Crafting cultures

Written by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 01 December 2009 20:37

Diane Claassen inspects the stitching on the quilted wall-hanging she designed for the Hillsboro home of Yasuhiro and Charlotte Takahashi. The projects combine cultures from the couple’s binational living arrangement. Two local craftspersons are helping a couple merge the artistic traditions of their binational living situation at their home in Hillsboro.

Hillsboro High School and Tabor College product Charlotte Kennedy-Takahashi and husband Yasuhiro Takahashi live 10 months of the year in Japan, where they are successful business entrepreneurs.

 

But their hearts are also in Hillsboro, where they have created a spacious and tastefully furnished home at 402 S. Main. Charlotte’s mother, Mildred Karnowski, lives in the home year round.

“I think what we’ve done is we’ve gotten things from Japan, and these two people have helped us integrate Asian things into our interior decor,” Charlotte said last week during a holiday stay in...

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Gardner plans return as Tabor football coach

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 01 December 2009 20:33

Mike Gardner, who earned Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference “Coach of the Year” honors while leading the Tabor College football team to back-to-back conference titles in 2004 and 2005, is returning to coach the Bluejays.

After serving as the head coach at Malone University in Canton, Ohio, for the past four seasons, Gardner said returning to his native Kansas and to Hillsboro “felt like the right thing to do.”

 

“When I first came to Tabor College, I was at a point in my life when I needed a place like Tabor,” Gardner said. “Now I feel like it’s time for me to go back and try to help the school and help that team try to be competitive again.”

Gardner succeeds Mike Gottsch, who resigned after completing his third...

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County leadership program seeking more participants

Written by Patty Decker Tuesday, 01 December 2009 20:26

The application deadline for the 2010 Leadership Marion County class has been extended until Wednesday, Dec. 18.

Now in its 22nd year, the program has continued to change and evolve, but its basic principle of building current and future leaders has remained the same.

Nicole Suderman, a 2007 graduate and LMC board president, said that without the program, she wouldn’t have felt comfortable serving in the leadership roles she has now.

For many former graduates, the program was considered an eye-opening experience.

Tina Groening of Marion, a liaison with the group, said before joining LMC she didn’t think she had much to offer her community.

“I thought that even if I had something to offer, I wasn't equipped to deal with...

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Reflection spurs reflection

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 24 November 2009 13:28

foggyNovemberReflection.jpg

Phyllis Richert photo

The reflection of the mostly bare trees near one of the city ponds in Hillsboro’s Memorial Park contributed to an almost surreal scene Monday morning as a blanket of fog enveloped the area. Though last week had its share of sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures, Mother Nature’s portrait on Monday reminded residents that the “death” of the growing season is pending as winter nears. By afternoon, though, the fog had lifted, and the sun briefly returned to brighten the day as the Thanksgiving holiday nears. The forecast calls for sunshine and high temperatures in the low to high 50s to be the norm for the remainder of the week.