College/community celebration to wrap up anniversary year

Orange City residents are invited to a community/college celebration in Windmill Park Thursday, July 17, from 5 to 8 p.m. The free event will include a meal, giveaways, inflatable games for kids, a sports challenge, hayrides and entertainment.

“The celebration concludes Northwestern College’s 125th anniversary year and is the college’s way of saying thank you to the city for more than a century of faithful support,” says Dick Van Holland, longtime business professor and chair of the 125-Year Anniversary Committee.

The event is an expansion of the city’s annual Orange City Citizen Appreciation Picnic and is co-sponsored by Northwestern College, Missouri River Energy Services, Orange City Communications and the city of Orange City. Employees of those companies, the city and the college will serve a meal of rib-eye steak sandwiches, potato chips, watermelon, ice cream and pop. Current and retired Northwestern faculty and staff will also help with the games and hayrides and hand out free gifts to those attending the celebration.

The serving line for the meal will open at 5 p.m. and close at 7:30. Hayrides will run from 5:30 to 6:30 and from 7 to 8 p.m. A short program in the band shell at 6:30 p.m. will feature a Northwestern alumni brass quintet, a faculty/staff choir directed by Corky Koerselman—a 1982 NWC graduate and choir director at Sibley-Ocheyedan High School—and brief remarks by Northwestern President Greg Christy and Mayor Daryl Beltman.

Throughout the week of the celebration, various downtown Orange City businesses will feature college and community historical displays in storefront windows.