Mari Andrew
Mari Andrew C’08 says North Park taught her how to be a seeker. The author of Am I There Yet?: The Loop-de-loop, Zigzagging Journey to Adulthood and recipient of the Distinguished Young Alum Award credits her professors with preparing her for her career—and life in general.
“I was never given answers at North Park but rather a ton of questions,” Andrew says. “I left college feeling like I knew much less than when I started, which is what I think great education should do.”
Now living in the East Village in New York City, Andrew is a self-described full-time artist and writer. “That sentence is a dream come true,” Andrew says. “I am so grateful that I get to make art and write for a living.”
Andrew describes how she “stumbled upon” North Park late in the college application process. She had her heart set on a small liberal arts school in a large city, and even though she visited campus on a bone-chillingly cold day, she still fell in love.
“Everyone I met was so nice and really seemed to like being there, so I decided it was the place for me,” Andrew says.
Andrew didn’t have any career plans entering college, but instead chose her major based on her favorite professor: Susan Rabe, professor of history. With her guidance, Andrew ended up majoring in history with an emphasis on Medieval Europe, a choice that she says “changed my life.”
“My perspective on the world and my own understanding of a meaningful life evolved profoundly,” Andrew says. “I didn’t study what I ended up doing for a living, but I learned how to keep expanding my mind, make difficult decisions, and seek out ways to serve and give.”
Now, Andrew is working on her second book and dipping her toes into other media, with a potential television project. She says she feels grateful to be honored by an institution that means so much to her.
“My greatest hope is that I could inspire North Park students to ask big questions and make tough decisions in order to make their world a more loving, beautiful, safe, and welcoming place for all.”
Roy Applequist
Roy Applequist C’68 attended North Park during one of the most significant periods in Chicago history, and he has the memories to prove it.
“There was a lot going on in Chicago between 1964 and 1968,” says Applequist, retired founder and CEO of farm equipment maker Great Plains Manufacturing. “There was the snowstorm of 1967 . . . concerts by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Aretha Franklin, the Black Power movement that took shape in Chicago . . . ”
And then there were the on-campus memories. These include someone hiding Limburger cheese in the library and classes being canceled for several days until it was found; the very first rock and roll dance on campus; and the time Applequist joined dozens of other students in moving a Volkswagen Beetle, by hand, and depositing it in the middle of the campus bridge over the Chicago River.
Despite all the shenanigans, Applequist was able to get a great education at North Park, and after graduation grew his Salina, Kansas manufacturing plant from one employee (himself) to 1,500 by the time he sold it in 2016 to Kubota Corp.
“As I look back on life, I more and more believe a liberal arts education is very important,” says Applequist, an economics major with a minor in history. “Studying economics, business, and history gave me a good background in understanding how to address the future challenges that came my way in my career.
Applequist, who has three children and five grandchildren with his wife, Donice, says he also valued his Christian Ethics, Art History, and other classes, as well as his “caring, critical-thinking Christian” professors.
The Applequists enjoy attending their local Covenant church, particularly Sunday school and meetings of their home Bible study group. In retirement, Roy and Donice plan to travel more while Roy keeps his commitments to volunteer board service, including the North Park Board of Trustees and the Executive Board of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Betty Nelson
Betty Nelson spent her entire career at North Park Academy as a public speaking professor, but it was her extracurricular activities that she remembers best.
“A senior wanted to put on a play,” Nelson recalls. “Since I was the only one on faculty with speech training, they asked me to direct it. What was I going to do? I ended up doing senior plays for 15 or 16 years when I had no intention of ever doing even one.”
Nelson says that the first play, staged in the early 1950s, raised a few eyebrows on campus and across the Covenant. “People were saying, ‘Oh, look, North Park is putting on a play.’ It was sort of scandalous. A lot of people were watching. And after the play, I got a thank you note from the president of the Covenant. I kept that letter!”
That’s not the only letter she has saved over the years. At the Academy reunion in October, where Nelson was honored, she reunited with some of her young actors, as well as other alums, many of whom have sent Nelson letters thanking her for teaching them public speaking.
Nelson says the learning went both ways, especially because she was just 22 when she started teaching.
“They meant a lot to me,” Nelson says of her students. “They were always teaching me something new, and they allowed me
to grow with them.”
Now, when Nelson visits campus, she says she is overwhelmed by how it’s changed.
“Mary [Surridge] took me on a tour of the Johnson Center,” Nelson remembers. “I stood in the third-floor conference room, and I looked out the window and I could see the whole campus. I pointed out all the buildings I’d taught in: There’s Sohlberg, Old Main. It was a perfect spring day, there were kids playing Frisbee and studying for finals. It was an incredibly beautiful panorama of my life at North Park.”