01 OC Mag 01-24

SPRING 2024 

■ Jazz group swings into live shows 

■ Diversity brings soccer success 

■ New option for senior living 

ORANGE CITY 

MAGAZINE 

Courting 

Connections 

Students become community ambassadors

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2 OC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2024

A lifetime of care starts here. 

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for trusting us as your partners. For wellness. For life. 

Family medicine clinics in Orange City, Hospers, and Paullina. Walk-In Clinic, Hospital, Birth Center, Sports Medicine, 

Behavioral Health, Surgical Services, Radiology, Therapy, Home Health & Hospice, and Senior Living in Orange City. 

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SPRING 2024 | OC MAGAZINE 3

CONTENTS | 

29 

Easy living at 

new complex 

ON THE 

COVER 

20 

Building 

a bond 

Queen and court 

create connections 

ORANGE CITY 

MAGAZINE 

SPRING 2024 

FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER 

Peter W. Wagner 

PRESIDENT 

Jeff Wagner 

EDITORIAL STAFF 

Kirsten Elyea 

Kate Harlow 

Georgia Lodewyk 

Mikaela Mackey 

Eric Sandbulte 

Aleisa Schat 

Thea Sterrett 

Renee Wielenga 

ADVERTISING DESIGN 

Carissa Fohwein 

Elizabeth Myers 

Chelsea Parks 

Camryn Reinking 

Alex Rolfes 

Kira Spaans 

43 

Capturing life’s most special moments 

Jenni Oschner always loved art, but when she picked up a camera, something clicked 

Orange City Magazine 

is published by 

Iowa Information Inc., 

Sheldon, Iowa. 

6 

Author shares 

son’s tragic story 

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 

10 

14 

36 

Right in the middle 

New business development 

takes advantage of high 

traffic along Highway 10 

Hollander Jazz 

Drew Lemke and friends blend 

talents to perform live jazz at 

concerts, weddings 

On and off the pitch 

Diversity on the roster has 

created winning formula for 

Northwestern men’s soccer 

For advertising rates 

and other questions, 

please contact us. 

Orange City Magazine 

PO Box 160 

Sheldon IA 51201 

800-247-0186 

712-324-5347 

Fax 712-324-2345 

Copies of Orange City 

Magazine are available from 

participating Orange City businesses. 

We welcome suggestions, 

story ideas and letters 

to the editor. 

©2024 Orange City Magazine 

No material from this publication 

may be copied or in any way reproduced 

without written permission 

from the publisher. 


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UNDERSTANDING | 

Son 

‘Scenes with my 

’ 

TEXT BY RENEE WIELENGA | PHOTOS BY RENEE WIELENGA & SUBMITTED 

Robert “Bob” Hubbard 

of Orange City is 

grateful media outlets 

like podcasts, radio stations and 

magazines are taking interest in his 

book — one Eerdmans Publishing 

Co. selected to publish and one that 

has all five-star reviews on Amazon 

and Goodreads. 

“With each speaking engagement 

or interview, I always want 

to emphasize how grateful I am for 

the interest but, of course, I would 

give anything not to be here because 

I’m only here because something 

awful happened,” said Bob, 

August “Auggie” Hubbard at 17 years old. His 

father, Robert “Bob” Hubbard, wrote a book in 

tribute to him following Auggie’s death by suicide 

in 2020 after years of dealing with depression. 

a 55-year-old theatre professor at 

Northwestern College in Orange 

City. 

After battling clinical depression 

for more than five years that 

was exacerbated by autism, Bob’s 

youngest of three sons, August 

“Auggie” Hubbard, died by suicide 

at the age of 19 on Oct. 23, 2020. 

Three years to the day after Auggie’s 

death, Eerdmans released 

“Scenes with My Son: Love and 

Grief in the Wake of Suicide,” written 

by Bob as a tribute to his son. 

“I wrote it because I felt called to 

celebrate the life of my son and to 

let other people know about him,” 

Bob said. “I also hope the book is 

helpful both to people who have experienced 

great loss and difficulty 

as well as to those who haven’t but 

who would like to understand more 

of what it’s like to endure suicide. 

“I’m trying to be redemptive, yet 

nothing I’m doing comes close to 

balancing the pain that Auggie endured 

and our family experienced. 

Still, I’m trying to tell his story and 

feel called to do that in the hopes of 

being helpful to others.” 

The idea to write the book 

emerged about eight months after 


Auggie’s death. Until that point, Bob had fallen 

into situational depression. 

“We did our best to take care of ourselves. 

We saw therapists, but with it being COVID, 

none of it was in person, so we didn’t do support 

groups,” Bob said. “One therapist, a cognitive 

psychologist, said the brain slows down 

when you’re in depression. It literally stops 

working as well. That happened to me. I felt 

like a droid. Just doing one movement after 

the other.” 

By the time summer came, Bob and his 

wife, April, spent about three and a half weeks 

in Bob’s hometown of Minot, ND, for April to 

direct summer theatre at Bob’s undergraduate 

alma mater, Minot State University. 

“I had a lot of time on my hands,” Bob said. 

“I swam laps; I went to coffee shops. While I 

was in a coffee shop, I read a wonderful novel 

called ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell. It was the 

first book I was able to read. It makes the case 

that Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet, 

but in Elizabethan spelling it would have been 

Hamlet and that Shakespeare wrote his greatest 

tragedy trying to replicate the personality 

of his son. When I finished, the idea of writing 

an homage analogy to Auggie hit me.” 

As a person always interested in story ideas, 

he carries journals with him. 

“I opened up a journal and thought of three 

sections, and I jotted down eight, nine, 10 onesentence 

vignettes in each,” he said. 

Then he left the material alone until that 

fall. 

“It was serendipitous that I had a sabbatical 

planned for that fall even before Auggie died,” 

Bob said, noting his work in Nassau, Bahamas, 

was reduced due to COVID-19 restrictions in 

place in the Caribbean nation. “I had to have 

A father’s reflection on love and 

grief in the wake of suicide 


Northwestern 

College theatre 

professor Bob 

Hubbard pages 

through a copy 

of his book 

“Scenes with 

My Son: Love 

and Grief in 

the Wake of 

Suicide,” written 

as a tribute to 

his youngest 

of three sons, 

August “Auggie” 

Hubbard, 

pictured as an 

infant on his 

desk. Auggie 

died from 

suicide at 19 

years old. 

something else to do. So, there again in a coffee 

shop in Nassau I wrote the book. Looking back, it 

was a blessing because I wouldn’t have had that 

window of opportunity to write otherwise.” 

