APU Alums and Friends Enjoy a European Vacation
by Linda (Roll '87) Wallace, M.A. '97
A group of 23 Azusa Pacific University alumni and friends enjoyed a summer trip to Germany and Austria. The weeklong trip was designed around attending the world-famous Oberammergau Passion Play, which has been performed periodically since 1634 and is in its 40th season this year.
The daylong, six-hour production of the Passion Play, performed on the largest open-air stage in Europe, includes more than 2,000 Oberammergau residents. With up to 800 actors appearing on the stage at one time. About 5,000 people each day see this powerful Gospel presentation.
A group from Malone College in Canton, Ohio, joined the APU group on the tour. The combined group started the trip with a cruise down the Rhine River, then traveled through Heidelberg and into Munich. There, they visited the summer home of Bavarian kings, spent the evening in the winter ski resort village of Berwang, Austria, and visited Neuschwanstein Castle, famous for its inspiration as the castle in Walt Disney's Cinderella. The final stop was Innsbruck, Austria, where the group viewed ski jumps left over from the 1976 Winter Olympic Games held in the city.
The group from APU included Carl Batchelor; Betty Jo Botzbach '74; Jean and Frank Brownell; Rita Cox; Barbara Daugherty; Elizabeth Hagerty '35 and her daughter, Barbara Lee '71; Elizabeth Hedges; Georgianna and Frank Howard; E. Eileen Kuhn; Sue Ann McKnight; Keith Reeves, professor of religion and philosophy, and his wife, Karen; John Robbins and Carmen Warner-Robbins; Sandy and Larry Vaughan; Carolyn Vint; Linda (Roll '87) Wallace, M.A. '97 and Craig Wallace '81; and Beverly Weickert '01, executive secretary for APU's provost.
