THE
Volume 43
CLARION
THE
VOICE
Of BREVARD COLLEGE CAMPUS
BREVARD COLLEGE, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1975
Number 1
A Bit Of Sweden,France,And Japan Comes To Brevard
Freshman Torgerd Villemo
Cecilia Hedenlo comes to
Brevard College from Sweden;
she prefers to be called Cecilia.
Her father, Joe, is a newspaper
reporter in their town of
Oskarshamn and Mrs. Hedenlo,
that’s Hed’ - en - lo, is a typesetter
for the paper, although she is
also trained as an electrical
engineer. Oskarshamn means
literally Oscar’s Dock and is a
seaside town of about 13,000 on
the Baltic about thirty miles
southeast of Stockholm.
At age seven Cecilia entered
the town’s riding school. By
eleven she had a horse of her own
and it wasn’t long before she was
teaching beginners at the school.
Now an accomplished
equestrian, she was thrilled on
the day in 1971 when, upon
completing their course for
riding instructors, she was given
a summer job at the famed
Stromsholm. That is “the very
highest place for horses in
Sweden,” explained a letter
received last summer by
Brevard College President,
Robert A. Davis, from the
academy’s chief administrator.
For centuries Stromsholm has
been the training school for royal
and military horses and is now
Sweden’s center for equestrian
training and competition. The
letter went on to tell that Miss
Hedenlo had “taken care of the
sick (horses) in a manner worth
imitation.” She also did ordinary
work in the stables, looked after
the free horses on pasturage and
took special part in training the
three-year-olds in jumping and
dressage, “a work she did with
great honor.” The following
summer Cecilia graduated to a
more prestigious position as
instructor at the Riding School at
Grums.
Then, three years ago Miss
Hedenlo became interested
through a book she acquired in a
particular convalescent hospital
in England where the treatment
of patients includes twice weekly
healing prayer services. She
wrote and obtained work there as
a member of the domestic staff
and spent the next six months at
the Dorothy Kerin Trust in Kent.
She remembers that time with
great fondness although the work
was very arduous.
The Swedish grundskola, or
ground school, provides a nine
year educational foundation
“The thirty-five students there
were just like a big family”,
recalls Cecilia, and an hour was
set aside for group prayer each
day. At the end of the school year
she went with three Norwegian
classmates as a missionary team
to a French speaking section of
Belgium.
Already speaking French,
Norwegian and English quite
well. Miss Hedenlo is con-
centraing further this year on
languages taking French,
English and Spanish. Later
perhaps she will take courses for
a nursing career and now, of
course, she is taking Horseback
Riding. At Brevard College she is
a Bishop Ole Bor gen Scholar.
Christine Vizy Gomez and Anne
Bernadette Vizy are sisters at
Brevard College from Paris,
France. Christine is in her second
year at Brevard and Anne is an
entering freshman. Mr. and Mrs.
Gomez came to North Carolina
when husband Raul was tran
sferred by the Bendix Cor
poration to the NASA tracking
station at Rosman in 1973.
Christine and Anne’s father,
Rene Vizy, is a sales manager for
Air France. As the girls were
growing up their father s work
took the family from place to
place. That explains why
Christine happened to finish high
school at the Lycee Moderne et
Technique at Tananarive,
Madagascar. Christine and Ram
met there in 1969, were married
two years later, and remamed m
Madagascar until they moved to
Brevard. Earlier the Vizy family
had lived for a time in the Congo.
Christine now feels very firmly
attached to Brevard and North
. Carolina. She visited her parents
in Paris last summer but is glad
to be home again and resuming
her work at the College toward
her goal of becoming a systems
analyst.
Anne Bernadette Vizy
graduated from high schwl in
France just this past spring,
came to the United States and
Brevard with her sister on the
latter’s return from vacationing
in Paris in June. Mademoi^Ue
Vizy will stay with Mr. and IVfrs^
Gomez at their home m Brevard
and attend Brevard College as a
day student. In high school, she
studied English as a foreign
year educational foundation language bourse in
including most of the math and offered young people in
science courses taught here m First a rmix-Rouge. She
high school. With that France ^ork as a
background Cecilia went next, in put th i„n*ppr member of
the fall of 1973, to the city of full-time vol^ com-
Sarons Dal in Norway at the the which is
Bibel og Misjonsinstitutt to
prepare for evangelistic service, about tour
Four Brevard College coeds were
hosted at a luncheon meeting recently
by the Brevard Rotary Club in the
Rutherford Room of the A.G. Myers
Dining Hall at Brevard College.
Picture Above, left to right, College
Japaense Miss Noriko
Kawanami is a returning
sophomore at Brevard College.
The Japanese symbol for “Nori ,
she softly explains, has had a
meaning which describes the
neatness of threads in a finely
woven cloth and “ko” means
child. “I guess my parents ex
pected me to be a neat child. She
goes on to tell that about two
hundred years ago the govern
ment in Japan required all ot its
citizens to take family names
She believes her ancestors must
have lived near a river for
“Kawanami” translates as ^
big wave in the river.” “A little
ripple” might better describe
petite Noriko.
Growing up, Noriko loved to
play basketball and especially
enjoyed being a member of the
student council of her junior high
school. In high school she took
English but really didn’t like it
until she discovered she could
e rock music for her
That was the spark and
to take all of the
She doesn’t recall the title but it
seems the plot thickened around
a certain English lady who lost
her fan in the home of a gen
tleman. The next year Miss
Kawanami directed the
production. The Doll’s House,
and recalls hours and hours of
practice each day all during the
summer vacation to prepare the
cast. She quickly adds that it was
very much fun.
Wanting badly to come to
college in the United States but
feeling she must not burden her
parents more for her education,
Noriko kept her plans secret and
took a job in the office of a food
importing company. For a year
she saved every yen and earned
extra money evenings giving
lessons in English to neighbor
children. “I wasn’t really very
good but I taught them common
words and songs like Twinkle,
Little Star and their
were quite pleased,
nnaiiy, on the excuse of seeing
the city of Sasebo, she journeyed
there by train for college en-
exams. An American
at her school had
President Dr. Robert A. Davis,
Christine Vizy Gomez of France,
Cecilia Hedenlo from Sweden, Anne
Vizy, also from France, Noriko
Kawanami of Japan, and Dean of the
College, Dr. Branson L. Thurston.
college, just what she wanted.
After much correspondence and
being accepted, she was able to
announce her intentions to her
happy parents.
Twinkle
parents
Finally,
translate
friends
she went on -- trance
English courses offered in high , school had longs to see more of America ana
school and as she continued into ^ome state of North hopes to be able to remain and
the local women’s junior college. ^^ch like work here for about two years
“Yes, I was very homesick
here at first, but not for long. I
was worried about eating strange
foods but it was no problem,
except that I ate too much.” It
seems that her mother always
told her that it was not polite to
leave something on the plate.
That became a problem when she
piled her tray high with all the
interesting selections. Later she
had to learn to take only a little of
each.
Last school year Miss
Kawanami was invited to join the
family of Brevard College
Professor Keith Lathrop for trips
to Florida, New York City and
Washington, D.C. And in the
summer she visited American
friends in Tennessee where she
learned to water ski, “at least to
stay up long enough to have a
picture taken to send to her
friends back in Japan.” Now she
longs to see more of America and
During Noriko’s first year in
the Japanese junior college she
tried her hand at drama. In her
first role she played an English
lord; the girls did all of the parts.
Carolina as being much like
Japan and she thought the state s
name to be beautiful. In a
Japanese book she found, among
others, Brevard College was
listed as a very good and small
work here for about two years
after graduation before returning
to her family and friends in
Japan.