The three sections of vignettes became “Beautiful 

Boy,” which introduces the reader to Auggie; 

“The Family Monster,” which chronicles Auggie’s 

battle with clinical depression; and “The Life After,” 

which recounts the aftermath of Auggie’s suicide. 

“As a theatre person, I believe in the power of 

story. I wasn’t sure where that would go, but earlier 

in my career I studied the theological idea of vocation,” 

Bob said. “A misconception is that a vocation 

is not necessarily what we do for a living, it can be 

more akin to a pilgrimage. Vocations are often not 

fun or easy, but things we feel called to do. One 

of the reasons I wrote is because I felt a calling or 

vocation to try to make sense of what happened.” 

“Scenes With My Son,” however, is not a work of 

apologetics tackling the problem of pain. Instead, 

it’s a story of great loss and hope. 

In the wake of Auggie’s death, Bob wrote a few 

extensive social media posts about what was going 

on so as to not hide or pretend 

his son died another way — posts 

which various acquaintances said 

were helpful. Later, once Bob began 

to read again, he, too, found comfort 

in hearing people’s stories who have 

endured something similar. 

“That was comforting,” he said. 

“When something so awful happens, 

you can feel so alone, like nobody 

could possibly understand, and then 

you read stories about others who 

have gone through something similar 

and you find a cloud of witnesses, 

you sort of find a community.” 

Bob also wanted to share his 

struggles even as a man of faith. 

“I didn’t want to try to explain 

why this happened, I didn’t want 

to try to say things like, ‘God is in 

control of everything.’ I wanted to do 

narrative theology,” he said. “I believe everything is 

terribly broken, that we all suffer under the same 

sun that rises and sets on us all and having faith 

may help endure these hardships but not protect 

you from them.” 

Another goal is to help others understand or 

share his feelings. 

“I hope this book will inspire empathy for people 

who don’t have any other practical way of understanding 

what it’s like to lose a child to suicide,” 

he said. “Maybe there will be less stigma around 

depression. Maybe others won’t see it as a weakness 

because, through this narrative journey, they 

see how much Auggie fought.” 

Bob also wrote the book to celebrate his son. 

“Many of the reviews say they feel like they got 

to know my son by reading this,” he said. “I live in 

the resurrection, the hope that I will get to see my 

son again one day and all of this will be redeemed. 

I hope this book isn’t all we have of Auggie, but 

right now it is. I want to let people know about 

him, so I’m thrilled other people will get to know 

this crazy, passionate character and feel like they 

have insights into how remarkable he is.” 


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PROGRESS | 

growth 

READY FOR 

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIC SANDBULTE 

Newest business development 

Commercieel Centrum opens 

The plain dirt lots neighboring the newly paved street 

and the Highway 10 roundabout might not look like 

much now, but in time, Orange City leaders envision 

it to become a community hub catering to their residents and 

Alton commuters alike. 

With about 24.65 acres to it, this land is Orange City’s 

newest business development, called Commercieel Centrum. 

Thirteen lots are available, with one business in the process 

of purchasing the main corner lot along the highway. The 

city expects to close on that land purchase in June. Additional 

lots will become available after enough of the initial 

wave of lots are sold. 

Once ground breaks on that corner lot in the summer, Orange 

City Community Development director Ryan McEwen 

expects other lots will begin to attract even more attention. 

“It is designed more for the retail and commercial spaces. 

We’ve had a number of businesses ask us, including a flower 

shop, a car wash, a restaurant,” McEwen said. “It can be that 

type of hub where we would love to have a strip mall with 

various stores, kind of like some of the other ones in town. 

It’s the idea of bringing people together in an easy space to 

access that is in between Alton and Orange City.” 

The high volume of highway traffic already made it an 

attractive location, but this area around the roundabout 

also will benefit from MOC-Floyd Valley Elementary, which 

opened in August just to the south on Jay Avenue. 

“The stronger relationship we have with Alton, the better. 

It’s a great community and very like-minded. Having a 

school there with Commercieel Centrum where everyone 

can access things easily, that was the thinking back several 

years ago,” McEwen said. “It’s really a wonderful hub.” 

Talks about establishing Commercieel Centrum began 

with his predecessor, Mark Gaul, with the land for 


Commercieel Centrum purchased three 

years ago. To provide access to the first 

chunk of lots in the business development, 

a set of new roads was put in: Tallahassee 

Avenue Southeast and Eighth 

Street Southeast. 

McEwen said that projects like Commercieel 

Centrum represent the city’s 

commitment to communicating with 

local businesses and growing the local 

economy. Of course, such work brings 

about other needs in communities, such 

as housing and other services that workers 

and their families need when they 

consider moving someplace. 

“I hear that all the time, affordable 

housing and assistance with day care,” 

McEwen said. “We are always working 

to improve our day care, making it sustainable 

and expanding it. It makes life 

easier when you have a consistent and 

strong day-care presence.” 

As for housing, considerable market 

changes have altered what affordable 

means for the average homebuyer. 

“With interest rates and everything 

going up, that old idea of affordability 

from even a year ago might not be 

so affordable anymore. We’re actually 

exploring ways to have houses that are 

in the lower $200,000, not the upper 

$200,000,” McEwen said. 

As the city facilitates growth in business 

and housing, it seeks simply to be 

prepared. 

“It’s a matter of time before you have 

some of these other dominoes start to 

fall,” McEwen said. “We’ll have to take 

it as it comes, but we are ready. We are 

ready for growth.” 


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TUNED IN | 

Swing 

TEXT BY ALEISA SCHAT | FILE PHOTOS 

Hollander Jazz energizes Orange City arts scene 

time 

When Orange City resident Drew 

Lemke founded Hollander 

Jazz, he did it for a simple 

reason — he missed playing jazz music. 

