01 SC Mag 02-24

SPRING 2024 

■ Lyrical dancers add to worship 

■ Smit dives into women’s fertility 

■ Church celebrates 125-year mark 

SIOUX CENTER 

MAGAZINE 

Perfect 

Vander Hart inspires 

musicians of all ages

2 SC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2024

ON THE COVER 

| CONTENTS 

SIOUX CENTER 

MAGAZINE 

SPRING 2024 

FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER 

Peter W. Wagner 

PRESIDENT 

Jeff Wagner 

24 

Making 

beautiful 

music 

ADVERTISING DESIGN 

Kaylena Engel 

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Chelsea Parks 

Camryn Reinking 

Alex Rolfes 

Kira Spaans 

EDITORIAL STAFF 

Kirsten Elyea 

Eric Sandbulte 

Morgan Sachen 

Aleisa Schat 

Thea Sterrett 

Amber Wester 

Renee Wielenga 

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Iowa. For advertising rates and other 

questions, please contact us by phone: 

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36 

Discovering 

God’s design 

Creighton Model education 

leads to life changes 

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 

7 

31 

40 

Central Reformed 

Church plans year of 

celebration 

Events highlight 125 years of rich 

tradition, all based in faith 

Dancing devotion 

Studio takes lyrical routines on the 

road to perform in area churches 

American State Bank 

Sports Complex 

Dome creates environment for sports, 

no matter Iowa weather conditions 

Copies of Sioux Center Magazine are 

available from participating Sioux Center 

businesses. We welcome suggestions 

and story ideas. 

©2024 Sioux Center Magazine 

No material from this publication may be 

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written permission from the publisher. 

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SPRING 2024 | SC MAGAZINE 3



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| FAITH 

“But when you see God’s faithfulness, 

you know He’ll carry us through. We know that 

His faithfulness will help us continue.” 

— JANET BOONE QUASQUICENTENNIAL TEAM CO-CHAIR 

year of 

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIC SANDBULTE 

CELEBRATION 

Much has changed in the last 125 

years, but the congregation at 

Central Reformed Church in 

downtown Sioux Center is as committed to 

a multigenerational vision of Bible-based 

worship as it was when it made a major 

change all those years ago. 

This year marks the 125th year since Central 

changed denominations. Established in 

1887, Central initially was a Presbyterian 

church and located at a different site. As 

was common for a Sioux Center church of 

that era, services were held in Dutch for its 

18 members from seven families. It was not 

Central Reformed 

Church has had a long 

history within the city. 

Originally established as 

a Presbyterian church, 

it switched to the 

Reformed Church in 

America in 1899. 


until 1912 that English began to be 

incorporated more into its services. 

However, the church faced some 

difficulties soon after its founding, 

dropping down to five members. So, 

in 1899, the decision was made to 

change denominational affiliation, going 

instead to the Reformed Church 

in America, and the church building 

was moved to a spot just to the north 

of where the current building at 113 N. 

Main Ave. is located. 

After that pivotal moment in the 

church’s history, so much would 

change. 

The church took on the name Second 

Reformed Church in 1905 and 

became Central Reformed Church in 

1934. The current church building was 

constructed in 1959. Interestingly, the 

1899 denominational change would 

not be the last time the congregation 

would make such a switch; the congregation 

voted in 2022 to leave the 

Reformed Church in America, and in 

2023, joined the Alliance of Reformed 

Churches. 

There is much history at the old 

Sioux Center church that could be 

listed, but for the 13-member team 

planning this year’s celebratory 

events, the quasquicentennial is just 

as much about celebrating the people 

who have made Central their spiritual 

home. Together, they have come up 

with a list of events to span most of 

the year. 

The yearlong celebration began 

Jan. 7 with an announcement about 

what would be done for the quasquicentennial. 

“We had a fun little skit introducing 

the events of the year, and we also 

introduced the prayer walk, which 

was supposed to start the next week, 

but that was the blizzard week,” said 

quasquicentennial team co-chair Janet 

Boone. 

For the prayer walk, cutout footprints 

marked a path throughout the 

church. It was a call to the anniversary 

year theme, “Following in the 

footsteps of Jesus.” 

“You could walk through the church 

and pray for the different things happening 

here and outside the church,” 

Boone said. 

Then on Feb. 4, Central had a worship 

night featuring songs and music 

reflecting different styles popular over 

the last 25 years. 

“We’re mostly focusing on the last 

25 years being that we had a 100-year 

celebration and covered many things. 

So, we thought we’d focus on the most 

recent 25. That’s basically when the 

praise and worship team started here. 


AT A 

GLANCE: 

Church: Central 

Reformed Church 

Pastor: Jesse Henkle 

Address: 113 N. 

Main Ave., Sioux 

Center 

Services: 9:30 a.m. 

Sundays 

Phone: 712-722-1441 

Online: www. 

centralreformed.org 

Minerva Bomgaars and 

Janet Boone are organizing 

events throughout 2024 to 

commemorate 125 years of 

Central Reformed Church 

being a Reformed church. 

Events highlight 

125 years in Biblebased 

tradition 

Music was really changing at the time in 

churches, bringing in praise songs in addition 

to hymns,” Boone said. “We had that 

and different stories about when it first 

started and who some of the early members 

were. We invited all of the past praise 

team members to come up and sing some 

songs together. It was a very fun night.” 

Events yet to come will include a trivia 

night in April, entering a float into the 

Sioux Center Summer Celebration Parade 

on June 8 and holding a golf day at The 

Ridge Golf Club on Aug. 4. 

The church also has big plans for Aug. 

10, a family fun day to be held at Heritage 

Village in Sioux Center. The baseball 

diamonds are going to be reserved for an 

all-ages kickball tournament, children’s 

games, crafts, plenty of good food and a 

cookoff. 

“This is probably going to be our biggest 

event,” said the other quasquicentennial 

co-chair Minerva Bomgaars. 

As of the most recent schedule, Nov. 24 

will be the final day of quasquicentennial 

year celebration. That Sunday, Central will 

have its 125th celebratory worship service 

with a Thanksgiving meal at Terrace View 

Event Center in Sioux Center to follow. Although 

the Thanksgiving meal is a regular 

part of the church’s annual events, the 

quasquicentennial team hopes to see some 

special guests this year. 

“We chose that day to invite past pastors 

back and join us for that day,” Boone 

said. “They have some special things happening 

at the meal and service.” 

The goal for all the special events 

throughout the year is to build community 

through the quasquicentennial celebration. 

The church takes pride in its multigenerational 

emphasis, and activities such 

as these help foster more of those crossgenerational 

relationships. 

“Within our congregation, people will 

get to know each other better and get to 

interact and work together. That’s why we 

tried to come up with ideas that have varied 

interests,” Bomgaars said. “We know 

not everyone is going to want to go to a 

music night or golf. But maybe they would 

like a trivia night and want to come to that. 

In each of those, you might have people 

together that might not have connected 

before. That’s the whole goal in this, to 

get that community building going on the 

whole year.” 

It is that camaraderie that made them 

feel welcomed when they joined the 

church. Both began attending after marrying 

their husbands, who were lifelong 

members. 

“I’m musical, so, of course, I got plugged 

in right away with playing organ and doing 

music stuff. So, I got to know people right 

off the bat. I learned a lot from people 

through the years,” Bomgaars said. “I just 

got plugged in right away and worked at 

the church office for a lot of years and got 

to know a lot of people and develop a lot 

of relationships that way.” 

And while there is gratitude in having 

a long-lived church, Boone said it is more 

important it continue to teach biblically 

based truths. 

“We do know we can’t just get comfortable,” 

Boone said. “We are being proactive. 

That was one of our goals in this, too. We 

want to look back, but we want to look forward, 

too. That’s why we chose the theme 

‘Following the footsteps of Jesus,’ because 

that indicates where we have been and are 

continuing to. 

“We certainly believe it’s important to 

look back because sometimes it’s hard 

to see that when you’re in the middle of 

something. But when you see God’s faithfulness, 

you know He’ll carry us through. 

We know that His faithfulness will help us 

continue.” 


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WELLNESS | 

Sioux Center is a city on 

the move, but some of its 

residents take that sentiment 

a step further, as the city’s sidewalks 

and recreation trails never lack for a 

few dedicated runners. 

