Four alumni to be recognized at Homecoming

Dawn Routledge

Larry Russell

Jason Eberly

Nathan Hartman

HUNTINGTON, Ind. Four distinguished Huntington University alumni will be recognized at Homecoming for their significant achievements in their professions or other areas of service since graduation. The award ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. Oct. 8 in the fieldhouse of the Merillat Physical Education and Recreation Complex.

The ceremony is open to the public, and lunch will be served beginning at 11:30 a.m. The cost for lunch is $8.75 for adults, $4.50 for children ages 6-12 and children 5 and younger are free.

Dawn M. Routledge, a 1993 graduate from Reading, Mich., will be recognized with the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Citation.

In 1999, Routledge and her husband, Doug, created Crossroad Farms as a way to minister to the teenagers in and around their community of Reading. As a non-profit community youth program, Crossroads provides social, educational, spiritual and relational opportunities to the secondary students of rural Hillsdale County. Through their leadership, Crossroads positively empowers students, interns and adults to create a sense of pride in their communities. Crossroads also provides training and partners with local churches to create youth programs in places of need.

Lawrence "Larry" A. Russell, a 1971 graduate from Franktown, Colo., and a native of Peoria, Ill., will be recognized with the 2011 Alumnus of the Year Award.

Early in his career, Russell was hired by Youth for Christ in Fort Wayne, Ind., to work in the area of troubled youth. After holding several positions within YFC, he was asked in 2005 to become the younger leader development director for Lausanne. Started in 1974 by Dr. Billy Graham and Dr. John Stott, Lausanne has served to gather Christian leaders to focus on bringing the Word of God to all of God's children. Three years later, he was asked by Lausanne to also become the associate director of Cape Town 2010, the Third World Congress on Evangelism held in Cape Town, South Africa, and simultaneous locations worldwide. His role was to create the system and structure for the interconnected GlobaLink locations. In all, more than 650 sites in 107 countries were registered, holding events in eight different languages.

Jason Eberly, a 2010 graduate from Los Angeles, Calif., and a native of Fort Wayne, Ind., and Nathan Hartman, a 2010 graduate from Huntington, Ind., and a native of Berne, Ind., will both be recognized this year with the 2011 Young Alumnus Award.

As a student, director and producer, Eberly has helped to create more than a dozen narrative short films and one feature film throughout the course of his young career. His work has been shown in more than 16 international film festivals and has gained recognition along the way. He currently works as an assistant to a senior talent agent at International Creative Management, one of the largest and most reputable talent agencies in the world.

In his young career, Hartman has created six films, garnering audience praise as well as a total of 14 festival and showcase awards. While his passion is screenwriting, Hartman has also used his talents to act as the production manager for the campus radio station, 105.5 FUSE FM, as well as writing for The Berne Tri-Weekly News and the campus newspaper, The Huntingtonian. Since graduation, he has returned to HU as an adjunct professor in the digital media arts department.

While Eberly and Hartman were still students, they created "Nero-Bloom: Private Eye," a feature-length film that tells the story of a detective traveling the "labyrinth" of clues to discover the truth behind a gambler's death. "Nero Bloom" premiered at the Cinema Center in Fort Wayne, Ind., and had a two-month run on the big screen. Since that time, it has been recognized as the "Best Student Feature" at the Cinema City Film Festival in Los Angeles and with the "Chris Award" at the Columbus International Film Festival.

They both have continued working on film projects since graduation, including an upcoming film titled, "Niña Del Tango," a bilingual telling of the celebration of the passions and ethnicity of tango.