“I had a bunch of friends that also just 

wanted to play jazz,” 29-year-old Lemke 

said. “Being fresh out of college, I also just 

missed the opportunity that I got to play in 

all of those ensembles. I just kind of started 

thinking, ‘Well, maybe I’ll just start my own 

band.’” 

Lemke graduated with a music education 

degree from Northwestern College in Orange 

City in 2017 and has been the MOC-Floyd 

Valley Middle School band director since 

August of the same year. 

In 2020, Lemke gathered musicians from 

Orange City and surrounding communities 

and put together a jazz orchestra. 

The band’s first regular gigs were sponsored 

by the Orange City Arts Council, the 

nonprofit organization that showcases the 

work of artists and supports arts education 

in the Sioux County seat community. 

“It kind of started mainly as a thing we did 

with OC Arts in the summer,” Lemke said. 

Orange City Arts’ summer OnStage 

concert series brings musicians from far 

and wide to perform outdoor concerts on 

Wednesday evenings in Windmill Park 

downtown. 

“I definitely attribute a lot of our being 

able to get started to OC Arts — providing 

those summer series for us and asking us 

to come back and play,” he said. “That was 

amazing, getting us going, and then I started 

to save up for the next purchase of a speaker 

or a piano, or more music, and we’ve started 

to grow a little bit more.” 

The group began performing as a full jazz 

orchestra, which includes around 20 musicians, 

and as word spread about the group, 

Hollander Jazz began receiving invitations to 

perform in smaller ensembles, too, at community 

events and weddings. 

The group plays in varying configurations, 

depending on the event and the number of 

musicians available to play on a given date. 

“It kind of depends on the request I get. 

Basically, I just ask people, do you want the 

big band or do you want a smaller combo, 

and then we kind of build it from there,” 

Lemke said. 

Along with performing at public and private 

events across northwest Iowa, the group 

puts on a regular Christmas show at the Unity 

Christian High School’s Knight Center in 

Orange City. 

“The first year we did it, it was like, ‘Well, 

we’ve still got some standards mixed in — but 

it’s mostly Christmas. Now, we have enough 

to do Christmas the whole set,” Lemke said. 

Hollander Jazz offers 

ensembles of various 

sizes for whatever best 

fits the venue. The group 

is available for public and 

private events. 


BOOK THE 

BAND 

To book Hollander Jazz for 

an event, visit the website 

www.hollanderjazz.com, 

call 712-540-0059 or e-mail 

hollanderjazz@gmail.com. 

The annual Christmas show features 

the full jazz orchestra, which includes a 

rhythm section and typically four trumpets, 

four trombones, five saxophones 

and a guitar. 

“That’s what most of those big band 

arrangements are written for, so that’s 

what we try to stick to with our big 

band,” Lemke said. 

Jazz ensembles, by comparison, are 

smaller and more nimble, with more 

room for the improvisational melodies 

that are characteristic of the genre. 

“But there’s still a huge variety of 

music that the big bands can play — 

music that’s maybe not even traditional 

jazz,” Lemke said. “It’s swing, it’s Latin, 

it’s funk — it’s all of these different 

grooves. That’s been a lot of fun, too. I 

love the diversity of jazz.” 

As a band director, Lemke can play 

most common instruments, but his 

mainstays are guitar and trumpet. 

“When I’m performing with Hollander, 

especially, I’m going to be playing 

trumpet,” Lemke said. 

Among the jazz group’s regular players 

are Kevin Linder of Akron, a talented 

trumpet player in the region who has 

performed with Frankie Valli, Kenny 

Rogers and the Temptations. Other 

Hollander Jazz regulars include Rod 

Shedenhelm, the former band director 

for the Sioux Central School District in 

Sioux Rapids; Titus Landegent, a Sioux 

Center-based drummer who teaches at 

Kinsey Elementary; Megan Powell, the 

Sioux Center High School band director; 

and Monica Boogerd, the Sioux 

Center Middle School band director. 


“I definitely have a list of regulars,” 

Lemke said. 

Lemke begins by calling the 

group’s original members, stitching 

together a group of performers 

available to rehearse for and perform 

at a particular event. 

The band’s repertoire is anchored 

by familiar jazz standards 

and big band hits. 

“We kind of built off of standard 

big band jazz. So, you’re ‘In 

the Mood’ — the kind of thing 

you would find at a swing dance,” 

Lemke said. 

As the group has grown more 

comfortable playing together, 

they’ve widened their repertoire to 

include more contemporary pieces. 

“We do new songs fairly regularly. 

So, maybe a member brings 

a new song along for us to read,” 

Lemke said. “We kind of have this 

standard set, where we’ve played a 

lot of music together already, so it 

doesn’t take as much rehearsal, and 

then we can just spend more of the 

rehearsal on the new stuff.” 

The music is good for listening, 

but its rhythms also invite dancing. 

Along with providing wedding 

guests with tunes to swing to, Hollander 

Jazz had a new opportunity 

this July when they performed at 

the Sioux Center Arts picnic in Central 

Park. Midwest Swing Dance Co. 

was on hand to lead outdoor swing 

lessons at the event. 

Whether a performance involves 

dancing or not, Hollander Jazz invites 

vocalists to perform with the 

group. Lemke’s wife, Amanda, is 

one of the group’s regular soloists. 

“I think the audience just appreciates 

the variety that it brings,” 

Lemke said. “When our vocalists 

join us, we have a lot of Frank Sinatra, 

Michael Bublé — kind of those 

crooner songs, which are a lot of 

fun.” 

Drew and Amanda are veterans 

of the arts scene in Orange City, and 

along with performing with Hollander 

Jazz, the two regularly contribute 

their talents to the Orange 

City Tulip Festival Night Show, the 

musical production that accompanies 

the spring festival each year. 

This spring, the Lemkes are slated 

to direct the show, a production of 

the popular musical “Footloose.” 

Lemke said he’s grateful to contribute 

to a thriving arts scene in 

Orange City, whether theatrical 

productions or performing jazz. 

“A lot of the people I play with, 

it’s just a common love of ours,” 

he said. “It’s been really surprising 

how easy it is to find people who are 

kind of like me — they just wanted 

to find another platform to play.” 