For some, it’s a simple way to stay 

fit. Others find it to be a great way to 

relax and clear the mind. The appeal 

of working toward the next 5K or 

marathon also speaks to those with 

competitive natures. Regardless of 

what motivates them to put on their 

running shoes, the following three 

Sioux Center runners have found an 

activity that has changed their lives 

for the better. 

John Brantsen 

As a dairy nutrition consultant, 

a member of the Sioux Center City 

Council, a husband and a father, John 

Brantsen is a busy man. But running 

has become a part of the 46-yearold’s 

life as a way to stay fit despite 

his work and as a means of enjoying 

the outdoors. 

Working as a consultant for Midwest 

Precision Mixed Supplement 

keeps Brantsen on the road visiting 

dairies throughout the area. It’s work 

he enjoys, but all those miles behind 

the wheel take a physical toll. 

“I put on about 70,000 miles a year 

for work, driving. I sit a lot; I eat a 

lot of fast food. I found if I didn’t do 

something, a body can gain weight 

and get out of shape quickly,” he said. 

“When I started consulting in 2009 

or 2010, I gained a lot of weight in 

a hurry. I went from being out and 

about and moving around to being 

more sedentary.” 

Then 35 years old, he knew he 

needed to make a change to keep his 

health in check, and running was the 

answer, since it was something he 

could do no matter where he was and 

could do at any time. 

While he and his wife were visiting 

Grandma’s Saloon in Duluth, MN, the 

RUNNERS GO THE 

DISTANCE 


TEXT BY ERIC SANDBULTE | PHOTOS BY ERIC SANDBULTE & SUBMITTED 

restaurant’s famous marathon caught his attention. His wife was 

skeptical at first since he had not been a runner before. But he had 

something to work toward, and soon made running a habit, going 

for quick runs around noon between appointments or later in the 

afternoon when people are not available. 

It turned into a new way of life, with many races to show for his 

efforts. For nearly four years, he has run one mile every day, with 

few exceptions. He has run the distance of a 5K — 3.1 miles — for 

the last two years. 

“Going forward, since Jan. 1, 2022, I have run a minimum of a 

5K every day. That’s the minimum goal, and the goal is to average 

60 miles a week. That equates to 3,000 miles a year,” Brantsen said. 

To put that in perspective, that would be enough to cross the 

contiguous United States. 

Although there certainly is a solitary nature to running, Brantsen 

frequently makes time to run with friends he has made, going on 

different races all over, including some goofy runs, such as going 

around Lake Poinsett in South Dakota or a marathon inside the 

Empire Mall in Sioux Falls, SD. Sometimes these excursions take 

him quite far. 

Most weekends, he and his running buddies try to visit state 

parks throughout the region, such as the Oak Grove Park near Hawarden, 

Stone Park in Sioux City or Newton Hills State Park near 

Canton, SD. He also has enjoyed getting into ultra running, which 

can refer to any footrace longer than a marathon, providing runners 

with another challenge to work toward. 

“This year, I helped pace several people in their 100-mile races. 

Usually after 50 miles, they can take a pacer with them to keep them 

going. It’s usually through the middle of the night, and I had the 

opportunity to do that three times this year,” Brantsen said. “It’s 

a lot of fun to be a part of someone’s success to help them achieve 

their goals. Everyone thinks, ‘I can’t do 100 miles; there’s no way.’ 

There are some low times when you get 75 miles in or so and it’s the 

middle of the night and 10 degrees outside and the fun has worn 

out and everything hurts. But then to have them finish and see that 

excitement they have; the sense of accomplishment is really cool to 

be around.” 

Whether in tranquil parks by himself or putting on miles alongside 

friends, running has provided Brantsen with not just a healthier 

body but a healthier mind and plenty of memories. It makes 

those times when he has to force himself to go out for a run worth 

it. 

“It’s so easy to not take that first step. I’ve been there. It’s so easy 


Running routines provide health and peace of mind 

just to stay doing what you’re doing, 

comfortable in the house versus getting 

out and pushing yourself a little 

bit,” Brantsen said. “But then you take 

that first step and by the time you’re 

done, you have no regrets about it.” 

Lisa Christians 

Running seemed to come naturally 

to Lisa Christians. Although she was 

frequently in the habit of going out 

for walks or runs while in high school 

and college, she never took the step of 

joining school athletics. 

After that, she stuck with walking, 

but when she was 30, a friend pointed 

out she walked so fast she might as 

well run. 

“That’s how I got back into it,” said 

Christians, now 58. “It helps keep me 

steady. I just love it, love that feeling. 

Over the years, it’s been a real social 

thing for me, running with different 

people. I’ve done a lot of races, but I 

haven’t needed those to motivate me. 

They are fun to do, but I love to run 

for the sake of it.” 

The Dordt University academic records 

assistant tries to run at least 30 

miles each week — an Achilles tendon 

surgery four years ago made her reduce 

her mileage somewhat. She also 

has done eight marathons and numerous 

half marathons, although she has 

not participated in a race for several 

years. She counts the Boston Marathon 

as one of the most memorable 

races she has participated in. But it 

was her last marathon in Des Moines 

in 2013 that she made her big personal 

accomplishment by completing it in 3 

hours, 29 minutes, 28 seconds. 

“I broke my goal of three hours and 

30 minutes, which was what I always 

wanted to do. After that, I thought, 

you know what? I’ll just retire from 

racing,” Christians said, although she 

has done a few half marathons since 

then. 

These days, she mainly sticks to 

running on the Sioux Center recreation 

trail, which provides miles of 

paved path. Unless it is too windy or 

too icy, she runs outside year-round. 

Christian is glad to see the activity 

has spread to her kids as well. Her 

youngest daughter has done a couple 

of Half Ironman triathlons, her son 

has gotten into biking and her middle 

child ran track as a sprinter. 

“I always say to them, ‘I can outrun 

you; I probably can’t beat you 

in a footrace, but I can outlast you,’” 

Christians said. 

However, she also joked with her 

friends about when she might have to 

stop running. 

“I say to my friends that when it 

starts to look like, ‘Who is that old 

lady running? She should really stop,’ 

let me know.” 

Christians has noticed a difference 

in how she runs as she gets older. It 

requires more patience, and she is not 

as fast as she used to be, but there still 

is satisfaction in what she is able to 

accomplish and mental and emotional 

peace from it. 

“The friends I’ve met and made 

that I would never have associated 

with otherwise has been probably one 

of the best gifts for me,” Christians 

said. “You can get into a world with 

the people you go to church with and 

work with. My worlds kind of overlap 

through my work at Dordt and going 

to church, so having a whole different 

set of friends from a whole different 

part of Sioux Center and getting 

to know a whole different section has 

been something I loved.” 

Jen Vande Vegte 

Being a naturally competitive person, 

Jen Vande Vegte quickly fell in 

love with running, but it took a broken 

stroller for her to discover this. 

Going for walks with her newborn 

son in 2003 quickly became a habit for 

her, but she ran into trouble when the 

stroller broke. A co-worker gave her a 

Burley stroller, which could be used as 


a bike trailer or a jogging stroller. 

“Once I had that, I could start running 

with it, and I’d find myself going 

two miles with it today and then it became 

three miles,” Vande Vegte said. 

It went so well that in 2004, she 

entered her first race: the Tulip Festival 

Road Race. Since then, it has been 

a new way of life. She has been in 25 

marathons and an Ironman. Not bad 

for someone who did not do any running 

growing up. 

“Nobody loves waking up super 

early to get a run in, but it’s just part 

of things now. I wake up really early 

in the morning, and it just feels right. 

If I don’t start my day now with that 

run, the rest of the day feels weird,” 

she said. 

Now 46 years old, the Sioux Center 

Middle School secretary has kept 

up a regular schedule, running six to 

10 miles every day but Tuesdays or 

Thursdays, with the mileage increased 

when training. 

In addition to the Sioux Center recreation 

trails, she frequently makes 

use of the trail out to Sandy Hollow 

Recreation Area east of Sioux Center. 

Regardless of her route, she utilizes 

her Garmin smartwatch to track her 

distance, making sure she is reaching 

her goals. That device has been a 

game-changer for her. 

“I can’t remember running without 

it. It makes it a lot easier. Otherwise, 

you couldn’t weave through town and 

know how far you ran. You wanted to 

run in big squares, so you’d know how 

far you’d gone. Or I’d get in my car 

or on my bike after work and drive it 

or ride it to see how far I had gone,” 

Vande Vegte said. 

