“强大”音乐激发奖学金支持

97年的瑞恩和林赛 (Kahler ’96) Ermeling met in the choir 在欧文的康考迪亚大学. 毕业后两年, they started the Ein Feste Burg Choral Scholarship to support the choral department and students with financial need. 在接下来的几年里, Ryan’s start-up business moved from his garage to an office building in Phoenix w在这里 he now has 20 employees and a business that has enjoyed double-digit growth for the past 12 years.

“康科迪亚离我们很近，很亲，”瑞恩说. “那里有很强的基督教氛围. The scholarship was something we prayed about and talked about. After we graduated we wanted some way to keep connected and figured it’d be neat to fund an annual scholarship that would help students who needed assistance or give leverage to the music department to recruit a student for the choir.”

瑞安,一个 通信专业和林赛，a 音乐专业的在日本、韩国和德国巡回演出 康考迪亚合唱团.

“我们的关系始于唱诗班，”林赛说. “我们就是在那里认识的. 它以一种非常独特的方式让我们走到了一起. We spent so many hours together in the rehearsal hall, on the stage in the CU Center, on tour. The music program at 肯考迪娅 has a really special place in our hearts.”

While touring All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg w在这里 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door, 唱诗班即兴表演了《博彩平台网址大全》,一座坚固的堡垒.”

“We broke out in song and everyone else touring stopped in their tracks to listen,” Ryan says. “这是我在博彩平台网址大全四年的亮点之一. 这是一个充满力量的时刻，也是一段充满力量的音乐.”

“I don’t think t在这里 was a person in our choir who didn’t have goosebumps,” says Lyndsay. “我们只是在那里站了一会儿，接受了这一切.”

那段记忆是我, 在毕业, they named their scholarship the Ein Feste Burg Choral Scholarship.

“什一税对我们来说一直很重要，”瑞安说. “We both grew up in church-going families that understood the importance of being generous and pouring out gifts God has given us. 当我们看到我们想要什一奉献和回馈, 很明显，教堂在这方面很重要, but 肯考迪娅 was such an important part of our lives that we wanted to make it a key part of our giving. 我们面面相觑，说:‘我们怎么能不呢? 我们得想办法把协和女神牵扯进来. What can we do that would be special and meaningful for us and the institution?’”

At the time Lyndsay was leading the choral program at Orange Lutheran High School. Ryan worked at CSU Fullerton as assistant director for athletics relations. One day Ryan’s boss came into Ryan’s office and said words that would eventually redirect his career: “The service we’re using to broadcast our games online is going to start to charge us a couple hundred bucks a game. 我们负担不起. Is t在这里 any way we can play around with the technology and do this on our own?”

瑞安不是特别擅长科技, but using his Apple computer he came up with a way to broadcast audio of their games in-house, 省了不少钱. 人们马上告诉他，他应该推销他的解决方案.

“I wasn’t entrepreneurial at all by nature, but it was the right place at the right time,” Ryan says. “A lot of Division II and III schools and NAIA schools weren’t doing anything. I had the opportunity to get into that market when it was still pretty open.”

In their home garage he set up 17 eMacs and coupler devices which turned the high-speed Internet line into 72 phone lines, over which he streamed the games via the Internet for interested listeners.

“仪表在跳，灯在亮或灭，”瑞恩说. “那是一场灯光秀.”

One of the early joys was becoming the official streaming partner of the NAIA and getting to stream 肯考迪娅’s national championships. 星期六早上7点开始.m. 到晚上11点.m. 瑞安一个人处理了80到100个广播. Now his company, Stretch Internet, streams 800 games on a Saturday.

“I never started the business with the intention of growing and running it full time,” Ryan says. “It was a side business I started to pull in extra revenue to support our family so Lyndsay could step down from her job, 否则我会. If you had asked me 12 years ago if this would be our primary source of revenue, 我也不一定会这么认为.”

林赛说，口碑的增长“让我大吃一惊. 它一直在增长，我们一直在增加学校. 这非常令人兴奋，”她说.

Ryan说，秘诀在于出色的客户支持. “这一直是我们的卖点，”他说. “The customer service we provided was so steady and reliable. 毫无疑问，这是最大的因素.”

Stretch Internet now streams video and audio broadcasts of college sports games for nearly 600 schools and their fans, 包括康考迪亚大学欧文分校. 随着业务的增长，埃尔梅林夫妇的捐赠也在增加.

We’ve been able to increase the giving over time to make it more and more impactful....We hope our scholarship produces a lifelong appreciation for music and the role it plays in faith.

“We’ve been able to increase the giving over time to make it more and more impactful,” says Ryan. “My hope is we can continue to give even more in that regard and bless the choral program.”

Lyndsay continues in music and sang second alto for 5 years with the Phoenix Chorale, 在此期间，该组合获得了两项格莱美奖. Today she is the director of contemporary worship at their Lutheran church and teaches all the choirs and theater classes at the church’s school. 埃尔梅林夫妇有三个女儿，分别是14岁、11岁和2岁. The oldest is a full-time student at the prestigious School of American Ballet and lives at Lincoln Center in New York City.

“We love 肯考迪娅 with every fiber of our being,” says Lyndsay. “我们希望将来我们的一个女儿能去那里. We also hope our scholarship produces a lifelong appreciation for music and the role it plays in faith. 对我来说，音乐比任何东西都更能把我和我的信仰联系起来. We just wanted that opportunity for somebody else to have those kinds of mountaintop musical experiences, to do something they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”