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PREPARATION | 

Sowing 

TEXT BY GEORGIA LODEWYK | PHOTOS SUBMITTED 

THE SEEDS 

for the Tulip Festival 

The 83rd Tulip Festival May 

16-18 is set to bring in an 

estimated 100,000 visitors 

to Orange City. 

The parade, food, and vibrant 

display of Dutch traditions puts 

the Sioux County seat community 

on the map for many out-of-state 

guests, but the seemingly seamless 

production to an outsider is the 

result of hundreds of hours, and 

months of planning, for many in 

the city. 

For many Tulip Festival volunteers, 

the event is as present as 

ever even when it is far in the future, 

from the costumes to sew, tulips 

to plant, and the queen’s court 

to choose. 

The tulips 

Planting tulips is an art, one that 

Nora Mulder has down to a science. 

It starts in October; when the 

fresh bulbs have been received 

from the Netherlands, and the temperatures 

are just at 60 degrees. 

That’s when the weather is perfect 

for planting the 15,000 bulbs in 

Orange City’s downtown Windmill 

Park, which serves as the center for 

many Tulip Festival activities. 

This year, a group of 20 volunteers 

organized by Nora Mulder 

and John Buntsma, took the lead 

on planting them. 

“The city fills up the dirt and gets 

it ready for us,” Mulder said. “Then 

we come in with little hand garden 

tools, and we plant them about six 

to eight inches deep.” 

For Windmill Park, the volunteers 

operate with the plan from 

the Tulip Town Bulb Company, operated 

by Keri and Dan Drescher. 

The Dreschers provide instructions 

on where to plant the different 

tulip varieties, and volunteers 

arrange them three inches apart. 

These tulips account for nearly 

one-third of Orange City’s estimated 

50,000 tulip bulbs that are 

planted each year. 


Mulder and her husband, Brett, 

owned the Tulip Town Bulb Company 

for 10 years before selling the business 

and home to the Dreschers in 2017. The 

Dreschers carried on the tradition, but 

Mulder hoped to increase the number 

of bulbs in Windmill Park. 

This year, the volunteers spent eight 

hours planting in Windmill Park over 

the span of two days. Seeing the fruits 

of their labor is an even longer process. 

“Really, nothing happens until 

spring,” Mulder said. “They just go dormant 

for the winter. And then once it’s 

nice in the spring, then they start their 

growth process.” 

In Iowa, tulip season runs from early 

April to early June. It’s a short time 

frame, but they are perennial, meaning 

the flowers return from the same bulb 

two or three seasons. But Mulder said 

they bloom the best the first year, so the 

city digs them up and plants new bulbs 

each year. 

“They’ll gather all the tulips and let 

them dry over the summer,” Mulder 

said. “And then they do let city people 

take the bulbs and plant them themselves 

in their own gardens.” 

The court 

Orange City crowned its 2024 Tulip 

Festival queen on Nov. 20. 

Avery Kelch will be joined by fellow 

high school seniors Becca Boersma, 

Amelia Calsbeek, Kylie Kurtz and Ella 

Poppema to make up the Tulip Court. 

The role is an honor for Orange City 

teenagers. They are first chosen by the 

public in October and then compete in 

a pageant in November to choose the 

queen and her court. 

Lauren McDonald, head of the 

Queen’s Committee, said her job as 

the “court mom” is to make sure the 

girls are having fun and preparing well 

for these upcoming projects. She also 

is in charge of media training, helping 

the court prepare for the onset of interviews 

and attention. 

In January, they begin planning for 

the road show, one of their biggest outreach 

opportunities that takes the court 


Planning and plantings start 

months before annual May 

tulip-filled extravaganza 

to nursing homes, schools, Pella’s 

Tulip Time Festival and the Iowa 

State Capitol. 

“We’ll brainstorm and get on paper 

what the girls want to talk and 

share about the festival,” McDonald 

said. “It’s more local, helping people 

know what’s coming.” 

Beyond the training, McDonald 

said it is important for the girls to 

spend time together. The Orange 

City Tulip Festival, at its heart, is a 

chance for community and connection, 

and the court is no different. 

Over winter break, the girls 

participated in gift exchanges and 

Christmas parties together, bonding 

before they enter a busy season later 

in the spring. 

McDonald, who was a member 

of the Tulip Court when she was a 

senior at MOC-Floyd Valley High 

School in 2012, said forming relationships 

is one of the best parts of 

the experience. 

In addition to the road show, the 

girls are looking forward to another 

event: the Tulip Festival Extravaganza 

on March 20, where they will 

unveil their costumes to the public 

for the first time. 

“They’re absolutely gorgeous from 

what I’ve seen so far,” McDonald 

said. 

The costumes 

When Queen’s Committee member 

Amanda Haverdink attended her 

first Tulip Festival after college, she 

knew she wanted a Dutch costume. 

After she married her husband, Aaron, 

an Orange City native, she got to 

work, sewing two intricate costumes 

with a design from the village of 

Marken, Holland. 

Much of the N’West Iowa community 

gets involved through wearing 

traditional dress, often participating 

as “street sweepers” who prepare the 

downtown streets for the parade. 

Many also walk in the parade, organized 

by the province that their 

style of dress is from. Though to an 

outside eye, many Dutch costumes 

may look the same, there are more 

than 60 different costume patterns 

from 22 different provinces. 

Some of the most intricate 

“One thing that has always been a priority in Orange City is authenticity. 


Rebecca Boersma, Ella Poppema, Kylie Kurtz, Amelia Calsbeek and queen Avery Kelch make up 

the 2024 Tulip Court. The high school seniors spend the months leading up to the festival getting 

to know each other and participating in the Road Show, in which they make public appearances. 

designs are worn by the members of the 

Queen’s Court. The presiders over the 

Tulip Festival wear a different design 

of dress every year, their outfits coordinated 

from literally head to toe — from 

hats to socks and footwear. 

Until the completed dresses are unveiled 

at the extravaganza in March, the 

exact design and what province of Holland 

it originated from, remains a mystery 

to everyone outside the Tulip Court 

and the Queen’s Costume Committee, 

the group behind designing and creating 

the costumes. The three-person 

team, made up of Haverdink, Denise de 

Vries and Marlys Hop, spend hundreds 

of hours each year developing the design, 

sourcing the fabric, and stitching 

the dress and accessories. 

