GCU Today April Digital Issue 2018

GCU MAGAZ I NE • 3 1 Ronda Katzenmeyer, B.S. in Nursing, ’17, was named Chief Nursing Officer at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, Colo. Katzenmeyer has worked there since July 2014 following a 12-year career with the Colorado Department of Corrections. She is pursuing a master’s degree in Nursing Leadership at GCU. Karen Shofron, M.S. in Professional Counseling, ’17, was a volunteer for the American Counseling Association (ACA) and twice has been elected to represent Arizona at a national conference in Washington, D.C. Trent Godfrey, B.S. in Sports Management, ’17, accepted a position as Professional Sports ProgramManager for the National Center for Drug Free Sport in Kansas City, Mo. While a student at GCU, Godfrey served on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was captain of the men’s swimming and diving team. Sarah Engels, B.S. inMarketing, ’17, has volunteered for Feed My Starving Children, a Christian non-profit organization, since she was 10 and is serving in the Dominican Republic. Erica Kennerknecht, B.S. in Nursing, ’17, has been named a nurse manager at the St. Elizabeth Campus of the Mohawk Valley Health System, based in Utica, N.Y. Kennerknecht has been employed by MVHS since 2013 and has served as a staff nurse for the Neuro Peds, 3A and 3B units. Ann Cherryholmes, B.S. in Elementary Education with an Emphasis in English, ’17, teaches language arts and social studies to fifth-graders at Gateway Pointe Elementary School in Gilbert, Ariz. She was awarded a $200 grant by the school’s PTA to buy curriculum for her classroom. Taylor Armer, B.S. inMarketing, ’17, is a public relations associate at Knoodle, an advertising, public relations and marketing agency in Phoenix. She did an internship there during her senior year at GCU. Monique Ealey, M.Ed. in Educational Leadership, ’17, is the Assistant Director of Programs at Mississippi Children’s Museum in Jackson, Miss. Her outreach programs include professional development for teachers and literacy outreach in Jackson and the Mississippi Delta. Katie Casteel, B.S. in Hospitality Management, ’17, began her career by developing and launching new internship programs at Desert Mountain Country Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. She hopes to recruit hospitality students from GCU. GCU NEWS — LANA SWEETEN-SHULTS Supporters of Harmony Mosier donned their tutus for Run to Fight Children’s Cancer inMarch. photo by brandon sullivan Watch out, cancer: Support for race is getting tutu good Terry Velasquez and a dozen others donned shimmery ballet tutus March 10 at the eighth annual Run to Fight Children’s Cancer, which has called Grand Canyon University home since 2011. “We have a little girl in our neighborhood. … She’s still fighting cancer,” Velasquez said. That little girl, Harmony Mosier, had a bump in her mouth that her parents thought was a tooth coming in. It wasn’t a tooth. It was a rare cancer in the soft tissue that would spread to her lungs. Friends and family raised more than $26,000 in just two weeks in 2016 to help Harmony’s family, and they haven’t stopped, still supporting Harmony at Run to Fight. For Mike Baumgardner, the run — the largest in Arizona dedicated solely to pediatric cancer — has become home. The Baumgardners have been participating in the event — a 10K, 5K and Cancer Survivors Walk — for Mike’s daughter, Olivia. She was just 3 years old when she was diagnosed and became Run to Fight’s first race starter. Olivia, now 10, just hit her five-year, cancer-free mark. “Our kids have grown up being here,” said Baumgardner, sans tutu but wearing a green Team Olivia T-shirt along with about 40 other supporters. Run to Fight, which was founded by GCU, was managed for the first time this year by Children’s Cancer Network, the beneficiary of the event along with Phoenix Children’s Hospital. It was another successful year for the event, which touted 2,325 registered runners/walkers, 511 volunteers and 23 vendor booths and has raised more than $500,000 since its inception. Stephanie Chudy, who beat Hodgkins lymphoma when she was 15, was at the run for the first time. She looked at the boundless support and said, “It’s meaningful to me.”