Fall 2025 Issue

Walking With Courage

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Story By: Diana Nollen ’80

November 13, 2025

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“cour-age” 

According to merriam-webster.com, these two simple syllables combine for a mighty powerful noun: “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.” 

It stems from the Latin “cor,” meaning “heart.” 

No one had more heart than Bette Brunsting, my first advisor and the late, great associate professor emerita of communication studies. When I think of all the professors and administrators who walked beside me from 1976-80, Miss B always comes to mind. She helped me navigate the exciting, sometimes bumpy road far removed from the small-town life I had known. 

She intoned her watchword with gusto. 

How appropriate that “age” is the second syllable, since it takes courage to explore every age we’re lucky enough to reach. 

Miss B knew it took courage just to leave the comforts of home and embark on one of the most formative, defining chapters of life.  

For me, that meant embracing my communications/theatre scholarship and leaving behind my earlier aspirations of becoming a pediatrician or genetics researcher. 

It took courage to turn down the offer of becoming the editor of my hometown newspaper, the Mediapolis New Era, at the end of my junior year — a position I accepted after graduation.  

Two years later, two of my Central housemates encouraged me to move to Cedar Rapids. (I’m not sure I realized the courage it actually took to quit my job and move to the city with $1,000 in my pocket and a new suit!) 

I immediately filed a résumé and job application with The Gazette, Iowa’s second-largest newspaper. They called six weeks later, I ditched my starter job in market research and began climbing a ladder that would take me on so many beats as a reporter, editor and arts critic spanning 42 years, ending with my retirement Dec. 31, 2024. 

Courage again came into play after five years at The Gazette, when the community theatre where I had been performing and teaching offered me the full-time K-12 Youtheatre position. Four years later, I turned down the offer to combine my Youtheatre duties with costume design and convinced them to let me focus solely on costume design. I continued to teach youth classes there for 25 years. 

All the while, I wrote feature stories for The Gazette and reviewed concerts, plays at other venues, comedy, ice skating shows, art exhibits and more. I didn’t keep track, but a conservative estimate is more than 2,000 reviews, including Cher, Elton John, Marcel Marceau and “Wicked” and “The Lion King,” both with glorious costumes. 

That also started me down a path of stepping outside my comfort zone and interviewing major stars. Iowa isn’t flyover country. It’s where Broadway touring shows, top-notch comedians, authors and A-list musicians come to play. 

Even after decades of chatting with stars, I still had to summon the courage to sit down for an exclusive interview with Sir Salman Rushdie in February 2013. My all-time favorite interview. 

But the phone interview that zoomed me right back to my freshman year at Central was Barry Manilow. A bunch of us would gather in Graham Hall’s main lounge, where I would play the piano while we all sang from the Barry songbook owned by Lori Collister Hilker ’80. 

He was everything this Fanilow dreamed he’d be. Just one of the many dreams I couldn’t even imagine during my college days. When Miss B said, “Go forth and do great things,” little did I know where that would take me.  

I’ve often said that I’ve used my Central education and experiences every day of my career — paired with a little courage, of course.