J. Lawrence and Harriet Burkholder Endowment For President’s Leadership Award

When the subject of this gift for scholarships comes up, Howard and Myra Brembeck don’t want to talk about themselves. ‘Just make our part about a paragraph,’ Howard said. Instead, they want people to know about their friends in whose name the gift was made: J. Lawrence and Harriet Burkholder.

Because of their admiration and respect for the Burkholders, the Brembecks gave a gift of stock to establish an endowment in tribute to J. Lawrence and Harriet. This endowment will help fund Goshen’s largest and most distinguished scholarships, the President’s Leadership Awards. These awards are given each year to students recognized for their high school academic achievement and leadership and service activities in their school, church and community.

J. Lawrence Burkholder is known as a distinguished scholar and teacher. He received a B.A. from Goshen College in 1939, a B.D. from Gettysburg Theological Seminary in 1942, a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1951, and a Th.D., summa cum laude in 1958, also from Princeton. He served as Goshen’s president from 1971-84, and was also a professor of Bible and philosophy at GC from 1949-61. He spent the intervening years at Harvard University Divinity School, leaving a tenured position to return to his alma mater. Since his retirement, Lawrence’s travels have taken him to Germany during the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and to Russia during an attempted coup.

Harriet, a 1937 Goshen College graduate, was the first Mennonite woman in North America to receive a bachelor’s degree in theology. After graduation, she took an assignment with Chicago Home Mission under Mennonite Board of Missions. Her international experience began with growing up in India as the child of missionaries, then continued in China after her marriage to Lawrence, where she taught English at Soochow University Law School.

The Brembecks have known the Burkholders so long and so well that Howard and Myra are hard pressed to remember just how or when the two couples met, but it was likely through an introduction by local attorney and GC alumnus, Frank Yoder. The Brembecks, who today split their time between homes in Goshen and Palm Beach, Fla., moved to the Maple City in 1954.

Though Howard Brembeck describes Lawrence Burkholder as an ‘internationalist’ the same title could be applied to him. The company he founded, Chore-Time Brock Inc. (a producer of grain bins and feeding and watering equipment for swine and poultry) does business in more than 100 countries from its headquarters in Milford, Ind, Realizing the world is more than a place of commerce, Brembeck established the Fourth Freedom Forum in 1982. Based in Goshen, the forum promotes the use of economic sanctions as a means to avoid military conflict.

The forum did much to forge a friendship between the Burkholders and the Brembecks, Howard remembers. ‘I told him about my crazy idea and he took it seriously. He was the only one who did. He made me feel like I had to pursue it.’ Burkholder took it seriously enough to accept membership on the forum board, a position which he still holds.

Intellectual interests also run in the Brembeck family. Howard’s brothers, Winston and Cole, are retired professors of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Michigan State University, respectively. A native of Wabash, Ind., Howard spent childhood summers at Lake Wawasee. ‘That’s where I learned to swim,’ he said. Myra was born in Louisville, Ky., but her family moved to Wabash County, Ind. The couple met at an Evangelical United Brethren Church in Urbana, Ind., and lived in Manchester, Ind., for 10 years following their marriage in 1933. They have one daughter, Caryl, who lives near Lansing, Mich. two grandchildren and three great grandchildren.