Head, Heart & Hand: JBU Stories

Mike Flynn and the Legacy of JBU Broadcasting

Dawn McCollough ’99 said when she arrived at the JBU campus and met Mike Flynn in person, she knew that JBU was where she was destined to be. “My ...

On Friday, Oct. 2, students, faculty, staff and donors gathered to rededicate the Mabee Learning Resource Center after its $13-million renovation was ...

Jesse Rudy ’99 met Gary Haugen in Washington, D.C., in spring 1997. As a JBU sophomore and pre-law student, Rudy was in D.C. as part of a Council for ...

If a colleague or student were to share a few words about Frank Blume, Ph.D., in honor of his recent retirement from JBU, they might talk about the ...

Ten minutes away from the JBU campus is a national-caliber whitewater park where you can kayak, canoe, surf, tube, stand-up paddleboard or bring a ...

Visitors to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, can now enjoy “The Guardians,” a work created by retired JBU visual arts ...

Kiefer Sage, a Northwest Arkansas holding company, began 40 years ago with a vision to help those with mobility needs and has since expanded into a ...

The JBU cross-country and track and field programs are reaching new heights — individual athletes are consistently qualifying for the NAIA National ...

With only 12 minutes left before the Trans-Lunar Injection burn, Orion’s caution and warning display lit up “Cabin Leak Suspected.” For Zach Huffaker ...

Candace Coker was born and raised in Trinidad, where music filled her childhood. Her father enjoyed playing the guitar, and her grandmother worked as ...

From April 15-18, JBU’s Ignite team participated in Enactus USA in Denver, Colorado, earning the Passion on Purpose Award. The award honors student ...

Phillip Todd ’18 spent most of his childhood traveling from village to village in rural China. As the son of missionaries, Todd’s childhood travel ...

Daniel Bennett, Ph.D., published “Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics” in May 2024. In the book, Bennett, associate ...

In July 2024, Anne (Kooi) Tohme ’99 joined JBU as vice president for student development, succeeding Steve Beers, who retired after 26 years in the ...

After 40 years in Christian higher education and 28 years at JBU, our beloved Jane Beers — associate professor of biology — is retiring. When we sat ...

When Parrish ’98 and Kelli Wessels ’98 set out on a backpacking trip through Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore in 2002, they were seeking ...

My wife Andrea and I live less than a mile from John Brown University. Wednesday, April 3, 2024, began with temperatures below 40 degrees. But spring ...

From Siloam Springs to Hollywood editing suites, JBU film graduates are telling stories that entertain, inform and resonate. Whether cutting Marvel ...

Tasha Benz ’18, a JBU graduate counseling student, isn’t self-conscious about sharing the complex aspects of her childhood or the people God used to ...

What does it mean to see biology as a display of God’s truth? To study history as the stage where redemption unfolds? To approach economics as an act ...

Congratulations to Dr. John Lee, associate professor of mechanical engineering, for receiving JBU’s Faculty Excellence Award. The award recognizes ...

In May 2025, a team of five nursing students, four EMT students and four adult leaders spent seven days serving more than 750 people living at the ...

When it comes to entering the world of floral design, a college degree is not typically part of the path. However, for Falyn Cordeiro ’23, owner of ...

Something meaningful happens when people step onto Rooted Ginger Farm. They experience something very different from the overstimulation of our ...

Twenty years ago last March, John Brown University’s men’s basketball team pulled off one of the most improbable NAIA National Tournament runs, ...

The Center for Healthy Relationships at JBU has expanded its programming through its signature BRAVE Relationships workshops, designed to equip first ...

Athletics are a successful outlet to serve others from all walks of life and all corners of the world — a large footprint from community outreach ...

One hallmark that sets JBU apart is the focus on students’ spiritual growth. Through both formal and informal programs, students have incredible ...

A sophomore at JBU, Lucía Arjona Gruber is majoring in elementary education with a minor in intercultural studies. She hopes to one day teach at an ...

Lena Lor ’24, had not seen much of the world. The child of Asian immigrants Lor grew up in a low-income family in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where she ...

Run entirely by a team of undergraduate students, “Shards of Light” is JBU’s literature and creative art journal created to showcase poetry, prose ...

Selma trip brings students face-to-face with civil rights legacy Over spring break, a group of JBU students and faculty walked across the Edmund ...

Anna Marie Ward finds her calling in equipping teachers and helping children. Spend five weeks working with inner-city boys at a summer camp, and you ...

