Bluffton University will honor an activist, an artist, a diplomat and a retired economics professor at its annual alumni awards banquet on Homecoming weekend. The Commons, in Marbeck Center, will be the site at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11.

Lenna Mae Gara, who attended Bluffton in 1948-49, is this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Service Award, presented to alumni who have dedicated their lives to heartfelt service to people, community or church.

Dr. Alex Sider, an associate professor of religion at Bluffton University, will address “The Ethics of Doing History for Theology” in a campus colloquium at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, in Centennial Hall’s Stutzman Lecture Hall. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Sider is Bluffton’s Harry and Jean Yoder Scholar in Bible and Religion. That five-year appointment—made last fall—provides him with annual funds to support scholarly research and writing in areas related to Anabaptist-Mennonite life and thought.

Rehearsals for Bluffton University’s 118th performance of Handel’s “Messiah” will be held from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, beginning Oct. 1, in the Gilliom Room of Mosiman Hall.

Anyone interested in singing, from high school students to adults, is welcome to join the rehearsals, which will lead to the traditional Advent-season performance at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, in Founders Hall.

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