Insight
Terri Vrtiska fits the profile of many Doane students in the early 1980s.
She grew up in the tiny farming community of Table Rock and graduated with 20 classmates.
Her father was a dryland farmer who spent 12 years in the Nebraska Legislature.
Her mom was a teacher and homemaker to the family's three children.
They were a Cornhusker red family whose children went to Doane and Peru. College tuition - private or public - did not come without sacrifice.
Labor of Love
Brenda Franklin had to be a nurse. Her great-great grandmother's arrival in Brownville in 1854 likely made her the first lay nurse in Nebraska. Her grandmother was a lay midwife.
As a little girl, Franklin turned her nursing kit and microscope to her dolls and pets. She made March of Dimes posters during the polio epidemic and joined the Junior Red Cross. By 16, she was driving to Lincoln General Hospital to feed patients and fold linens.
When an adult Franklin finally made it to the obstetrics rotation during nurses training, she knew instantly that she had found her home.
It is Rocket Science 
Brandon Wiese came to Doane to play basketball. When you're 18, 6'7" and a standout at a basketball powerhouse like Freeman High, college ball is a natural.
Wiese got his wish, becoming one of only two players in Doane's history to score more than 2,000 points and collect over 1,000 rebounds in his career. He was twice named to National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics All-American teams and was an NAIA All-American Scholar Athlete.
According to Doane's head men's basketball coach Ian Brown, Wiese had numerous opportunities to play professionally overseas after graduating in 2003, but chose engineering school instead.
Walk Like a Penguin
by Julie Rasgorshek
Sometimes you have to take a fresh, creative approach to a problem in order to get results. For Max Kurz, Ph.D., a 1994 Doane College biology graduate, those novel approaches have involved robots, penguins and even elephants.
Kurz teaches biomechanics at the University of Houston. When he's not teaching, he conducts research on movement disabilities. His objective: to find new methods of therapy to help the elderly, people suffering from Parkinson's and other disabilities.