Michele Sterk ’91 Schoon has embraced and supported these round her, whether or not as a toddler of missionaries, a two-sport athlete at Hope Faculty, head resident, coach, instructor, counselor, registered nurse, spouse, mom or grandmother.

Schoon additionally has displayed a powerful Christian religion all through her life, even the difficult instances that included her present battle in opposition to breast most cancers.

Hope Faculty named Schoon because the 2023 Hope for Humanity Award recipient and honored her throughout a ceremony on campus on Monday. The guard on the Flying Dutch’s 1990 girls’s basketball nationwide championship group additionally was acknowledged in the course of the HOPEYs Celebration of Hope Faculty Athletics and Senior Scholar-Athletes that night.

Recognizing the values realized in cheering gyms and stadiums in addition to silent early-morning exercises, the Hope for Humanity award is introduced to Hope Faculty alumni athletes who’ve demonstrated Christian dedication and repair to others of their careers after Hope.

The H-Membership selects recipients for this award from nominations who meet the next standards:

• former Hope Faculty athlete;
• demonstrated Christian dedication and servanthood of their profession; 
• nominees for this award are eligible to be nominated for different awards;
• present members of the Alumni Board and the Hope Faculty Board of Trustees are usually not eligible for this award.  

Schoon is the third member of her household to be a recipient of the Hope for Humanity Award. She joins her father, Vern Sterk ’64, in 2018 and her father-in-law, Jon Mark Schoon ’63, in 2005.

“It’s totally humbling,” she stated. “My father-in-law and my dad, I’ve at all times regarded as much as them. They’re nice folks with what they’ve executed of their lives. It is such an honor to be in that group of individuals. You have a look at that group (of Hope for Humanity) honorees, they have been world changers.”

Schoon has made a distinction in numerous lives herself.

As a toddler, she and her household have been missionaries in Chiapas, Mexico. She returned to america for highschool and school. After enrolling at Hope, she served as Resident Director at Faculty East Residences for 5 years.

Earlier than graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in nursing, she performed on the 1990 girls’s basketball group, led by head coach Sue Clever, that captured the primary NCAA nationwide title in class historical past with a dramatic come-from-behind victory in opposition to St. John Fisher (N.Y.) within the title recreation on the Holland Civic Middle generally known as the “Miracle on Eighth Road.”

She additionally was the primary Hope feminine pupil to review nursing whereas being an athlete. She performed basketball for 4 years and volleyball for 2, selecting basketball when she started the nursing program as a junior.
 

Gallery: (4-18-2023) 2023 Hope for Humanity Award Ceremony

For the previous 32 years, Schoon has labored as a nurse, together with stints at Camp Geneva, in Evanston, Illinois, Grand Rapids, Holland and Ludington, Michigan.

Since 1998, she has served within the obstetric unit at Corewell Well being (previously Spectrum in Ludington, serving to girls with the supply of infants. She initiated the RTS (Resolve By way of Sharing) Program within the OB unit. She served as an educator for the unit in Ludington whereas additionally working as an OB nurse. She was the Important Incident Stress Administration counselor for Ludington Hospital.

Schoon additionally has been coaching future nurses since 2015 as an adjunct professor at West Shore Group Faculty.

She and her husband served of their church whereas elevating their household of 4, Jacob, Zachary, Caleb ’22 and Ellie.

Schoon has been given again to Hope as effectively. She has spoken with potential college students in regards to the school and given excursions. She has talked with nursing college students at Hope about their profession decisions and paths. 

“I had a top-notch training at Hope, then I had the bonus of with the ability to take part in sports activities. I nonetheless bleed orange and blue,” she stated. “I’m pleased with how Brian has taken the ladies’s basketball program and run with it and as an entire to see the place girls’s sports activities are actually. A part of it’s the tradition and the opposite coaches have constructed. I like Division III as a result of you possibly can nonetheless be a pupil and an athlete. The coaches actually foster that. They push you to be excellent academically — that comes first — however additionally they push you in athletics.”

Schoon nonetheless applies the abilities and classes she realized as a Hope student-athlete in her on a regular basis life.

On February 11, 2022, she was recognized with Stage 3 triple destructive breast most cancers. She has undergone a number of rounds of chemotherapy, surgical procedure, and radiation. She is presently taking part in a medical trial by way of Begin Midwest in Grand Rapids.

“Being concerned with sports activities and the nursing program, the psychological toughness it’s a must to should get by way of it (is essential),” she stated. “Taking part in sports activities at a excessive stage in Division III and a coach who pushed me past what I assumed I may taught me not solely psychological toughness however endurance and that aggressive edge. I am simply not going to stop.

“I’ve tried to encourage others by way of my journey. I hope that my story can provide different folks hope and pleasure to maintain preventing no matter they might be going through of their lives.”
 

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