“One thing that has always been a 

priority in Orange City is authenticity,” 

Haverdink said. “We want it to be 

as close to what it actually would have 

been as possible.” 

For that reason, the costume committee 

conducts extensive research on 

the region of Holland the dress originates 

from. Sometimes, patterns already 

exist, but that is not always the 

case. Last year, the team developed the 

court’s dresses from the city of Leeuwarden 

in northern Holland. They 

looked at pictures and ordered samples. 

Once they had a cohesive pattern 

and sourced all the fabric, they waited 

for the tulip court announcement in 

November before they could start sewing 

with the exact sizing. 

The sewing process itself is intricate 

and, at times, tedious. Skirt fabrics, 

cross-stitching, beadwork, lace and 

hats all take hours to create and get 

exactly correct. The job is not for the 

faint of heart, but Haverdink said piecing 

the project together, building a pattern 

and a design, and working through 

the challenges is a rewarding process. 

“I love the challenge of creating 

something new that’s never been done 

before,” Haverdink said. 

She started sewing at 6 years old, 

and now has been sewing Dutch costumes 

for 14 years. 

Haverdink, de Vries and Hop work 

several years in advance when it comes 

to costumes. 

They know the Tulip Court’s 2025 

dress costume before 2024’s design has 

even been unveiled, keeping the Tulip 

Court the best dressed at the festival for 

years to come. 

We want it to be as close to what it actually would have been as possible.” 

— AMANDA HAVERDINK QUEEN’S COMMITTEE MEMBER 


“Our community has a promising 

future we want you to be a part 

of. Orange City is a safe, nurturing, 

family-friendly community in 

one of the healthiest counties 

in Iowa, and we are healthy in 

many ways. Our businesses are 

thriving. Our unemployment is 

low. Our aspirations are high. 

Experience the arts and culture 

of our community and witness 

the dynamic growth of our main 

street, educational facilities, 

healthcare resources, and more!” 

Deb De Haan - Orange City Mayor 

a great community to visit 

a vibrant place to live 

Read about our community 

Vibrant.OrangeCityIowa.com 

24 OC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2024


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| COMMUNITY 

Milestones 

MAKING 

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY 

MIKAELA MACKEY 

Kanaal Huis is 

the first part of a 

multiphase-housing 

project called The 

Canals. Orange City 

Area Health System 

pursued the 36-condo 

complex to encourage 

simple, community 

living. 

The 55-plus population is 

changing, so Orange City is 

changing with it. 

Post-retirement is no longer a transition 

for people to hit the brakes on 

the bustle, but for many, it’s the chance 

to vacation, downsize and be active in 

ways they haven’t ever had the opportunity 

to. 

Kanaal Huis is an 

Orange City Area 

Health System project of 36 condos 

and is the first part of a multiphase 

project for 55-plus living, called The 

Canals. 

“Transforming into the next stage 

of life and a new way of living was really 

not a difficult decision for us, and 

Kanaal Huis is attractive for many reasons,” 

said 74-year old Bruce Mouw. 

He and his wife, Cathy, were the first 

people to move into Kanaal Huis. As 


Thirty-six-condo complex 

Kanaal Huis introduces a 

unique concept for 55-plus 

living in Orange City. 

The Canals’ pioneers, Bruce said they 

have had no regrets. 

“No lawn mowing, dealing with 

leaves in the fall, snow shoveling and 

my favorite, no more cleaning out 

the gutters,” Bruce said. “We plan on 

traveling more, and this living option 

gives us the freedom to do that. 

Kanaal Huis has so many amenities: a 

well-equipped gym, a party room with 

a kitchen for holiday gatherings — we 

are looking forward to that — and 

gathering places.” 

One of the goals of Kanaal Huis was 

to provide residents an opportunity to 

build “vibrant lifestyles,” tagging Orange 

City’s slogan. 

Orange City Area Health System 

CEO Marty Guthmiller said one vibrant 

way of living is stepping into 

The Canals community. However, that 

community is going to look different 

from other senior homes. 

“We’re not forcing community on 

anybody,” Guthmiller said. “An owner 

at Kanaal Huis would not be forced to 

do anything. It’s not like activity in a 

nursing home, for example, or anything 

like that.” 

The goal for Kanaal Huis is it will be 

resident led. There are currently only 

two condos accounted for, but once 

that number grows, Guthmiller said 

there will be an internal committee 

that determines the rules and activities 

for Kanaal Huis. 

“Ultimately, we want them to take 

control and make their own rules out 

there. It’s their place,” he said. “We’re 

there to help and guide as we need to, 

but we don’t want to be in a director 

kind of role.” 

One of the ideas a resident has already 

proposed is to have an aboveground 

garden. Guthmiller’s response: 

“Let’s do it.” 

Being affiliated with the Orange City 

FOR MORE 

INFORMATION 

To learn more about 

Kanaal Huis, inquirers 

may reach out to Ryan 

Warnke, director of 

ancillary services for 

Orange City Area Health 

System, at Ryan.Warnke@ 

ochealthsystem.org or 

Marty Guthmiller, Orange 

City Area Health System 

CEO, at Marty.Guthmiller@ 

ochealthsystem.org. 


Orange City Area Health System CEO Marty Guthmiller has 

overseen the development of Kanaal Huis since its inception. Vision 

Builders made it all a reality, completing construction in December. 

Area Health System, there is an array of activities and 

resources for Kanaal Huis residents to tap into. 

Although Guthmiller reiterated that no Kanaal Huis 

resident is required to participate in any Kanaal Huis 

activity, he hopes options are ample. 

“For example, we employ physical therapists. There’s 

a very well-equipped fitness room in Kanaal Huis. What 

we can do is have the physical therapist come over once 

a month, once a quarter, periodically whatever that 

might be, to simply instruct people how to use it. How 

do you use this fitness room, how to use the equipment, 

why is it important, and then if people want to do that, 

great,” Guthmiller said. “If they don’t, nobody is going 

to babysit them over it so that’s totally up to them. But 

there are those kinds of things. 