She appreciates running during 

the winter cold and the summer heat 

equally; to an extent, she likes the extreme 

weather the most. 

“Those are actually fun runs. You 

come back and you’re really frosty and 

your eyelashes are so long, you’re just 

one big snowball when you’re done, 

and chunks of snow are falling off. If 

it’s super hot, I think there’s something 

about that, too, that I really like 

when you’re standing there and sweat 

is just dripping on the ground,” Vande 

Vegte said. “I don’t know what it is 

about that. I don’t know if it makes 

me feel like I’m tougher or what, but 

I do like the extremes. Of course, the 

middle ground is very enjoyable in 

itself. That’s when you’re getting in 

those 15-mile runs and you feel really 

good when you’re done.” 

Whether she is running alone or 

with friends, every run has something 

to offer. Running, she has found out, 

can be a good way to bond with others, 

including her kids. All four of her 

children have run for school. 

“They’ve all picked it up. I don’t 

know if it’s because they grew up 

thinking you have to run or what. I 

hope they love it as much as I do,” 

Vande Vegte said. “On family vacation 

this last summer, my husband was the 

only one in the house, and we all went 

out for a run all together. That was a 

lot of fun. ‘Run’ — we were at 11,000 

feet in the mountains, so we kind of 

mostly walked.”

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CRAFTED WITH CARE | 

Brewing 

COFFEE & CONVERSATION 

TEXT BY RENEE WIELENGA | PHOTOS BY RENEE WIELENGA 

Finding a dilapidated 1930s 

round-roof building formerly 

home to an auto-parts store 

gave a young Sioux Center couple 

hope for their dream. 

Fourteen years later, The Fruited 

Plain Cafe owners Laremy and Rebecca 

De Vries continue to craft their 

business like their coffee, with care to 

be beautiful and useful, for the community. 

“The kind of community hub this 

place has become is a humbling 

thing,” said Rebecca, 43. “You start 

with a dream, a vision and your own 

desires of wanting to create a place 

where people can hang out and we 

can earn a living and you have ideas 

of how to create that kind of space and 

then it happens. We also realize that 

it happens aside from us in a way that 

keeps it all happening.” 

“There’s a symbiosis here,” said 

Laremy, 44. “We need a community, 

and we’re grateful for the community 

support that keeps us in business, and 

the community needs us, and I think 

they’re grateful for us, not only as a 

lunch space or coffee place but also 

as a space to meet old friends, make 

new ones, study, hang out, come on 

a date, relax. 

“Looking back, this place has allowed 

us to express ourselves, and 

it’s been well-received. It’s humbling, 

but there’s a pride in there, too, of 

being 14 years in business.” 

“We’re still asking ourselves if we 

remember the last 14 years,” Rebecca 

said. 

“It’s funny how time flies; it’s been 

a challenge,” Laremy said. 

“But it’s been worth it,” Rebecca 

said. 

The foundation for their dream is 

rooted in Laremy’s interest in coffee. 

The Pella native started his journey 

with coffee shops in high school 

as he worked for a friend’s mom, who 

owned a coffee shop. After graduating 

from Dordt College in Sioux 

Center, he and a friend opened The 

Humble Bean, a former coffee shop 

in the campus center. After meeting 

at Dordt, Laremy and Rebecca got 

married in 2004, then moved to the 

Netherlands for a year. 

“In Europe, the places that people 

hang out are not just a coffee shop or 

a bar — all bars have coffee, all coffee 

shops have beer on tap,” Laremy said. 

“We loved hanging out at those kinds 

of spots.” 

Then the couple moved to Annapolis, 

Maryland’s capital city, for three 

years where Laremy managed a coffee 

shop. 

Their first of three children was 

born while living in Annapolis. They 

began to consider where they wanted 

to raise their family as well as opening 

Couple’s café builds community downtown Sioux Center 


a coffee shop with a European 

vibe in mind. The couple had the 

opportunity to move back to Sioux 

Center, Rebecca’s hometown, for 

Laremy to fill a one-year role at 

Dordt. 

“We had no plans beyond that 

one year living in Sioux Center,” 

Rebecca said. “We looked at big cities, 

other Iowa towns. We were just 

looking around to see what fit and 

at some point, we started looking 

at what it would be like to open a 

coffee shop here.” 

A longtime vacant building formerly 

home to NAPA Auto Parts at 

172 N. Main Ave. piqued their interest. 

“A friend of mine knew about 

curve-roofed buildings like this, 

and we were able to look above the 

ceiling tile at the time and saw the 

big steel girders and thought we 

could do something cool with that,” 

Laremy said. “I remember when I 

was putting together proposals and 

going to banks, the building was always 

in my mind. This is where I 

wanted the shop to be. The whole 

business plan hinged upon this 

building. It was the first building 

we fell in love with.” 

“It’s hard to know why. It was 

pretty ugly,” Rebecca said. “All it 

was, was tile floor, drop ceilings, 

white wood paneling and rows of 

fluorescent lights, which was great 

for NAPA but not for a coffee shop.” 

They officially became owners 

of the building Labor Day weekend 

2009, but it was a long and messy 

process aided by Google SketchUp 

to design the cafe’s layout to 

transform the space into what’s 


AT A GLANCE 

Business: The Fruited Plain Cafe 

Owners: Laremy and Rebecca De 

Vries of Sioux Center 

Address: 172 N. Main Ave., 

Sioux Center 

Hours: 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday- 

Thursday; 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday- 

Saturday. 

Phone: 712-722-0901 

Online: www.thefruitedplaincafe.com; 

Facebook 

affectionately called “Fruited” since it opened Jan. 22, 

2010. 

“Thinking about the size of a space is always challenging,” 

Laremy said. “You don’t want it to be so big that it 

feels empty or too small that it feels tight, so over the 

years we’ve tried to figure out ways to carve out different 

spaces within this big warehouse building, and I think 

we’ve been successful at that.” 

Laremy designed the cafe’s seating areas to have various 

levels, one area of which has couches next to a piano 

so it can and has been used as a stage for musicians, 

church leaders and politicians. 

While the cafe portion of the building has seen minor 

changes in used furniture for seating, the rest of the 

structure has had other various changes including carving 

out a small studio for Donna Tea, owner of Cypress 

Massage, just a few years after opening. What was once 

the Backroom Bistro became Sidebar in 2021, although 

the couple still carries on the Italian food tradition of 

the bistro with spaghetti nights the first Friday of each 

month. 

What is currently used as overflow seating on the north 

side of the building has housed stores like the former 

Hands Around the Plain to InClover. 

“To need an overflow space for guests, whether they’re 

studying, hanging out, whatever, because the front area is 

so full some nights is really awesome,” Rebecca said. “We 

actually started using some of those spaces for seating 

with COVID, so we could have social distancing, but it’s 

amazing to see how we’ve grown since then even.” 

“COVID was a weird year for us,” Laremy said. “Being 

in a small town, I think we had a couple important things 

going on. We had this community that really wanted to 

support us and see us thrive, so when we started selling 

ports of soup and to-go pizzas to stay in business, people 

were eager to support us. And people weren’t really going 

out of town, they were looking for a place to go so when 

we finally could open up, people came. We were thankful 

we had the space next door and the patio outside for 

people to do social distancing but also still be here.” 

When 2020 closed, the couple found they had better 

sales that year than the previous year. 

“That’s humbling, seeing how much support we had 

for our small business. We’re so grateful,” Rebecca said. 

From homemade soups, salads, desserts and flatbread 

pizzas, the casual lunch options through the cafe have 

remained popular. 

“We didn’t realize how much people wanted that,” 

Rebecca said. “That quality grab-and-go kind of lunch 

has been something Sioux Center wanted and has been 

a staple for us.” 


Another unique aspect to the cafe is a former semicleaned 

up garage space dubbed the BackBack that The 

Ruralists, a band Laremy is in, began using as a rehearsal 

space in 2016. 

“I can tend to be a bit of a hoarder and used that space 

for storage but having a knack for collecting speakers and 

sound system equipment and needing a place to practice, 

eventually the space got more cleaned out, and it felt like 

it would be a legit venue for loader music, not just for 

practices,” Laremy said. 

