Bethel An­nounces 2022 Paulsen Award Re­cip­i­ents

MISHAWAKA—On Tues­day, Feb. 1, the Bethel Ath­letic De­part­ment an­nounced the 2022 Paulsen Award win­ners. The Paulsen award is a memo­r­ial award that is pre­sented to one man and one woman each year in the ath­letic de­part­ment. It is in honor of for­mer Bethel stu­dent-ath­lete Ron Paulsen. Paulsen was killed in an au­to­mo­bile ac­ci­dent in 1972. While at Bethel, Paulsen par­tic­i­pated in men’s soc­cer and men’s bas­ket­ball. The award is given to ath­letes that show ath­letic in­volve­ment, char­ac­ter, lead­er­ship and in­volve­ment in so­cial and aca­d­e­mic pro­grams. This year’s win­ners were Corey Jones of track and field and Katie Blauw of wom­en’s golf.

“The award means a lot,” said Bethel Ath­letic Di­rec­tor, Tony Na­tali. “It’s the most highly-es­teemed award in the de­part­ment, just be­cause it’s nom­i­nated by the coaches, it’s voted on by the coaches. It re­ally shows a great char­ac­ter type award among the whole de­part­ment.”

Corey Jones is a se­nior from Moore’s Is­land, Ba­hamas. He is cur­rently dou­ble ma­jor­ing in en­gi­neer­ing and man­age­ment and is a sprinter on the Men’s Track and Field team. He is a two-time Cross­roads League event cham­pion, a four-time NC­CAA event cham­pion and a four-time NAIA qual­i­fier. He is also a res­i­den­tial as­sis­tant on cam­pus. Other men’s nom­i­nees in­cluded Cross Coun­try’s Trevor Miller and Bowl­ing’s Myles Moser. 

“He has been through a lot since he’s been here,” Na­tali said. “I mean hur­ri­canes at home, fam­ily mem­bers that have died. I mean he has been through quite a bit. But the fact that he’s per­se­vered and has done as well as he has in every as­pect--I mean he’s been an All-Amer­i­can in track, and his aca­d­e­mics are good. He has a tremen­dous, soft per­son­al­ity. He’s a very hard-work­ing young man, but also un­der­stands the pri­or­i­ties in life that he needs to be suc­cess­ful.”

Katie Blauw is a ju­nior from Cale­do­nia, Mich. She is cur­rently ma­jor­ing in busi­ness man­age­ment and is a part of the Wom­en’s Golf team. She helped the Wom­en’s Golf team to their first ever na­tional cham­pi­onship this past Oc­to­ber as they won the NC­CAA Na­tional Tour­na­ment. Other wom­en’s nom­i­nees in­clude Cross Coun­try’s Megan Cooper, Track and Field’s Kayla Kunkel, Wom­en’s Vol­ley­bal­l’s Maddy Payne and Soft­bal­l’s Quinn Slattman.

“She is a phe­nom­e­nal young lady in every way,” Na­tali said. “She’s def­i­nitely the leader of that team in many ways. She has a great per­son­al­ity, very up­beat, and does very well in every as­pect of life here at Bethel. I mean she’s Christ-cen­tered, she works hard on the course and rep­re­sents her­self well aca­d­e­m­i­cally.”

Each award win­ner is given a plaque, a fi­nan­cial award and will have their name en­graved on the tro­phy that is kept on dis­play in the Weikamp Ath­letic Cen­ter. For more in­for­ma­tion on Bethel’s ath­letic pro­gram’s visit www.bupi­lots.com.