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Karen Antons
Sindelar joined the Board in 2009 serving on the program committee. She
spent her childhood on a century farm near Center Junction, Iowa just 20
minutes away from camp. As a child she fondly remembers attending 4-H
retreats in the Bird and Tree Units under the direction of Varlyn Fink.
She went to high school in Monticello, Iowa; received her B.A. in Public
Communications and Communicative Disorders from Luther College, Decorah,
Iowa; studied at the Estudio Busqueda de Pantomima Teatro (School of the
Pursuit of Pantomime Theatre) in Guanajuato, Mexico; and then received
her M.A. in Applied Psychology/Movement Therapy from Antioch New England
Graduate School in Keene, New Hampshire. She and her husband Kevin live
in Cedar Rapids with their teenagers, Sarah and Eric. Since 1997, she
has been Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Director of the Speaking
Center at Coe College.
Karen sings with St. Mark's Lutheran Church chancel choir
and a touring choir called the Iowa Festival Chorus. Her last tour was
to Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Czech Republic singing
American spirituals and folk songs in various European cathedrals. She
enjoys keeping in contact with her German cousins and being active in
various Czech activities with her family in Cedar Rapids. Karen is also
a member of “Praise Painters” watercolor small group at her church. Her
favorite meal is a German breakfast of black tea with kluntje and cream,
pumpernickel bread with Swiss cheese, and a boiled egg in an egg cup.
She and her husband Kevin met at Camp Wyoming when they
were on summer staff in the early eighties. She and Kevin were
administrators of a camp for special needs individuals in northern MN
until she came back to direct summer programs at Camp Wyoming in the
early nineties. Karen loves to bring people to camp. She brought her
Coe students to Camp Wyoming for public relations service learning
projects, and last summer introduced a German cousin to camp by sending
her to camp with her kids, Sarah and Eric. “Just one week at Camp
Wyoming can instill maturity that lasts a lifetime,” she says of these
experiences.
Karen has many memories of Camp Wyoming though the years.
She observed a wayward hot air balloon make an emergency landing in Deer
Meadow during summer camp season, helplessly watched Robin cabin burn to
the ground when Sarah was just a toddler, helped return a fawn to its
mother near the caves beyond the swinging bridge, but most importantly
remembers sharing faith stories with hundreds of campers through the
years. Many of her closest friends are people she met at Camp Wyoming.
She says, “With the miracle of facebook, it is easy to rekindle
friendships with former staff and campers and see how they have grown in
their faith journeys. They all lead such remarkable lives!” She is very
optimistic about Camp Wyoming’s next 50 years. The words she lives by
come from Mr. Simonet in the movie, Pay it Forward: “The
Assignment: Think of something to change the world and put it into
action.” She truly has watched Camp Wyoming change the world, one person
at a time.
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