The couple reached out to local bands to do shows; 

other touring bands like Good Morning Bedlam also 

stopped by for a few years. Scheduling bands, however, 

has been harder since the coronavirus in 2020, but the 

The Fruited Plain Cafe owners Laremy and Rebecca De Vries have 

worked 14 years to craft their business like their coffee, with care, 

to be beautiful and useful for the community. 

BackBack has since been used for Sioux Center Arts comedy 

events and the annual Pork ’n’ Bands fundraiser. 

“Having the BackBack is another facet of how we can 

serve the community, how we can express ourselves, how 

we can do stuff we think is fun and build a community,” 

Laremy said. “It aids the moneymaking side of the business, 

too, but being able to use this one building for all 

these things and seeing how much community support 

it has motivates us to continue.” 

Each aspect of the business gives the couple hope for 

the future. 

“Starting out, we knew we couldn’t strictly open a coffee 

shop in a small town that wasn’t used to spending 

money on just coffee, we needed to have more things to 

offer to stay open,” Rebecca said. “How we’ve done that 

has certainly changed in ways we didn’t expect or anticipate 

over the years, but it’s all kept us open supporting 

the community and the community supporting us, and 

we hope to keep that going for more years to come.” 

They, like their business, have undergone changes as 

well. What used to be more separate roles has become a 

blended mix for Laremy and Rebecca as business needs 

have changed and as their children have gotten older and 

have more activities. 

“Rebecca is also my duet partner, and we lead some 

church worship together and some school chapels together 

— we do a lot together,” Laremy said. “I couldn’t 

image doing business, doing life, without her.” 

“For better or worse, that’s us,” Rebecca said. “We 

wouldn’t have it any other way.” 


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LEGACY | 

Making beautiful 

MUSIC 

Gary Vander Hart lives out his Christian calling by teaching 

students to build and play their own instruments 

Most afternoons, the sidewalk 

leading up to Gary and Joan 

Vander Hart’s large yellow 

house on Fourth Avenue in Sioux Center 

is busy with foot traffic. Young students 

burdened by cello cases arrive at regular 

intervals. Others walk to the front 

step grasping sheet music and violins, 

classical guitars or violas. 

“Right now, I have 56 students,” Gary 

Vander Hart said. 

Vander Hart is 85 years old, but he 

continues to spend hours each day teaching 

private cello, viola, violin and bass 

lessons; he has a handful of piano and 

classical guitar students, too. Students 

as young as 8 make their way into the 

Vander Harts’ front parlor, where they 

are greeted by a large, red harpsichord 

that was built by Gary and painted with 

floral designs and biblical imagery by 

Joan. 

Just past the parlor, in the Vander 

Harts’ living room, sits a small pipe 

24 SC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2024

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ALEISA SCHAT 

organ from Philadelphia, the city 

where Vander Hart attended Westminster 

Seminary. Also on display is 

a seven-string Russian guitar, an ode 

to the years he spent teaching at several 

Russian seminaries after the end 

of the Cold War. During the 1990s and 

early 2000s, Vander Hart spent regular 

three-month stints in the country, 

teaching courses in biblical studies, 

church history and music. 

“I spent 15 years as a teacher in Russia, 

first in Moscow, then St. Petersburg,” 

he said. “I would go there six 

months out of a year.” 

His time in Russia was the late 

blooming of a seed planted decades 

earlier, at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, 

MI, where in his third year, Vander 

Hart decided to prepare for seminary 

and not earn a degree in music as he 

originally intended. 

“I decided I wanted to get to know 

how to read the Bible better, so I studied 

Greek and made Greek my major 

and philosophy my submajor,” he said. 

Music and mission would remain the 

great themes of his life, and while he 

changed his course of study in college, 

Vander Hart continued to play in string 

quartets and was concertmaster of the 

college orchestra all four years he attended 

Calvin. 

“I was playing quartet three times a 

week — I went through thousands of 

pieces of literature,” he said. 

The Russian guitar displayed in the 

Vander Harts’ living room is poised 

above a large concert harp, which itself 

looms above the sofa. The house 

is a veritable museum of instruments. 

Adjacent to the living room is another 

small room, the place Vander Hart 

has taught private music lessons for 

decades. The shelves are lined with 

musical literature — folk songs, classical 

pieces and “Twinkle Twinkle Little 

Star” for the beginners. 

“I start them in the first four weeks 

without holding the bow, so there’s 

no squeaks,” Vander Hart said. “They 

pluck it like a guitar, and they learn 

how to manipulate the right position 

— to play the melody.” 

This allows students — and their parents 

— to bypass the phase of learning 

that involves a good deal of dissonant 

screeching and croaking. 

“Then you just teach them how to 

use the bow with no fingers,” Vander 

Hart said. “You’re focusing on straight 

bows, at exactly the right place at the 

right speed. And then when you put the 

two together, you don’t get squeaks.” 

As a teacher, Vander Hart employs 

the Suzuki method, a mid-20th-century 

music curriculum and teaching philosophy 

created by Japanese violinist and 

pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki. Students 

learn to play music through imitation 

and repetition — much like a child acquires 

language — rather than through 

traditional methods that emphasize developing 

musical techniques by playing 

scales and other forms of technical 

practice. 

“It’s emphasizing playing beautiful 

music — beautiful music to enjoy right 

away,” Vander Hart said. 

Prodigy 

Vander Hart first picked up a violin 

when he was 6 years old. His family had 

moved to Denver from Teec Nos Pos, 

AZ, where his father worked at a mission 

among the Navajo established by 

the Christian Reformed Church in the 

early decades of the 20th century. 

“I was home from the Christian 

school, which was eight houses from 

school, for lunch,” Vander Hart said. “A 

man knocked on the door from Tabor 

Music School, saying, ‘Little boy, would 

you like to play a musical instrument?’” 

Vander Hart said, “yes.” In fact, he 

would like to play the trumpet. 

“So, the man said, ‘Well, go call your 

mom.’ My mom comes and says, ‘Get 

back to the kitchen and eat your lunch 

or you’ll be late for school,” Vander 

Hart said. “All I know is it’s four days 

later, I’m walking to Tabor Music 

School with a violin in my hand.” 

Vander Hart took to the instrument 

right away. Eventually, he discovered 


he was among the rare set of musicians 

who have perfect pitch, which is 

the ability to identify or recreate a given 

note without a musical reference. 

“By the time I was in eighth grade, 

ninth grade, my father saw I was really 

excited about violin. So, he searched 

around and found the best teacher in 

Denver,” Vander Hart said. 

David Eisenberg was considered the 

finest violin teacher in the city. Eisenberg 

originally was on the path to becoming 

a concert violinist, but he began 

teaching after nerves led him to flub his 

Carnegie debut. 

“I studied for years with him, but he 

knew all the literature and knew the 

best publications,” Vander Hart said. 

“I was so inspired by his teaching that 

I practiced two hours a day on violin 

all through high school, and I learned 

the hardest literature — Paganini, Bach, 

Tchaikovsky, you name it. I was even 

considering being a concert violinist 

myself.” 

Nearly eight decades after he first 

held a violin in his hands, Vander Hart 

often is the one to preside over a young 

person as they handle the instrument 

for the first time. Students begin by 

learning the instrument’s contours — 

where to rest their chins, place their 

hands. 

Planting programs 

Vander Hart’s legacy in Sioux Center 

begins nearly 60 years ago, when 

he founded the first string program at 

Sioux Center Christian School, the K-8 

school where he taught music for nearly 

a quarter century. 

“I got some opposition when I started 

in Sioux Center,” Vander Hart said. 

“They said, ‘You’re going to mess up 

our band program here.’ So, I said, ‘I 

don’t want to bother anybody. We’ll 

do this before and after school.’ So, 

it didn’t interfere with the band program.” 

The string program at Sioux Center 

Christian was the third program 

of its kind founded by Vander Hart, 

who stumbled into music teaching 

after finishing his seminary degree 

at Westminster. As a stop gap before 

pursuing training as a Wycliffe Bible 

translator, Vander Hart began a string 

program at a private Christian school 

in Philadelphia. He also began teaching 

private classical guitar lessons at a 

music school in the same city, where 

demand for guitar lessons skyrocketed 

at the height of The Beatles craze in the 

1960s. 

