Aiden Penner

The Clarion • 13th December 2024

Home away from home

Volleyball broke Edgars Yarmolatiy’s ankle March 18, 2024. He was playing with friends at Grace Evangelical Free Church in Minneapolis when his bone snapped. That’s 791 driving miles from his Bethel directory address in Oklahoma and 5,129 miles from his home in Cherkasy, Ukraine. 
When doctors took a look at him, they determined Yarmolatiy was in no condition to travel back to Oklahoma, where he lived with his uncle. So he stayed in the Twin Cities with his friends for six weeks in a house just...

The Clarion • 24th October 2024

Expectations don’t mean anything

July 15, 2024, Grace Solberg entered the Training HAUS – Flagship facility in Eagan, Minnesota, expecting to get cleared for a return to volleyball. She was excited to get back to the sport she’s played for 13 years – from fourth grade to now. 
10 months prior – September 1, 2023 – Solberg, a senior outside hitter for the Bethel University Royals volleyball team, tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her right knee. 
The injury came just minutes into the team’s first game of the 2023 seas...

Worthington Globe • 27th June 2024

Family's home floods along Windom's Cottonwood Lake

WINDOM — A two-canoe garage.That’s what a friend of David Strom called Strom’s garage after intense flooding left over a foot of standing water in the garage and the rest of Strom’s home on Cottonwood Lake in Windom.According to the National Weather Service, Windom received 7.97 inches of rain from Thursday, June 20 to Saturday, June 22.

“Saturday we got up at 8 o’clock (a.m.) and the lower patio was covered in water,” Strom said. “But we couldn’t stay ahead of the water. By 2 o’clock...

Worthington Globe • 20th June 2024

Perez, Lakers shine against Pirates

WINDOM — Just before stepping onto the mound at Pirate Park in Windom to throw the first of his 134 pitches Wednesday night, Heron Lake Lakers pitcher Angel Perez bent down behind the mound and stuck his finger in the dirt.Perez traced the letter ‘R’ in the reddish-brown dirt — the first letter of Regina, Perez’s grandmother who died a month ago.“I play for her,” Perez said. “She gives me strength and I threw a good game.”

Perez threw all nine innings of Heron Lake’s 7-5 revenge victo...

Medium • 23rd May 2024

Better late than never

As Boston’s “More than a Feeling” plays, John Solfest trots out to the pitcher’s mound at Bethel University’s Hargis Park. Solfest chose his walk-out song, “More than a Feeling” as a nod to his dad, whose favorite band is Boston. Solfest recalls many times growing up blasting the song in his dad’s old pickup.

“He likes to come out to these games here at Bethel and it’s always fun seeing him up there,” Solfest said. “I kind of picked that song for him.”

Sporting a royal blue 44Pro brand glove o

The Clarion • 23rd May 2024

An emphasis on empathy

As Logan Moe goes from patient to patient in his clinicals, he encounters a lot of strange stuff.

A lumbar drain: Yellowish-orange cerebrospinal fluid gets drained from the back to relieve the patient of pressure in the brain.

And yet, Moe can’t help feeling awe and fascination in them.

“I won’t lie, it’s kind of cool,” Moe said. “I’ve even talked to other male nurses about it … and we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”

Moe, a junior from St. Peter, Minnesota, represents a unique minority among bo

ROYAL REPORT • 16th May 2024

#TFTB

Bethel University students’ favorite teachers ranged from their first male teacher in fourth grade to their current undergraduate adviser. One teacher did headstands, one let students take naps and yet another let students choose classwork for a month.

Other students appreciated their current professors for being quality advisers and honest. One professor “literally” changed a student’s life.

“My favorite teacher was my sixth grade teacher,” freshman psychology major Izzy Balvin said. “Because

The Clarion • 3rd April 2024

An a-maize-ing childhood

March 16, 2020. COVID-19 had finally arrived in Minnesota, and Mountain Lake High School had its last day of the school year. That night, I sat at my kitchen table and cried. No, I wasn’t scared of the virus. No, I wasn’t devastated or even really aware of how long it would be until I saw my friends again. 
I couldn’t believe my dad was going to use these “two weeks” off of school to make me work on the farm. I despised working on the farm. This outpouring of desperate emotion was the result of...

The Clarion • 22nd February 2024

Football, family and C.S. Lewis

Oct. 30, 2023, six-time MIAC coach of the year and 252 game-winner Steve Johnson announced he would retire from coaching Bethel University football at the end of the season. Upon hearing this, one major question regarding the future of the program immediately arose around the Bethel community:

Who will replace him?

Despite a nationwide search by the Athletics Department, the answer was obvious to fifth-year senior Nate Farm. It had to be Mike McElroy.

“He’s just the perfect guy,” Farm said. “

The Clarion • 20th November 2023

Johnson’s final game epitomizes legacy

[Editor’s note: The headline has been changed for clarity]

Six NCAA Division III national championship flags pointed northeast as the orange streamers above each field goal post at Perkins Stadium in Whitewater, Wisconsin fluttered in the 13-mile-per-hour wind Saturday.

The Bethel University Royals made the nearly five-hour drive to take on the fifth nationally ranked University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks in the first round of the Division III football playoffs. The Royals lost 42-14, fi