“Dietitian would be another one, yoga is another one, 

and diabetes, eating healthy, are all types of things that 

the health system can bring to bear because of the resources 

that we have and because of our involvement 

with this,” he added. “Things like a wine and cheese 

gathering on a certain night, a cooking demonstration 

class, with a bingo or trivia night kind of thing. Simply 

to promote community and simply to say, ‘Hey, you 

know even though it’s winter and 30 below zero right 

now, we can still have trivia tonight.’” 

Kanaal Huis held its ribbon cutting on Dec. 19. A 

month later, Orange City mayor Deb De Haan said 

she has no concern if condos fill up slowly. In fact, it is 

rather expected. 

“With any new concept, especially I think in conservative 

northwest Iowa, we always think, ‘Oh, I don’t 

know if I want to be the first one to go out there.’ People 

like to see the final project,” De Haan said. “Once it 

catches on with our citizens, it’s going to take off. You 

just have to be a little patient.” 

She predicts Kanaal Huis will have a waiting list in 

10-15 years. 

The benefits of Kanaal Huis extend to even after residents 

leave the building. 

Bruce Mouw, for example, said Kanaal Huis living 

eliminates many of the housekeeping responsibilities 

and maintenance of being a landowner while on vacation. 

Guthmiller said one of the beauties of condo ownership 

is being able to lock the door and leave Orange City 

for months at a time without worrying about break-ins, 

home damage or even having a warm home to return 


to. 

De Haan agreed that the concept 

of Kanaal Huis fits Orange City residents 

remarkably. 

“We have a lot of people that classify 

as snowbirds. and they go to Arizona, 

Florida,” she said. “They can 

basically just lock the door, and you 

know your home is going to be safe, 

and it’s going to be taken care of.” 

Besides fear of the unknown, De 

Haan and Guthmiller said the hardest 

part about catching the vision 

of Kanaal Huis will be leaving one’s 

home. 

“It’s not that I’m outside that demographic 

either myself. I’m 55-plus, 

and I’ve been living in my house for 

30 years. So, I understand that. But at 

the same time, I know that we don’t 

need, use, want, all the stuff that we 

have,” Guthmiller said. “My situation, 

we raised a family of three boys, we 

have five bedrooms in our house; we 

don’t need a house with five bedrooms 

anymore. We don’t need the stuff 

that’s in the five bedrooms anymore.” 

One of the biggest things Guthmiller 

said he learned from studying 

other 55-plus condos was that people 

surprise themselves with their own 

desire to downsize. After studying 

the Woodbridge community in Sioux 

Center, a 55-plus home also built 

by Kanaal Huis’ constructors Vision 

Builders, Guthmiller said time and 

time again condo owners would sell 

more possessions than even they expected 

wanting to. 

“When there was some concern 

by an individual moving from a 

house to Woodbridge, in that case, 

but the same would apply to Kanaal 

Huis, they would often secure storage 

units,” he said. “They needed a 

place for all their stuff. And they said 

almost all of the time, by the time the 

people moved into Woodbridge, they 

found out they no longer needed their 

storage unit. They downsized, they 

simplified, and they were able to just 

close the door and go to Florida for a 

month without worrying about anything.” 

The priority of Kanaal Huis is to 

provide the option of a new way of 

life for the citizens of Orange City who 

have loved their community for years. 

Part of the equation though includes 

benefits for new families. 

“With seniors, or 55-plus folks 

moving out of houses, there are nice 

houses. There are sometimes really 

nice houses. They’re houses that often 

have been used to raise a family,” 

Guthmiller said. “Those houses are 

very much in need in our community 

for young families today. And with a 

person moving out, they free up inventory 

in our community, and they 

better themselves by moving into an 

environment that’s simplified.” 

With both personal and community 

benefits overflowing, Guthmiller said 

he is excited to watch Kanaal Huis 

and The Canals “blossom out there.” 

However, the Mouws see one benefit 

as preeminent. 

“One of the main attractions for 

us is we are now able to bypass the 

waiting line to assisted living if that 

is in our future,” Bruce said. “Cathy 

has a somewhat compromised health 

situation and knowing that our needs 

will be met is assuring. We did have 

to scale down, because we lived in a 

four-bedroom, three-bath home. But 

we’re finding out the old adage ‘less 

is more’ is true, and the minimalist 

approach to life ‘it’s better to do than 

to have’ is also worth trusting.” 

The Mouws said they look forward 

to others taking the leap they did and 

having neighbors and a community 

develop around them. 



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BUILDING TEAM | 

Internatio 

TEXT BY GEORGIA LODEWYK | PHOTOS SUBMITTED 

It was easy to spot the Northwestern 

College celebration after 

the men’s soccer team snagged 

the Great Plains Athletic Conference 

postseason title on Nov. 9. Fans rushed 

to flood the field, waving a unique 

array of flags from Germany, Spain 

and the Netherlands. Bench players 

and coaches immediately joined and 

embraced teammates following the 

emotional 2-1 win against Morningside 

University that sent them to the NAIA 

national tournament. 

“Winning with a team is one thing, 

but winning with your closest friends 

is like another level of joy,” said senior 

midfielder Marco Alessio. 

It was a proud moment for the second-seeded 

team that also won the regular 

season title in 2021 and finished 

fourth in the GPAC in 2022. 

The Northwestern soccer program 

credits its success to many factors — 

chief among them being the way it has 

created a team that crosses continents 

and cultures. Together, the 25-player 

varsity team built a brotherhood by 

bonding over the world’s most beloved 

sport in an area that may first seem unlikely: 

Orange City. 

It has been an intentional move for 

head coach Dan Swier to recruit international 

students to the Red Raiders’ 

soccer program. Many NAIA and NCAA 

schools have followed a similar trend 

in recent years. Now, the United States 

hosts more international students than 

any other country in the world. 

Northwestern College soccer coach Dan Swier has intentionally recruited international students 

to be a significant part of his program. Colorful flags waved after a victory reflect that diversity. 

“It’s gotten easier to recruit internationals, 

and it’s gotten harder to recruit 

really good players from here in the 

states,” Swier said. 

