montreat happenings
Meet Don Shepson
by Lindsey Migliori
Many of you have seen him
around campus with his tame
pony-tailed fro and his Pee-Wee
Herman bow-tie. His speech is
always light and his words softly
spoken. He dominates the ulti
mate frisbee field and can often
be spotted causing a ruckus in
the cafeteria at student tables, but
few really know the man behind
the bow-tie. Don. Shepson is the
newest addition to the Montreat
College Bible and Religion
Department.
Don was bom on February
19, 1968. The Northern Illinois
native grew up a country boy
right outside of Chicago. Don
only has one younger brother,
Doug, who is “both smarter and
better looking”. After graduating
from Woodstock High School
(filming _ location of Ground
Hog Day) Don went on to get
his undergraduate from Whea
ton College in Sociology with a
minor in Camping Ministry and
received his Masters of Divinity
from Gordon-Conwell Seminary.
Don is currently working on his
PhD in Christian Education at
Biola University in California
and plans to have his disserta
tion completed by summer of
2007. His dissertation topic: The
Factors that Influence a College
Student’s Spiritual Formation.
Don met his future wife Sarah,
while working at Honey Rock
Camp in Northern Wisconsin.
As the logistics leader there, Don
made sure that he was doing the
logistics for Sarah’s group. Don
and Sarah never really dated
because they were always sepa
rated by distance. A few years
of getting to know one another
through letter-writing, eventu
ally led to the couple’s engage
ment. While Sarah served as a
missionary in Mexico for about a
year, Don flew down to Mexico
and asked Sarah to be his wife.
The couple married in August
of 1998 and now have three
children Emory, 4, Tabby, 3, and
Wyatt, 5 months.
The Shepson’s found their
way to Montreat quite ironically.
After Don was rejected from
an opening in the OE depart
ment (because of his lack of
specialized qualifications) Lloyd
Davis, a member of the hiring
committee, remembered Don’s
resume when an opening arose
within the Bible & Religion
Department. From there phone
interviews led to face-to-face
interviews, and Don was on the
fast track to becoming Montreat
College’s Assistant Professor of
Bible & Christian Education.
“Because the department and
the college itself are in such a
state of transition,” Don state’s,
“it really is a neat time to be
here.” He explains how excited
he is to be a part of the process
of “figuring out and settling in
to who we are as individuals, a
department and a college.”
Don has had a lot of experience
with OE and wilderness journey
style adventures. Wheaton
offered a program to its students
called Freshman High-Roads
much like Montreat’s Discovery,
though it was only offered to
incoming freshman. Influenced
by his father, Don reluctantly
agreed to go on the wilderness
expedition. Don claims, “I really
hated the trip due to eight hungry
guys with too little to eat, but
upon reflection I appreciated the
experience so much.” In fact,
Don returned to Camp Honey
Rock to be a wilderness leader
every summer and one winter
after that.
After serving in the pastoral
ministry for awhile, Don dis
covered his spiritual gift was
teaching. He then found that a
combination of teaching in the
classroom and inviting students
into his life were foundational
aspects of a growing passion for
Congratulations!
Anthony Moore (adjunct faculty in music)
and his wife Dawn would like to announce the
birth of Anna Kirby Moore, born 6:40 pm on
December 20, 2005. She weighed 7 pounds,
15 ounces, was 20.5 inches long, and has red
dish hair.
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his life’s ministry. Because of
Don’s background in experiential
education, he had a pretty broad
perspective of teaching methods
and knew that the majority of
learning occurred outside of the
classroom. All of this explains
why Don is seen all over campus
and off campus, constantly
interacting with students. “I use
higher education as a tool to do
ministry,” claims Don. “My job
is really about the importance of
building relationships with stu
dents. It’s an opportunity for me
to be involved in students lives
and do some character building,
shaping, and encouraging. All
of that happens on the ultimate
field, during dodge ball and over
lunch.”
Don has a few hobbies that
occupy his time. Other than
being a family-man he enjoys
reading, road biking, mountain
biking, camping, hiking, rock
climbing, skiing, racquetball,
and flight instructing. When
asked about his greatest talent,
Don responded lightheartedly
with, “I am a jack of all trades; I
do a lot of things well but noth
ing with excellence.”
When asked about his crazi
est adventure, Don told a tale
of fright. He said, “Most of my
adventures are planned; this
one wasn’t. I was teaching a
friend and new student to fly
in a Cessna 150 which is basi
cally a lawnmower engine with
wings. We were at 3,500 feet
and practicing maneuvers which
are called stalls. All of a sudden,
right in the middle of a maneu
ver the engine completely shut
off. This had never happened
to me before and as I watched
the propeller eome to a stop, I
thought, ‘This is definitely not a
good thing.’ My student was not
aware that this wasn’t normal
and he looked at me with a ‘what
next?’ look. As the sound of a
loud engine slowly died and all
we could hear was the air over
the wings, I looked at my buddy
with eyes as big as saucers and
said, ‘You fly the airplane; I’ve
got to restart this thing!’ What
felt like hours was really only
like seven seconds as I restarted
the engine and we turned the
plane around to put it back on
the ground.”
So Montreatians, as you see
this outwardly calm, seemingly
collective man walking around
campus, know that despite his
every effort to fool you, Don
Shepson is an enthusiastic,
exhilarating, spontaneous man
seeking adventure at every turn.
Mar. 2,2006, Page 3
The Whetstone