{"id":2772,"date":"2015-07-20T13:42:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T17:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2016-12-22T11:42:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T16:42:42","slug":"distinguished-service-award-john-a-lapp-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2015\/07\/20\/distinguished-service-award-john-a-lapp-54\/","title":{"rendered":"Distinguished Service Award: John A. Lapp ’54"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John<\/a>

\"John<\/a> John A. Lapp (center) and wife Alice Lapp and MCC Indonesia staffer Allen Harder (right) walk with residents of Agusan Village in northeastern Mindanao, Philippines. The Lapps joined Asia service workers at a regional retreat in 1986. (MCC Photo\/Earl Martin)<\/p><\/div>\n

John A. Lapp \u201954<\/strong>, who started his career as a history professor at EMU, witnessed a major historical event himself \u2013 Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech at a civil rights march in Washington D.C. in 1963. He remembers an atmosphere of joy and energy and a feeling that something historic was happening. \u201cI will never forget the singing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At the time, Lapp\u2019s state of Virginia \u2013 and the rest of the South \u2013 was still segregated in favor of the white population. African Americans could not go to regular schools or eat in restaurants. They sat in the back of buses and in the balcony of theaters. They were not allowed to vote and were barred from many jobs.<\/p>\n

Lapp was active in the Virginia Council on Human Relations, which fought for equal rights for African Americans and the end of segregation. The march in Washington by over 200,000 people was a big step forward in their campaign.<\/p>\n

Following two years of alternative service as a conscientious objector to the military draft, Lapp taught at EMU from 1956-69, taking some time off to pursue a master\u2019s degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and then a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was restless in the 1960s,\u201d he says, \u201cand when a call came to direct the Peace Section at Mennonite Central Committee, I decided to get a leave from EMU.\u201d At MCC in Akron, Pennsylvania, his worldview was greatly enlarged, he says.<\/p>\n

After three years, Lapp got another call \u2013 to serve as dean of the faculty at Goshen College, a Mennonite school in Indiana. In 1979, he became provost, the second-ranked position under the college president. He lived in Goshen with his wife, Mary Alice Weber \u201955<\/strong>, and family for 12 years. All three of their children \u2013 John Franklin, Jennifer and Jessica \u2013 graduated from Goshen College.<\/p>\n

The call came again in 1985 to return to MCC as executive director of the relief, development and peace organization. During his tenure there, until 1997, he traveled to some 70 countries to visit MCC\u2019s far-flung service workers, local partners and aid programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never applied for a job or planned a career beyond teaching,\u201d Lapp says. \u201cI tried to see my adult life as a calling from the church as a teacher and then in administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy Heisey<\/strong>, associate director under Lapp at MCC and now a Bible and religion professor at EMU, said the two often discussed the importance of leaders being kirchlich<\/em>, a German word that is similar to \u201cchurchly\u201d in English. \u201cThis means that in all your career and personal matters,\u201d she says, \u201cyou see the central importance of the community of believers.\u201d<\/p>\n

After retirement, Lapp taught courses at Bishop\u2019s College in India, Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and the Lancaster site of EMU.<\/p>\n

Then he took on the monumental task of directing the Global Mennonite History Project under the auspices of Mennonite World Conference. He was responsible for recruiting writers, editing manuscripts, raising funds for the project and publishing five volumes \u2013 one for each of the five continents. The task took 16 years, ending earlier this year.<\/p>\n

For most of his retirement years, Lapp stayed in Pennsylvania, where he and his wife grew up, but in 2011, they moved to Indiana at their children\u2019s urging.<\/p>\n

Now what? \u201cAt age 82, I don\u2019t expect any more projects other than putting on paper some memories for the children and grandchildren,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John A. Lapp \u201954, who started his career as a history professor at EMU, witnessed a major historical event himself \u2013 Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech at a civil rights march in Washington D.C. in 1963. He remembers an atmosphere of joy and energy and a feeling that something historic was happening. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":2777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,586],"tags":[584,585],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-springsummer-2015","tag-john-a-lapp","tag-mcc","issues-springsummer-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2798,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}