Alyssa Malyon

Growing up as a pastor’s son in Nigeria, Dr. Victor Ezigbo experienced the firsthand effects of poverty, corruption and poor leadership in his native country, inspiring him to study theology relevant to life in the 21st century.

Samantha Wurm sat in her childhood bedroom and sobbed. Her Bible had been left on the bookshelf collecting dust for six months, but that night she opened it. It was 1 a.m. and Wurm was desperate for peace as she flipped to a random page. She cried out to God through her tears as her Bible lay flat, opened at the halfway mark. The book of Psalms.

It’s easy to fill someone’s memory with talk of could haves, should haves and would haves, but to what avail when there are endless stories to be shared of a life well-lived?

Hundreds of family members, friends and alumni gathered in the Larry Sonju Gymnasium Friday evening to support the 197 graduating students in the Red Wing High School class of 2023.

The Concert Band began playing the “Fanfare and Processional" as the lower gym doors swung open and graduates filed out in pairs.

Parents scrambled to ready their cameras, not wanting to miss a moment of this important rite of passage.

Red Wing High School Principal George Nemanich took the stage to honor the grad

Soraya Keiser, an international relations and journalism major at Bethel University, uses her never-ceasing passion for history, people and writing to tell important stories of diverse cultures.