A new music group connects the Fresno Pacific University campus and the surrounding community.

The FPU Community Concert Band is open to area musicians at a variety of levels as well as university students, faculty and staff. The amateur ensemble will perform symphonic wind band music in many styles.

Rehearsals begin August 27 and will be from 7-9 p.m. in room 103 of the Marpeck building on the campus. For more information call Wayne Huber, music faculty, at 559-453-2267.

Setting costs and honoring faculty were among the items of business conducted by the Fresno Pacific University Board of Trustees in regular session June 21-22 on campus. 

Tuition for 2003-04 was set at $17,370, up from $16,200 for 2002-03, the upcoming school year. Room rates in 2003-04 will range from $1,065-1,285 and meal plans from $450-1,495 per semester. The average increase of 6.5 percent in room rates was driven by higher utility and insurance costs.

Harold Haak was sent out with a song as president of Fresno Pacific University.

Honoring Haak’s love of music, university staff wrote new lyrics to “Thanks for the Memory,” which was sung to Haak during the Faculty and Staff Appreciation Dinner May 3. Haak ends his two-year term as president in June, and D. Merrill Ewert will become the university’s 10th president.

Everything from empathy for family members to the desire for a new look for college motivated four women at Fresno Pacific University to give a part of themselves to help others.

Students Sarah Chapman, Benita Gonzales and Deborah Parrott and staff member Anita Cockrum donated to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children across the United States who suffer long-term medical hair loss. Cockrum donated 10 inches of hair, Gonzales and Parrott 12 inches each and Chapman 17 inches.

New tennis courts will be named for a couple who have brought leadership and support to Fresno Pacific University and the entire Central Valley.

The Harold and Betty Haak Tennis Complex will include six championship courts and one practice court so the university can again offer tennis as a physical education class. The facility will also provide recreation for students, faculty and friends of the institution and eventually be the home of FPU tennis teams.

The desire to honor the memory of friends and the future of students is the drive behind a new endowed scholarship at Fresno Pacific University.

The Weldon and Eloise Bowen Scholarship will provide $5,000 per year to students with financial need interested in careers in either music or education, particularly teaching people with special needs. The fund was set up by Janz and Patricia Mynderup on behalf of the Bowen estate.

Projects that helped children, college students and senior citizens paid off in prizes for Fresno Pacific University students.

The FPU team was named regional champion and won the special Teach A Child About Business Award at the April 8 Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition in Los Angeles. The six-person squad will go to the national event May 12-14 in Kansas City, Missouri.