“The Beatles came in, and they 

couldn’t find enough teachers. There 

were 300 kids that wanted to take guitar,” 

he said. 

The only problem? Vander Hart did 

not play the guitar. The owner of the 

music school told Vander Hart that he 

had a job if he could learn how to play 

and teach the classical guitar in short 

order. 

“He said, ‘What you have to do is, I’ll 

give you the eight volumes of Mel Bay’s 

guitar method, and if you can play the 

eighth volume, and play it well, you can 

be my teacher,’” Vander Hart said. “I 

learned that in two weeks. I had time to 

practice, and my fingers were burning 

hot in pain. I taught there for the rest 

of the year.” 

He next took a teaching job at New 

Holland Christian School in New Holland, 

SD, where he moved intending to 

eventually study at a school for Wycliffe 

Bible translators in the neighboring 

state of North Dakota. 

“At New Holland, I taught secondyear 

Latin, first-year German, American 

lit, English lit, general music, choir 

five days a week, and I started a string 

orchestra there,” Vander Hart said. 

He intended to renew his contract, 

but that year, the South Dakota Department 

of Education ruled all teachers 

must have a teaching certificate to continue 

teaching. Vander Hart enrolled at 

Dordt College in Sioux Center in 1965, 

and he began teaching string lessons 

“I tell the kids, ‘The violin has a soul. It knows when you’re in tune. 

And they believe me. And then I say, ‘No, t 


to students at Sioux Center Christian 

School before and after school. 

“So, that began this program here. I 

didn’t go back into missionary work,” 

he said. “I felt I had more talent in 

teaching violin than I did in preaching. 

And yet, I used all my seminary 

training as much as I could in teaching 

music.” 

After some early resistance, Vander 

Hart’s school orchestra program became 

well-established, and today the 

grade school supplies well-trained 

string players for high school orchestra’s 

across the region. 

“Eventually, we had enough good 

kids that in ’72, we started what we now 

call the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra,” 

he said. 

NISO has doubled in size since then, 

and it includes around 80 talented musicians 

from across the tri-state region. 

Vander Hart still plays with the Sioux 

Center-based orchestra, which offers 

regular concerts at the B.J. Haan Auditorium 

on Dordt University’s campus. 

String Center 

Vander Hart retired from full-time 

teaching more than two decades ago, 

but his days remain full of music. He 

teaches a course in string pedagogy at 

Northwestern College in Orange City 

every other year, and along with tuning 

dozens of pianos a year, Vander Hart 

maintains a rigorous schedule of teaching 

private lessons. 

“Violin has a way of teaching stuff 

about music that you can’t quite as easily 

teach on other instruments. String 

players are constantly thinking about 

being in tune,” he said. “It’s not like a 

piano — already tuned for you — or like 

pushing a button on a brass or a woodwind. 

So, you’re going to be a better 

singer because you’re thinking about 

your pitch all the time.” 

Vander Hart also keeps himself busy 

with the business he founded in 1966 

and operates out of his historic home. 

“The Sioux County String Center is 

my business — I have the permit up on 

the wall,” he said. 

In his teaching studio, along with 

lesson books devoted to the Suzuki 

method and charts explaining the 

mathematics of musical harmony, 

there is a wall of small tools used in 

the repair and construction of string 

instruments. 

“In eighth grade, the first book I ever 

bought that I paid for with my own 

money was a book called ‘Violin Making 

as it Was and Is,’ a republication of 

a book of 1850 from England,” Vander 

Hart said. “I learned a lot about how to 

repair things from that.” 

He continued his training in adulthood, 

making frequent visits to the 

Sioux City violin shop owned by Harold 

A. Wall, a specialist in violin repair. 

Eventually, Vander Hart became 

the area’s only self-taught luthier, the 

term for a craftsman that specializes 

in building, restoring and repairing 

stringed instruments. 

“I serve eight schools in the area, and 

then I serve anybody else who needs 

string things,” he said. 

When a violin gets inadvertently 

If you play in tune, the violin sings. If you play out of tune, it won’t.’ 

that’s not the reason.’” — GARY VANDER HART MUSIC TEACHER 


trampled by a younger sibling, or its 

bow is in need of rehairing, Vander 

Hart is the one to call. He also maintains 

a supply of stringed instruments 

available to students for rent or purchase, 

doing work behind the scenes 

to provide high-quality instruments 

at affordable prices. He buys them at a 

discount from a large company in Alabama, 

although in the early years he 

imported instruments from Germany. 

“I now provide my cello players with 

instruments from the clearance corner, 

which means that online, you can see 

what’s wrong with this little instrument. 

It’s new but has a crack or it has 

a fingerboard unglued or peg missing,” 

Vander Hart said. 

Along a top shelf in his studio is a 

line of richly lacquered violins made of 

maple and spruce. They are available in 

half, three-quarter and full sizes, ready 

to grow along with his students. Larger 

instruments are stored elsewhere. He 

provides the labor for repairing the instruments 

he purchases for resale at no 

cost. 

“I can get my 

kids cellos for 

$1,000 that what 

the outfit would 

list for probably 

$3,200,” Vander 

Hart said. 

Along with repairing 

and restoring 

instruments, 

he also 

builds them from 

scratch, and in 

his basement, 

he keeps larger 

tools, including 

the wood bending 

iron he uses to 

create the curvature 

in an instrument’s acoustic chamber. 

Along with tools, there are shelves 

for storing the varieties of wood most 

suited to musical construction, for their 

physical qualities and their beauty. 

“It’s always spruce for the soundboard. 

Spruce is the strongest wood 

with the lightest weight. That’s why 

spruce is chosen for the masts of the 

clipper ships. Big winds blowing those 

things, they don’t crack off,” Vander 

Hart said. “The backs and sides are 

always made of maple. That’s because 

it’s a good reflective wood. It doesn’t 

have pores in it, so it’s smooth, and it’s 

strong.” 

In his basement there is a large 

storage area for wood, and along with 

stacks of unfinished maple, there are 

beams of heavy walnut, Sitka spruce 

from Alaska, mahogany from Honduras 

and Madagascar ebony. 

Along with building instruments 

for his own delight and use, to date, 

Vander Hart has helped well over 100 

students build their own classical guitars 

and more than 300 students build 

their own mountain dulcimers. The 

dulcimer is an American folk instrument 

that originated in the Appalachian 

Mountains in the 19th century. 

“The mountain dulcimer is an amazing 

instrument,” Vander Hart said. “It’s 

the easiest instrument to learn, and it 

will last a lifetime. It’s very sturdy — 

they don’t crack easily.” 

The dulcimer has just four strings, 

and he teaches his students a simple 

method of musical notation called tablature, 

which uses symbols to represent 

finger placement rather than pitch. 

Vander Hart regularly offers mountain 

dulcimer class during Dordt Discovery 

Days, a weeklong summer day camp at 

Dordt that draws students from across 

the region. The kits students use to 

build their own dulcimers are prepared 

by Vander Hart, who spends hours 

preparing each instrument’s scroll peg 

head, planing wood, and using pressure 

and heat to bend the wood used for the 

instrument’s sides. 

Teaching students to build and 

play their own instruments is one way 

Vander Hart has lived out his sense of 

Christian calling. 

“I tell the kids, ‘The violin has a 

soul. It knows when you’re in tune. If 

you play in tune, the violin sings. If you 

play out of tune, it won’t.’ And they believe 

me,” he said. “And then I say, ‘No, 

that’s not the reason.’” 

Then he gets out his charts, and 

Vander Hart explains the mathematics 

of overtones and the principles of 

harmony. 

“You see such order in music — the 

mathematics in music is awesome. 

That’s where we get our major chords 

from,” he said. “Our love for peaceful 

sounds — is this a cultural thing? No, 

it’s a created thing. God’s creation is a 

mathematical thing.” 


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| CULTURE 

Dancing 

Devotion 

TEXT BY ALEISA SCHAT | PHOTOS BY ALEISA SCHAT & SUBMITTED 

Sioux Center resident and longtime dance 

instructor Robin Van Es remembers when 

her young daughter, Kirbee, would escape the 

confines of her church pew and dance during the worship 

service. 

“She’s 28 now, but way back when Kirbee was 2 or 3, 

she would always dance during church, kind of in the 

aisle. And I thought, ‘Why don’t we dance in church?’” 

the 47-year-old Van Es said. “To me, who loves dance, it 

seemed to be the most logical expression of praise and 

worship.” 