Northwestern College’s soccer success built on 

worldwide recruiting, winning relationships 

Swier, who has served 16 seasons as 

head coach, said students from other 

parts of the United States are less likely 

to play NAIA if they go to a college farther 

from home. That leaves him a narrow 

radius — a mostly local radius — to 

build an entire team around. 

The NAIA has looser eligibility restrictions 

and recruiting guidelines 

than the NCAA, which makes it an appealing 

option for many international 

students looking to be student athletes. 

Two-year captain Alessio was one of 

these students. The midfielder joined 

the team from Chioggia, Italy, in 2020. 

“In Europe, it’s very hard to both 


onal 

INFLUENCE 

study and play a sport at a good level,” he said. 

“Here, everything is organized for you to be able 

to study in the morning and in the afternoon 

practice with your team.” 

Alessio got connected with Northwestern 

through a recruiting agency. He said Swier impressed 

him, especially because of his honesty 

about the program and area. 

“I say, ‘OK, you’re not coming to Miami,” 

Swier said. “You’re not coming to New York, 

you’re not coming to L.A. You’re coming to a 

tiny community in the middle of the country 

that’s going to be cold in the winter. It’s an hour 

and a half from the nearest airport. How do you 

feel about that?’ And nine out of 10 guys say, 

‘I don’t care. Really, I just want to come, and I 

want to study, and I want to play soccer.’” 

That was almost Alessio’s exact response, 

and not long after he was on a plane and heading 

toward Orange City. When he arrived, he 

joined a team that was almost as diverse as the 

game of soccer itself; made up of not one, or 

two, but players from nine countries, with students 

from Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, 

Ireland, Great Britain, Colombia, Chile and, of 

course, the United States, as well as him being 

from Italy. Alessio called this diversity a “treasure,” 

something valuable that makes the team 

stronger on and off the field. 

“Many players from different countries have 

different ideas of soccer and the way of playing,” 

Alessio said. “It’s not that one wants to say he’s 

right and the other ones are wrong; we just add 

our point of view, our ideas to this bucket, that 

it becomes more and more full of knowledge 

and insight and perspectives.” 

Different countries and cultures bring a 

unique flair to the game of soccer, from America’s 

fast-paced, straightforward play to Brazil’s 

emphasis on flair and complexity. Swier said 

learning to combine those styles into one can be 

challenging, but with healthy communication 

between the coaching staff and players they can 

create a cohesive way of play without quelling 

how a player expresses himself on the field. 

Yet the team is not all international. Swier 

is intentional about staying as close to a 40- 

60 ratio of international students to American 

students as possible. 

“We’ve always said that students from other 

countries have something to offer us here. But 

then we also have something to offer to them. 

We want them to come here and experience our 

culture,” Swier said. 

This camaraderie established intercultural 

connection and friendships that have impacted 

other parts of Northwestern student life. 

Martha Draayer, director of intercultural 

development at Northwestern, said the soccer 

team is just one way the college is seeing an uptick 

in their international population. She credits 

Northwestern’s mission and vision, positive 

alumni testimony, and sports recruitment as 

three ways the campus is growing in diversity. 


“Here at Northwestern, because 

of the growing racial and ethnic diversity, 

we can spend time getting to 

know other people’s cultures through 

personal engagement and getting to 

know our neighbors,” Draayer said. 

For international students, there 

are many American “culture shocks” 

to experience. Food, language phrases 

and certainly the weather. 

Alessio experienced true Midwestern 

living during the winter of 2021, 

where he found temperatures so brutally 

cold, he considered transferring. 

“I didn’t even know it could get that 

cold in a place that was not the North 

Pole or the South Pole,” he said. 

Junior forward Alejandro Ruiz experienced 

similar differences when two 

American teammates, Nikko Helderop 

and Riley Aarbo, visited his hometown 

of Valencia, Spain, over winter break 

in 2022. Valencia reaches highs of 60 

degrees in its coldest months, so Ruiz 

watched his teammates walk down the 

streets in shorts and hoodies while locals 

dressed in thick jackets and gloves. 

“For people in my hometown, that 

weather is cold, you know? But for 

them, it was like fall,” Ruiz said. 

Ruiz transferred to Northwestern 

after his freshman year at Hannibal- 

La Grange University in Missouri. 

His first year at Northwestern was 

difficult, and he did not see the playing 

time he wanted. Ruiz dealt with 

the frustration through forming close 

friendships with his teammates, helping 

him see the game as a source of 

fun community instead of stress. 

This past season, he started every 

game, becoming one of Northwestern’s 

key players. 

“Of course, we’re focused on soccer, 

but we’re playing for fun,” Ruiz said. 

“This year was like playing soccer with 

friends instead of teammates.” 

The team’s inclusive culture is 

something that helps the Raiders 

stand out on and off the soccer pitch. 

“If you come to Northwestern, 

you’re going to automatically be included 

in our brotherhood,” Swier 

said. “Every person has value. Every 

person has a story, and nobody’s story 

is wrong. It’s who you are, and the day 

you come here, we welcome you as 

you are.” 

The team has been through plenty 

of ups and downs together. Following 

their success in the 2021 season, they 

entered fall of 2022 full of confidence, 

only to have Alessio, a key player and 

captain, tear his ACL in the second 

day of training camp. Losing Alessio 

was a crushing loss for the team from 

which the Raiders never fully recovered, 

and they underperformed. But 

Swier said it was more than just what 

happened on the field; the team’s 

mindset that year also struggled. 

In the offseason, team members 

came up with three new “program 

pillars” to motivate them to be strong 

players and strong teammates. Swier 

said the players compete hard in 

practice but step off the field as best 

friends that celebrate each other’s 

wins. This atmosphere strengthens 

the team, so much so that Swier contributes 

some of the Red Raiders’ success 

to it. 

“They had these relationships,” he 

said. “The winning was just a byproduct 

of that.” 


Whether you are looking for a place to build your dream home, 

or you have your sights on a new business venture, Orange City 

has a wide variety of shovel-ready residential and commercial 

lots available. Let our community make your dreams a reality. 

a place 

for your dreams 

For more information about your economic development opportunities, 

contact our community development director Ryan McEwen or visit 

orangecityiowa.com/business/economic-development 

Residential Lots 

Commercial Lots 

For more info: 

Ryan McEwen 

Community Development Director 

RyanM@orangecityiowa.com 

712) 707-4885 

Download our 

community 

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our Orange City 

community. 

