NWC to honor three alumni at Homecoming

Northwestern College will honor three distinguished alumni on Saturday, Oct. 2, during Homecoming. Rachel Klay of Vienna, Va.; Brian Renes, Sioux Center; and Barb Lubbers, Orange City, will be recognized for their professional, humanitarian and Northwestern service achievements.

Recipient of the Distinguished Professional Achievement Award, Rachel Klay joined the Secret Service in 1983 when she was one of just 36 women in a force of 2,000. Over her 23-year career, she protected Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; hunted child abductors and serial killers as part of a joint task force with the FBI; and served as the Secret Service liaison to the Pentagon, CIA, and legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

Klay retired from the Secret Service in 2007 and is now senior special agent in the protective services unit for Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. Formerly from Orange City, she earned degrees in psychology and sociology from Northwestern College in 1980. She also did graduate work in criminal justice administration at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

A 1985 religion graduate, Brian Renes is the recipient of the Distinguished Service to Humankind Award. He holds a master’s degree in cross-cultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, and he and his wife, Donna, a 1987 Northwestern alumna, have been Reformed Church in America missionaries since 1989.

The Reneses started their ministry as Bible translators among the Tojolabal people in Chiapas, Mexico. Since 1996, Renes has worked for United Bible Societies as a computer consultant, providing training and support for Bible translation projects in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia. Using what he’s learned traveling to translation projects around the world, Renes is one of the developers of a translation software program, Paratext, which is used by nearly every Bible translation project worldwide.

Barb Lubbers, recipient of the Distinguished Service to Northwestern College Award, graduated in 1970 with degrees in science and elementary education. She served for many years on the National Alumni Board and Women’s Auxiliary and chaired the auxiliary’s Hostess Supper event.

Lubbers and her family served as a host family for international Northwestern students every year from 1985 to 2009. For six of those years she was the host family coordinator, ensuring that all Northwestern students from outside the U.S. had a family and home away from home.

In 1991, Lubbers became the office assistant in Northwestern’s campus ministry office, supporting staff and students involved in chapel programming, campus ministry and short-term missions. She retired in 2008, the same year she received the Diane Murphy International Inspiration Award.

The Distinguished Alumni Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. in Vermeer Dining Room. Cost is $10. Reservations are required; contact the Northwestern College alumni office at 712-707-7134 or alumni@nwciowa.edu, or visit www.nwciowa.edu/homecoming.