Van Es founded Robin’s School of Dance in 1994 when 

she was still in high school, and over the years, her studio 

has grown, drawing students from across the region. 

The school offers classes in ballet, hip-hop, tap, jazz 

and contemporary, among other forms of dance, and is 

located at 1602 First Ave. SW in Sioux Center. This year, 

Robin’s School of Dance will celebrate its 30th anniversary. 

Witnessing her daughter’s first tiny expressions of 

worship in church inspired Van Es to form a troupe of 

dancers that would learn a new lyrical worship routine 

each dance season and perform in area churches during 

Sunday worship services. 


Portraying the love of God 

through their movement 

“When we started our church tour, I think that was 

probably about 25 years ago, and I had been teaching for 

four or five years,” Van Es said. “It’s honestly my favorite 

part of the dance studio. I think it’s good for our kids to 

feel like it’s not all about me, and it’s not about performing. 

They’re going to go and serve and portray the love 

of God through their movement.” 

The church tour started small and originally included 

a handful of dancers interested in liturgical dance. The 

dance troupe’s reception at the first church it ever visited 

was positive, but Van Es said she has encountered some 

resistance from area churches over the years. 

“The first one we went to, if I remember 

right, was a little Catholic church,” she said. 

“They were so welcoming, and it was so tiny, 

and at that point we maybe only had 10 kids 

doing it. But they were open to it, which was 

kind of unique — because there has been a 

little bit of resistance.” 

Especially at the beginning, many of the 

region’s churches held tightly to tradition, 

which dictated the range of liturgical expression 

that was permissible in their sanctuaries. 

Singing hymns, or even contemporary 

worship songs, was expected by most 

churchgoers, but dancing as a form of praise 

and worship was not. 

“Even in churches that are more open to 

it, there’s always some people in the church 

— not necessarily the older generation, but 

usually the older generation in the church 

— that just aren’t quite open to it,” Van Es 

said. “I have seen in the last 25 years a huge 

shift in that.” 

She has adopted a posture of gentle curiosity 

in the face of reticence. 

“It’s OK if you’re not open to it, but what is 

it? I just ask them to kind of open their heart 

and mind to it, and I’ll oftentimes show them 

a video of a past worship dance and just ask them to see 

if the spirit speaks to them,” Van Es said. “So often, if 

people are willing to have a conversation, or willing to 

look at one of our past dances, their eyes and their hearts 

are really opened.” 

In these conversations, Van Es also may point out the 

biblical precedents for dancing as a form of worship, including 

King David in the Old Testament, who was said 

to have “danced before the Lord with all his might.” The 

dance studio’s tagline is drawn from another biblical text, 

Psalm 149: “Let them praise His name with dancing!” 

“It’s a very natural way to praise and express faith 


and share the love of Jesus 

through movement,” Van 

Es said. “I think everybody 

thinks of the dualism of body 

and spirit, and body being 

evil and spirit being good. 

But when they see it, it’s kind 

of like, ‘Oh, but wait. The 

spirit can lead us to move 

this way.’” 

The studio’s church tour routine has been different 

each season, and in the past the group has danced to instrumental 

music, traditional hymns and contemporary 

Christian worship music. 

Over the years, Van Es said many churches have grown 

enthusiastic in their reception of her dancers, who have 

performed across a wide variety of denominations in 

communities all around N’West Iowa. After the troupe 

performs in a church, it is often invited back, she said. 

“There has definitely been a softening,” Van Es said. 

“We could almost do it every week of the year, and it’s 

just that our parents and students want to go to their 

own home churches for worship instead of traveling every 

“I think kids know how to just dance until we 

tell them they shouldn’t. Why do we tell them they 

shouldn’t? Just let them dance.” 

single Sunday.” 

For the first time this year, Robin’s School of Dance 

has two separate troupes that travel to area churches and 

participate in Sunday morning worship services. The studio’s 

original church tour took place twice a year, around 

Christmas and Easter, two important dates in the Christian 

liturgical calendar. 

“Simply because those seem to be exciting times in 

the church, and celebratory times, and the churches are 

always so beautiful, decorated at that time,” Van Es said. 

In recent years, the church tour has shifted to other 

times of year. Dancers typically spend several days a year 

traveling to as many regional worship services as possible 

on a given Sunday. The most church tour stops took place 

the last Sunday in January. 

“Oftentimes, we don’t get to stay for the worship 

service when we do share our routine because we’ll 

dance at the beginning of a 9:30 service in Rock 

Rapids, which is what we did last Sunday, and we 

go right over to Lester and do the end of their 9:30, 

then we quickly go right over to Rock Valley, and 

we do the beginning of their 11 o’clock service,” Van 

Es said. “We try to share with as many as we can.” 

Until this year, the church tour was limited to 

members of the studio’s competitive dance company, 

which this year includes 76 dancers of all 

ages who elect to participate in competitions. Their 

church routine includes all ages in a single performance. 

— ROBIN VAN ES 

DANCE INSTRUCTOR 

“They each have their individual sections with 

their small groups, divided by age and ability, and 

then they come together at the end for a big, kind 

Students rehearse a routine at Robin’s School of Dance in Sioux 

Center. Members of the studio’s competition company also 

participate in an annual tour of churches throughout the area, 

where they perform a lyrical dance routine during worship services. 


of a beautiful pose,” Van Es said. “It 

looks like heaven to me — what in 

my mind I think heaven would look 

like.” 

For the first time this year, another 

group from the studio is making 

the church rounds, performing 

the church routine in area churches 

at different times of year. 

“We had so many people asking, 

‘Well, we don’t really want to be in 

competition or do that full commitment, 

but could we still do the church tour?’” Van Es said. 

“So, we started a new class called ‘Lyrical Worship.’” 

Anyone who enrolls in the course gets the chance to 

perform in a yearly tour of churches. 

Ashton native Jennifer Mangel, a 2019 graduate of 

Sheldon High School, teaches the “Lyrical Worship” class 

and joined the studio as a teacher this season. 

“I have been teaching and dancing for a long time, so 

lyrical isn’t new, but I’m kind of putting it to a worship 

song. It’s light and airy,” she said, describing the style’s 

characteristic movements. 

These days, some churches still decline to be a stop on 

the church tour, but Van Es said most churches that have 

invited the troupe to perform in the past enthusiastically 

invite the dancers to return. 

“I’ve heard from people in congregations — they’ll 

even write the students notes and send them to the studio 

and say, ‘You know, I was really able to connect with 

God through this dance. I’ve never been able to before,’” 

Van Es said. “It’s just like how people learn differently in 

school — some of them learn visually or audibly, or they 

have to write things. I think it’s the same with worship. 

People sometimes just need to see movement to put to 

the words of these songs to really have it penetrate their 

heart.” 

Company dancer Paige Johnson, who is 16, has been 

participating in the church tour for years. 

“I would say the best part about doing the dancing in 

churches is seeing people’s reactions,” she said. “Sometimes 

we have people cry. One thing just makes it feel 

really important is that we could help someone else see 

God in that way. In a different way than just a normal 

church service.” 

Fourteen-year-old Nayibe Diaz is another member of 

the group. 

“It’s just uplifting, and it brings joy 

to everyone,” she said. 

Van Es said the joy inherent in 

dancing is part of why she has committed 

her life to making dance training 

accessible to young people in the 

region. 

“The essence of life movement, and 

I think kids know how to just dance 

until we tell them they shouldn’t,” 

she said. “Why do we tell them they 

shouldn’t? Just let them dance, you 

know? I think they almost all start 

out that way, until we tell them to sit 

still. And it’s like, ‘Don’t sit still. Keep 

dancing.’” 


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HEALTH | 

Women’s menstrual cycles 

and days of fertility have 

been shrouded in mystery 

for centuries. 

And that’s how Trisha Smit of Sioux 

Center felt about her body while taking 

birth control for three years after she 

and her husband, David, married Aug. 

6, 2011. 

“This didn’t feel like the right solution, 

like it wasn’t really getting at the 

root of our concerns about our fertility,” 

said Smit, 35. 

That all changed in 2014 when Smit 

was given the recommendation to stop 

the birth control pill and switch to a natural 

family planning method called the 

Creighton Model FertilityCare System, 

or CrMS, by her family physician after 

the surgical removal of several fibroadenomas, 

or noncancerous tumors, from 

her breasts. 