712-707-9200 

At Smithfield Foods, we employ over 200 hard-working individuals in Orange City. 

We're committed to being a good neighbor in the places where we live, work and 

raise our families. Since 2018, our Orange City facility has reduced waste in the local 

community by not sending any waste to the landfill. We're proud of our employees' 

environmental stewardship efforts and together, we're setting and reaching goals to 

achieve a sustainable future for all. 

ithfieldfoods.com 

smithfieldfoods.com 


42 OC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2024 


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1419 Frankfort Pl SE, Orange City IA 51041 

1419 Frankfort Pl SE Orange City IA 51041 




1419 Frankfort Pl SE Orange City IA 51041

| PICTURE THIS 

Life 

lens 

through the 

Jenni O Photography captures 

memories through photographs 

TEXT BY KATE HARLOW 

PHOTOS BY JENNI OSCHNER, JENNI O PHOTOGRAPHY 

Every time the shutter closes on Jenni 

Oschner’s camera, she captures memories 

that will be treasured for years to come. 

Whether that memory is of the moment when a 

groom sees his bride coming down the aisle, of a family 

laughing together or a high school senior dreaming 

of the future — Jenni 

feels honored to be a 

part of the memory. 

Her life as a photographer 

and as the owner 

of her own business, 

Jenni O Photography, 

based in Orange City 

where she lives with 

her family, is an example 

of what someone 

can accomplish when 

you have the talent and 

passion for your work. 

It’s a life and career 

that all started with a 

bit of chance. 

Jenni grew up in Sioux Center, and after graduating 

from Unity Christian High School in Orange City, she 

went on to study public relations with a concentration 

in art at Northwestern College in Orange City. It was 

when she was in college that a job in photography 


found her. 

“When the Northwestern 

Beacon needed a photographer, 

I joined and 

eventually became the 

photo editor of the newspaper 

for my junior and 

senior year,” Jenni said of 

the student-operated publication. 

It’s a passion that Jenni 

was a natural at. 

“Photography came 

easy to me. I love all mediums 

of art and still practice 

some and am always picking up and learning 

more such as watercolor, gouache, acrylic 

painting, embroidery, line art and a lot more. 

But photography is just what makes sense to my 

soul,” Jenni said. “I don’t know if I ever planned 

on it paying the bills, but it is now my full-time 

job that feeds our family. 

“I did other jobs through 2012 as well while 

JENNI O 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

www.jenniophotography.com 

I was building up my 

business. It never felt 

like a decision I actively 

made. It has always 

been something 

I love doing that also 

happened to end up 

being my full-time 

job.” 

She officially started 

her business in 2008 

and photographed 

senior portraits and 

weddings. She and 

her husband, Kyle, relocated 

to Texas while 

he attended graduate 

school and then it 

was onto Minneapolis 

for two years while 

he interned. All the 

while, she continued 

to photograph special 

moments. 

Jenni and Kyle moved back to Orange City in 

2012 when Kyle was hired at Northwestern in 

the college’s strength and conditioning program. 

While the couple settled down back in Orange 

City and started a family, they have a 5 and 

3-year-old, Jenni’s business has enabled her to 

indulge in one other of the great loves of her 

life — travel. She photographs special moments 

in and around Orange City but often is hired for 

weddings and photo shoots in faraway places. 

“I have always loved to travel. Before I went to 

college, I had already seen more than 45 states 

thanks to all the camping trips we would go on, 

and now I’ve made it to 49 and many countries 

too,” Jenni said. “I’ve learned to be comfortable 

sleeping anywhere if I have to, just for the experience, 

getting up early for the best light, staying 

up late for the Milky Way in dark sky country, 

etc. Being uncomfortable for a little can help 

make incredible lifetime memories. 

“My parents love to travel, especially my 

mom. She’s the reason I’ve been to Alaska, and 

I hope I can go back with her someday. On our 

wedding day, she told Kyle to please, instead of 

giving me things, give me experiences. And that 

is pretty much all we do. I’ve always treasured 

my memories of seeing and experiencing the 

world with my parents, and now I get to do the 

same with Kyle and the kids.” 

While it is true Jenni loves to travel, she’s 


“There is beauty everywhere 

and sometimes it’s harder for me to not 

take photos of life than to get my 

camera out, I enjoy it so much.” 

— JENNI OSCHNER 

OWNER OF JENNI O PHOTOGRAPHY 

quick to point out that it isn’t her favorite part of 

her job. Whether she’s taking photos in N’West 

Iowa or in France or South Africa, it’s all about 

the people. 

“Most importantly, for me, is that I get to be 

there for people’s most extraordinary moments. It 

is an honor to be able to witness that — weddings, 

births, family milestones, funerals sometimes, senior 

portraits — these are all big, big moments in 

a person’s life, and I get to be a part of that,” Jenni 

said. 

“Anytime someone hires me to be their photographer 

the gravity of this is not lost on me. It’s 

all very exciting, but in the end, the hand squeeze 

and sweet teary glance between a groom and his 

mom, that’s everything. Or how every groom 

twists his ring around his finger while he gets 

used to the new feeling. Or mom’s face when she 

sees her daughter coming down the aisle, I mean, 

honestly not a whole lot of people get to see her 

at that moment, and that’s everything.” 

Jenni stays busy with her business and her 

family. In addition to the seniors, families and 

weddings she photographs, she also enjoys helping 

small businesses and brands distinguish 

themselves. She’s worked with artists, a florist, 

hospitals, a woodworker and a chocolatier. 

A camera is an integral part of Jenni’s career, 

but viewing life through the lens of a camera is 

just a part of who she is. 

“There is beauty everywhere and sometimes it’s 

harder for me to not take photos of life than to get 

my camera out, I enjoy it so much,” Jenni said. 


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Landsmeer Golf Club 

Mallory L Simmelink, 

PGA Head Professional 

712.737.3429 

mallory@landsmeergolfclub.com

01 OC Mag 01-24

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