Alumni stories captivate crowd at TenTalks

Nearly every seat in the Suter Science Center lecture hall was filled on Saturday, with everyone in attendance on the edge of those seats as they listened to some amazing stories from three EMU alumni at TenTalks. The event, which is modeled after TED Talks, tasks three luminaries with 10 minutes each to impact, influence and inspire the crowd. This year’s speakers were Ryan Gehman ’16, Kevin Ressler ’07 and Madeline Bender ’93. For a recording of the program, visit the EMU Facebook page.

Gehman spoke about dreams, specifically his dream of finishing the Boston Marathon in less than 2½ hours, and how that dream nearly crumbled due to injuries. In April, his dream came true when he crossed the finish line in Boston in 2 hours, 27 minutes and 31 seconds, not only meeting his goal but also bettering his personal record by more than 11 minutes.

The long-distance runner inspired the audience with his stories of meeting adversity: of being diagnosed at four years old with severe sensory integration issues, autism and anxiety and of being told he would never write or have any physical coordination. He told the crowd about his challenges of entering the public school system and being paired with an ill-equipped and verbally abusive teacher.

“At 14 years old, the message I was repeatedly told on a consistent basis, day after day, was because of my disability I shouldn’t even try because I would surely fail,” he said. “That it would be better if I just stayed within the confines of the box in which they put me in. It is hard to put into words the effect that this teaches.”

Ressler, a community activist and civic leader from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, shared his experiences of having visited Israel and Palestine while an EMU student in 2006 and reflected on the state of the war in Gaza today. Much of his talk centered on the false dichotomy between right and wrong and between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. And he spoke on the rush to judgment to paint Gazans as guilty for the actions of the Hamas nationalist group and to treat Israel’s military retaliation as just.

The alumnus, who said he had written two other potential speeches for TenTalks, added that he had read an op-ed piece in the latest Weathervane that inspired him to speak on the topic.

“I said, ‘Here is still a safe space for students to decry the way in which our world does not accept that everyone has an inherent dignity to life,’” Ressler said. “Here, in this institution, is still a space that you can believe that the world does not need to rely on violence to solve its problems.”

Bender, a former opera soprano, shared the journey from her time on the EMU stage to the 15-year adventure that saw her jet-setting around the globe with some of the greatest conductors, stage directors and singers in the industry. She spoke about the perfect storm of events in 2004 that caused her to leave singing.

A mysterious problem with her singing voice appeared and continued to worsen. Her mother had months to live because of cancer. And her manager in Paris dumped her.

“Anybody who has ever crashed and burned like I did, and I mean truly and spectacularly fallen with such a colossal ‘boom’ that there is no option of bouncing back,” she said. “If any of you experienced something like that, then you will understand what an incredible, magnificent blessing that was for me.”

Bender may have lost her professional singing voice, but she found her blessings. She started an annual fundraising gala called Voices of Hope that raises money for Mennonite Central Committee’s Global Family Program. That gave her the confidence to start her own business, Creative Stage, which continues to mentor thousands of children in Manhattan with professional artists and musicians.