CrMS relies upon the observation of 

biological markers that allows a woman 

to monitor and maintain her gynecologic 

and reproductive health. Additionally, 

CrMS allows couples to identify 

the days of fertility and infertility. These 

biomarkers also indicate abnormalities 

in a woman’s health and helps couples 

know when they are naturally fertile 

and infertile, allowing the couple to use 

the system either to achieve or to avoid 

pregnancy. 

After a few months of charting, Smit’s 

biomarkers revealed some red flags 

about her cycle she had been unaware 

of — low cervical mucus production and 

progesterone levels, both of which indicate 

concerns in being able to achieve 

D 

Creighton Model education 

leads Smit to life changes 


Discovering 

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY RENEE WIELENGA 

GOD’S DESIGN 

and maintain a pregnancy. 

Initially, Smit used natural procreative technology 

through CrMS to evaluate, monitor and maintain her 

menstrual cycles to achieve a normal state and avoid 

pregnancy. The couple then adopted the system and 

necessary treatment options based on her biomarkers 

to maintain two pregnancies to 37 weeks’ gestation 

and deliver two healthy boys — Parker, now 8, and 

Aiden, 5. 

Through this process Smit learned that fertility is 

observed as a part of health, not disease. 

“More importantly, I have learned how God has 

created our bodies and how He has designed it with 

precision and order. God has designed couples’ fertility 

in a unique way that can be managed naturally 

and allow our human sexuality to be broadened and 

deepened,” she said. “This deeper understanding of 

our bodies has allowed me to see our Creator in a very 

different perspective and continue to be in awe of His 

creation.” 

Unraveling the mysteries of her menstrual cycles 

led Smit to more discoveries and life changes. 

“A woman’s menstrual cycle is her fifth vital sign 

and can tell her a lot about her overall health,” Smit 

said. “Since I had a good understanding of my menstrual 

cycle, I was encouraged by a good friend to 

read ‘Fast Like A Girl’ by Dr. Mindy Pelz. The book 

describes how intermittent fasting and selective food 

choices can allow our ovarian hormones — estrogen 

and progesterone — to flourish.” 

After reading the book, Smit has been incorporating 

intermittent fasting during certain times of her 

menstrual cycle. Other times in a woman’s cycle require 

hormone-feasting foods consisting of protein 

and natural carbohydrates — butternut squash, sweet 

potatoes, spinach, broccoli, berries, etc. — to aid the 

production of estrogen and progesterones. She also 

began following the ketogenic diet while fasting, 

which is high in protein and healthy fats. 

“Balancing the hormone hierarchy is critical in the 

success of my ovarian hormones; therefore, I select 

foods that do not spike my blood sugar,” she said. 

“By balancing my insulin, it supports estrogen and 

progesterone, but if insulin or cortisol hormones are 

high, they start to accelerate the decline of my ovarian 

hormones. Therefore, intermittent fasting helps balance 

cortisol levels, stabilizes insulin and helps cells 

become more sensitive to sex hormones.” 

This education and knowledge developed within 

Smit a desire to share with other women so they, too, 

could understand how their cycles function. This allows 

women to confidently know how their bodies 

work and better appreciate the gift of their fertility. 

“God started placing the thought of becoming a 

FertilityCare practitioner on my heart in 2020, but 

I was stubborn and kept pushing it to the side,” she 

said. “God continued to put women in my life that 

were struggling with similar situations I have gone 

through, and I was able to share my story. 

“In April 2023, I saw that there was a lack of education 

regarding women’s health in our community, 

so I reached out to my practitioner and director at 

Ashwood FertilityCare Center to see what potential 

there was in this field. I decided to follow something 

FertilityCare Practitioner intern Trisha Smit of Sioux Center reviews Creighton Model FertilityCare System charts as part of her training to 

teach other women and help them learn more about their menstrual, fertility cycles and general wellness. 


FertilityCare Practitioner intern Trisha Smit of Sioux Center 

holds up the variety of charting stickers connected with the 

Creighton Model FertilityCare System that she discovered in 

2014 and has since learned to love. The program seeks to 

teach women of all ages about fertility cycles and general 

wellness. 

I was passionate about and God was placing 

it on my heart and applied for the Creighton 

Model Practitioner Program at the Saint 

Paul VI in June 2023. I was accepted into 

the education program in August 2023.” 

The practitioner education program started 

in October 2023 in Omaha, NE, and Smit 

is in her internship until October 2024. 

“The goal is to take my final exam in November 

2024 after all case studies and internship 

requirements are met,” she said. 

“I have been honored that Kari Beadner, 

director of Ashwood FertilityCare Center, 

welcomed me into her FertilityCare Center 

as an affiliate to continue to serve women.” 

As a FertilityCare practitioner intern, 

Smit serves clients in-person and online two 

nights a week as a side job. 

Her full-time job is a project manager for 

Precigen Exemplar, a biotechnology company 

in Sioux Center that produces genetically 

engineered swine and is a company the 2011 

graduate of Northwestern College in Orange 

City has worked for almost 14 years. 

“What drives me is that, in general, there 

is a lack of education to women regarding 

their menstrual cycles and how to navigate 

through them starting at puberty especially 

with PMS symptoms and irregular cycles,” 

Smit said. “I am passionate about educating 

adolescent girls and women on their 

menstrual cycle and vital information that 

can be obtained through charting. As more 

women become educated in understanding 

their unique cycle and not comparing it 

to a generalized app, it will empower them 

to make decisions regarding fertility and 

hormone regulation, which will lead to improved 

health and lifestyles. 

As an intern, Smit joins five FertilityCare 

practitioners serving Ashwood FertilityCare 

Center that together offer a free 90-minute 

live group introductory session about the 

Creighton Model. 

“As someone that was treated with infertility 

and has experienced two miscarriages, I 

want to show compassion to others that may 

be in similar situations and for them to know 

what resources that are available to them,” 

Smit said. “My desire is that couples would 

learn to appreciate their fertility and learn 

how to make decisions together regarding 

their fertility; and for women to be an active 

participant in monitoring and maintaining 

their own procreative and gynecologic 

health.” 

AT A 

GLANCE 

Name: Trisha Smit 

Position: FertilityCare 

Practitioner intern 

through the Ashwood 

FertilityCare Center 

Phone: 507-841-2082 

E-mail: trisha.smit. 

fcp@gmail.com 

Online: www. 

ashwoodfertilitycare. 

com 


novels. 

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VOL. 51 NO. 33 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2024 www.nwestiowa.com 

FIRST IN A SERIES 

TEACHERS 

TAKE ON 

CHATGPT AS 

REVOLUTION 

HITS AREA 

CLASSROOMS 

BY ALEISA SCHAT 

ASCHAT@NWESTIOWA.COM 

Tournament time 

EGIONAL—When West 

Sioux High School junior 

Gregory Cook submi ted an 

outline for a speech for his 

online co lege-level speech 

course last semester, he 

received a notification it had been 

flagged by an artificial inte ligence 

detector as generated by A.I. 

“The online interface tha the college 

uses checks for A.I. and originality 

in each individual assignment, and 

one of my assignments I put in, it got 

flagged as A.I.-wri ten — but it wasn’t,” 

said the 16-year-old from Hawarden. 

It has been nearly a year since 

OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the 

public, and since then, it has become 

the fastest-growing app of a l time, 

outpacing similar applications, like 

Google’s Bard, and accumulating more 

than 180 mi lion users. 

In December alone, its website generated 

1.6 bi lion hits. 

The technology has only improved 

Postseason play gets underway for high school 

boys and girls hoop teams across N’West Iowa. 

See SPORTS Section C 

Tom Truesde l interacts with students in his first-year writing course at Northwestern Co lege 

in Orange City. Truesde l has led Northwestern’s response to new technologies like ChatGPT. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 

The generative artificial inte ligence revolution already is quietly unfolding in N’West Iowa, bringing forth a 

wave of cha lenges and new po sibilities. Advancements in the field of generative A.I. are having a transformative 

impact on education, busine s, art and photography, and precision agriculture. This series wi l explore the farreaching 

implications of these powerful new tools. This introduction was generated with the help of ChatGPT. 

