notice over the last
25 years.'
'Kurt's
friends were very supportive through (his struggle with) the cancer,' Dorothy
said.
'I miss Kurt
terribly,' Peters said, 'but not just because he was a great friend. I miss him
because I know he had such a positive impact on the people around him. A great
teacher can set a direction for a student, and I know he cared deeply to help
those students who could be helped.'
Kurt was
specific in his wish that if friends and family wanted to establish a memorial,
it should go to Bethel College, Dorothy says. The Kurt A. Harder Endowed
Scholarship will be given to a junior or senior majoring in history education
or, if no student meets that criteria, a junior or senior in history or in
education.
'I am not
one for establishing legacies for people,' Peters said, 'but Kurt's was a
legacy that I felt could be an inspiration for years to come. My feeling was
that it should focus on students, which is a place to [make] the greatest
impact for a life, although we recognized that Dorothy needed to choose the
best opportunity and criteria. We from (Mod 9A) all pitched in what we could to
establish the endowment in his name.'
Harder's
extended family members have also contributed and, in fact, the scholarship was
quickly endowed fully. Additional contributions will enable more than one
scholarship to be given each year. 'I hope and dream that this money will
impact students in ways they never imagined,' Peters says. 'Kurt was an
inspiration and a true friend.'
Inquiries
about donations to the Kurt A. Harder Endowed Scholarship should be made to the
Bethel College Office of Development at 284-5250, e-mail
development@bethelks.edu.
