{"id":59444,"date":"2023-09-19T14:06:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T18:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/?p=59444"},"modified":"2023-09-25T14:18:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T18:18:46","slug":"celebrating-alumni-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/2023\/09\/celebrating-alumni-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Alumni Stories: The EMHS Trio"},"content":{"rendered":"

During high school, Dan Steller, <\/span>David Wingfield, and Peter Fair<\/span>field were all in the same gradu<\/span>ating class of \u201998. Now, the three <\/span>\u201cBro\u2019s\u201d are part of a team racing <\/span>against time to help preserve the <\/span>Ojibwe language.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The \u201998 grads\u2019 work is currently <\/span>guided by members of the Mille Lacs <\/span>Band of the Ojibwe Nation, a fed<\/span>erally recognized American Indian <\/span>tribal government whose members <\/span>have lived for many generations in <\/span>the east-central Minnesota region. <\/span>Peter, Dan, and David are now <\/span>part of a large group of people \u2013<\/span>both within Rosetta Stone and the <\/span>Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe \u2013 who <\/span>are working hard to make this <\/span>language initiative happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE PROGRAM<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2018 <\/span>Ojibwe <\/span>tribal lead<\/span>ers from <\/span>the Mille <\/span>Lacs Band, <\/span>based in <\/span>Minnesota, <\/span>invited <\/span>Rosetta <\/span>Stone to team up with the Aanjibi-<\/span>maadizing Language Preservation <\/span>Initiative. The Mille Lacs Band of <\/span>Ojibwe wanted to create an online <\/span>Ojibwe Language Learning pro<\/span>gram that tribal members could <\/span>access on their own time from <\/span>anywhere. They wanted to record <\/span>for posterity the knowledge and <\/span>voices of their tribal elders who <\/span>were native Ojibwe speakers while <\/span>they still had the opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anton Treuer, professor of <\/span>Ojibwe at Bemidji (Minn.) State <\/span>University says, \u201cWhen you help <\/span>to preserve a language, you help to <\/span>preserve a culture. All told, when <\/span>it\u2019s done, I think Rosetta Stone will <\/span>be a historic tool\u2026 to go across <\/span>time and space and preserve and <\/span>teach. It\u2019s not a \u2018silver bullet,\u2019 but it <\/span>will help to teach Ojibwe speakers <\/span>for hundreds of years to come.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

THE EMHS TRIO<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1998, Peter, Dan, and David <\/span>could not have imagined that 25 <\/span>years after graduation they would <\/span>still be in Harrisonburg, visiting <\/span>with EMHS administrators outside <\/span>the Rosetta Stone office building, <\/span>reflecting on their shared profes<\/span>sional endeavors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s father, John, helped to <\/span>found Rosetta Stone (okay, maybe <\/span>Peter could have imagined that <\/span>future) \u2014 the language-learning <\/span>software initially sold in CD-rom <\/span>format in big yellow boxes \u2014 in the <\/span>early 1990s. Peter remembers his <\/span>first paying job scrubbing toilets <\/span>for the company. After earning <\/span>a degree in Math from Goshen <\/span>College in 2002, he returned to <\/span>the company, and has been lead <\/span>developer since 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n

After University, David applied <\/span>for a photo assistant job at Rosetta <\/span>Stone. David didn\u2019t get that job, it <\/span>went to fellow EMHS Alum Steve <\/span>Witmer, but David was hired as an <\/span>assistant to the new photo assistant <\/span>Steve and over time moved into <\/span>producer, photography, and man<\/span>agement roles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dan joined the Rosetta Stone <\/span>team as a contract photographer <\/span>from L.A., where he was living <\/span>after graduating from the Los <\/span>Angeles Film Studies Center. Dan <\/span>and Bridget eventually relocated <\/span>to Harrisonburg in 2010 and <\/span>continued raising possible future <\/span>EMS Alums. Dan has been a senior <\/span>creative producer since 2013. <\/span>For Dan and Bridget, and also <\/span>for Peter, it\u2019s surreal to find them<\/span>selves as parents of current EMS <\/span>kids. \u201cNot to be cheugy, but this <\/span>community is boots, no cap.\u201d says <\/span>Dan, referring to the school and <\/span>area. This hip expression means: <\/span>\u201cSincerely, this community is <\/span>awesome, no lie.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hear more alumni stories and click here<\/a> for a full homecoming schedule.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During high school, Dan Steller, David Wingfield, and Peter Fairfield were all in the same graduating class of \u201998. Now, the three \u201cBro\u2019s\u201d are part of a team racing against time to help preserve the Ojibwe language. The \u201998 grads\u2019 work is currently guided by members of the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe Nation,\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":59322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[46,402,311,320,415,45,101],"class_list":["post-59444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-stories","tag-community","tag-homecoming","tag-rosetta-stone","tag-service","tag-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59444"}],"curies":[{"name":"gracias","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}