1 3 

IN 

since it first made a splash in March 

of 2023 and the latest iteration of 

ChatGPT is more flexible, accurate and 

creative than its predecessor. 

In response to prompts from users, 

the chatbot can answer questions, 

write code and generate original 

essays, poems and even fu l-length 

It could, in theory, generate a lucid 

and we l-organized outline of a 

co lege-level speech on the topic of 

artificial inte ligence in education, as 

Cook was asked to do by his online 

Cook, however, did not complete 

the assignment with the help of a 

chatbot. Nevertheless, hi submi ted 

outline was flagged as A.I. generated 

by CopyLeaks, the plagiarism-detection 

software used by many co leges 

and universities to enforce academic 

integrity policies. 

“I’m not going to lie — I was a bit 

angry about it,” Cook said. “I wasn’t 

going to go o f on the teacher about 

it or anything like that — I wouldn’t 

do that. But it’s jus the fac tha these 

A.I. detectors are being put in place 

because some students are going to 

use A.I. to cheat, and the fac that I’m 

See A.I. on page A7 

CHATGPT WAS RELEASED NOV. 30, 2022 

heart disease deaths 

are preventable 

Amy Jurrens addresses students 

during her public speaking course at 

Northwest Iowa Community Colege 

in Sheldon. Photos by Aleisa Schat 

IT HAD 180 MILLION USERS IN ONE YEAR 

ITS WEBSITE GENERATED 1.6 BILLION HITS IN DECEMBER 

SCHEDULE YOUR IMPORTANT PRIMARY CARE APPOINTMENT TODAY (712) 476-8100 

Orange City 

hospice care 

facility eyed 

Volkers sees need for care for 

people in their final moments 

BY ERIC SANDBULTE 

ESANDBULTE@NWESTIOWA.COM 

ORANGE CITY—Hospice care provides peace for 

people in their final moments, but finding a comfortable 

place to stay while receiving such services 

is a cha lenge in N’West Iowa. 

Jane le Volkers of Orange City knows from personal 

experience how valuable quality hospice care 

facilities can be, and she’s seeking to build a hospice 

care facility of her own in Orange City. 

Fundraising material describes the facility, named 

Evensong Hospice Home, as Iowa’s first and only 

nonprofit private-pay hospice home. 

“The name Evensong was in my devotions about 

four years ago,” Volker said. “It’s a Gaelic term for 

the end of the day, the last songs of the day or the 

last worship of the day. It can mean the last hour 

See EVENSONG on page A5 

IOWA 

INFORMATION 

MEDIA GROUP 

712.722.0511 • 1.800.247.0186 

INSIDE: 

Jane le Volkers plans to build a new nonprofit, 

private-pay hospice home caled Evensong in 

Orange City. It wi l have four care suites for hospice 

patients, three senior apartments and two guest 

suites for visiting family. Photo by Eric Sandbulte 

Exhibit recalls 

author Suckow 

Hawarden native considered 

one of greatest writers in Iowa 

Church . B4 

Classifieds . B6-9 

BY ALEISA SCHAT 

ASCHAT@NWESTIOWA.COM 

HAWARDEN—The group gathered at Hawarden 

Public Library on Jan. 25 was there to discuss the life 

and work of a woman once considered one of Iowa’s 

greatest writers. 

“My first introduction to Ruth 

Suckow happened in 1976, when 

I began teaching at Dordt Co lege, 

and I was handed a book,” James 

Schaap said at the library event. 

Schaap is professor emeritus 

of English at Dordt University, 

formerly ca led Dordt Co lege, in 

Sioux Center, and he spent decades 

introducing hi students to 

great works of literature, including 

some, like Suckow’s, that had faded into obscurity. 

The book he was handed a l those years ago was 

a literary anthology that he went on to use in his 

See EXHIBIT on page A10 

People . B5 

Sports . C1-14 

 

 

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VISIT 

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COVERED 

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variety of businesses and retailers 

For immediate news, visit 

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Half a million page views each month speaks to 

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BY THE NUMBERS | 

77 

Turf space is big enough for: 

2 

1 

1 

2 

regulation softball fields 

regulation soccer field 

regulation football field 

9v9 soccer fields 

Football tournaments 

in 2023 

100+ 

softball games in 2023 

n 200,000 visitors recorded in 2023 

n 6,000 hours of scheduled activity, 

including 2,000 reservations in 2023 


TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIC SANDBULTE 

One year ago, Dordt University and the city of Sioux Center 

completed their latest project adding to the amenities the 

city has to offer: the American State Bank Sports Complex. 

The indoor sports facility features a brick-and-mortar entry building 

with a lobby, concession stand and Sioux Center Health Physical 

Therapy and Sports Medicine Clinic, but the real fun is found in the 

attached turf field housed beneath a fabric membrane dome, shielding 

activities from the fickle N’West Iowa weather year-round. 

First opened Jan. 20, 2023, here’s a look at the facility by the 

numbers: 

American State Bank 

Sports Complex 

250 -by-470 -by-75 -foot 

air-inflated dome over 

artificial turf 

8,000-square-foot 

entry building with a 

concession stand 

3 regulation-size batting cages 

117,500 square feet of turf 

Dordt University baseball practice is 

one of the many activities making 

good use of the American State Bank 

Sports Complex in Sioux Center 

during the winter months. Besides 

athletic activities, the sports complex 

has also hosted youth groups and a 

church service. 


page A2 

See A2 

See A7 

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OUTLET 

Store celebrates 

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to the 

SIOUX CENTER 

NEWS 

Stay up to date on your hometown! 

SPORTS 

Warriors earn 

seven spots in 

state field 

SIOUX CENTER NEWS 

Rozeboom 

into 

role 

education 

education wasn’t 

Rozeboom had 

himself, but as he 

new role as 

Vol. 132 ~ No. 7 A Growing Newspaper for a Growing Community www.nwestiowa.com 712-7 2-05 1 

to the Sioux 

School and 

Middle School, it’s 

OUTLET 

Rozeboom has become 

nter intermediate and 

schools a sistant princi- 

Photo by Eric Sandbulte 

Pam Tebow 

to speak at 

fundraiser 

celebrates 

serving 

school 

See A2 

“In Sioux Center, institutions are commi ted to each other. While leaders rotate 

in and out, there’s that expectation and desire to work we l together for services to 

continue. … It’s built into the DNA here and it’s a pre ty great thing to celebrate.” 

— JOSH BOWAR, 

SIOUX CENTER CHRISTIAN SCHOOL HEAD OF SCHOOL 

A l Seasons Center lifeguard, swimming instructor and Dordt University student Avery Koopmans of Sioux Center 

reviews a swimming technique with her level 4 cla s made up of Kinsey Elementary School third-grade students 

during le sons Feb. 6. Photo by Ren e Wielenga 

Splish, splash fun 

IOUX CENTER NEWS 

role 

SPORTS 

Wa riors earn 

seven spots in 

state field 

See A7 

Vol. 132 ~ No. 7 A Growing Newspaper for a Growing Community www.nwestiowa.com 712-7 2-05 1 

education wasn’t 

Rozeboom had 

himself, but as he 

new role as 

to the Sioux 

Intermediate School and 

Middle School, it’s 

page A2 

Chase Rozeboom has become 

Sioux Center intermediate and 

middle schools assistant principal. 

Photo by Eric Sandbulte 

Pam Tebow 

to speak at 

fundraiser 

“In Sioux Center, institutions are commited to each other. While leaders rotate 

in and out, there’s that expectation and desire to work we l together for services to 

continue. … It’s built into the DNA here and it’s a pre ty great thing to celebrate.” 

— JOSH BOWAR, 

SIOUX CENTER CHRISTIAN SCHOOL HEAD OF SCHOOL 

much as a kid.” 

A l Seasons Center lifeguard, swimming instructor and Dordt University student Avery Koopmans of Sioux Center 

reviews a swimming technique with her level 4 cla s made up of Kinsey Elementary School third-grade students 

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o f the boys go 

teaching — have fun, listen 

and learn. I want students to 

wan to come to swim lesdislike 

coming, 

them to 

Splish, splash fun 

during lessons Feb. 6. Photo by Ren e Wielenga 

I enjoyed so much as a kid.” 

In fact, Koopmans is helping 

that program — the 

partnership betw en the A l 

Seasons Center and the 

school district and Sioux 

Center Christian School to 

swimming le sons 

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