Performing Arts Major Hosts Senior Project Performing Arts Major Hosts Senior Project NEAR THE END of the spring semester, audiences were caught up ...

JBU Music & Theatre to Present 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'

October 26, 2026

SILOAM SPRINGS, Arkansas (Oct. 26, 2026) — John Brown University's music & theatre department invites you to the musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” on Oct. 30 and 31 and Nov. 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. All performances will be held at the Berry Performing Arts Center on the Siloam Springs campus.

Like many Disney films from the 1990s, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was quickly identified as having strong potential for a stage adaptation. As the adaptation process began, Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz saw an opportunity to revise the storytelling and tone to bring it closer to the original source material, Victor Hugo’s classic novel. The result is familiar (and new) music and characters in a darker and more serious context. The sidekick gargoyles, colorful antics and standard Disney happy ending are left behind. Instead, we return to Hugo’s original central theme: the Cathedral herself.

"From the first sounds of the musical — the soft tolling of the bells — we are called to church. The sanctuary of the Cathedral becomes the stage, the choir provides the liturgy and the congregation tells the story," said Liesl Mindeman Dromi, associate professor of music (voice) and chair of the music & theatre department. “The Cathedral is where we are confronted with the evils of the fallen world: oppression and corruption, abuse and control, discrimination and injustice.”

The musical acknowledges these realities and does not provide easy answers. Rather, it points us to antidotes: light, love, beauty and hope. The show begins and ends with the song "Someday" (first introduced in Latin and later sung in English). In the face of great suffering and evil, this song expresses an unyielding hope for and belief in a better world, one that does not yet exist but certainly must exist in the future.

You can purchase tickets in advance at jbu.edu/tickets or at the door the night of the performance. Tickets are $15 for adults; $10 for seniors and JBU employees; $7 for children under 18 and $3 for JBU students.

John Brown University is a leading private Christian university, training students to honor God and serve others since 1919. Arkansas’ top-ranked regional university (U.S. News) and Arkansas’ No. 3 university (The Wall Street Journal), JBU enrolls more than 2,600 students from 35 states and 58 countries in its traditional undergraduate, graduate, online and concurrent education programs. JBU offers over 50 undergraduate majors, with top programs including business, nursing, family and human services, engineering, teacher education, psychology, computer science, construction management, biology, Bible and visual arts. Seven graduate degrees are available in business, counseling, outdoor program management and cybersecurity.

John Brown University's 43rd Toilet Paper Game Continues Unique Basketball Tradition

October 24, 2026

SILOAM SPRINGS, Arkansas (Oct. 24, 2026) — In a wild explosion of white, thousands of John Brown University fans launched the traditional toilet paper storm after senior forward Marko Malekinusic, transfer from Florida Tech, grabbed the rebound and netted the Golden Eagles' first bucket of the season with 19:01 remaining in the first half, marking the raucous start of the school's 43rd annual Toilet Paper Game.

What began as a spontaneous celebration in 1984 has evolved into a nationally recognized spectacle, with USA Today, ESPN, CBS Sports and Bleacher Report all hailing it as one of college basketball's premier fan traditions. The first basket of the season's home opener triggers thousands of fans to shower the court with toilet paper, drawing an automatic — and worth it — technical foul.

"What a special environment here. This is awesome. If you can’t get up for a game like this, you probably should not be playing," said Head Coach Jason Beschta. "It was great to have so many people show out like they do every year to make this such a special thing for not just our team, but this is a big campus thing, this is a community thing. I love the way we are able to come around and embrace that and make it really special year after year."

As the Golden Eagles went a little different direction personnel wise this year and graduated a couple of centers, this brought a new style of play to the basketball court this season with less bigs and more speed.

"With the opportunity to go more forwards and guards instead of any kind of centers in there allowed us to think about what changes we might make, so we just thought this is a fun style to play. It’s saying let’s get up and down," Beschta said."We’re not trying to be like a team that’s shooting it in five seconds or something like that. We’re trying to play smart, good basketball together but just want to attack."

Beschta said tonight's TP Game gave a lot of players the opportunity to play in Bill George Arena for the first time and freshmen the chance to participate in their first collegiate game ever. He was pleased with how they all came together for the first time in game play.

"Love the chance to get a lot of guys some time on the floor and get some of those jitters out. We’ve got so many new guys. Some guys, it’s their first game here or first college game," he said. "Everybody by this time of the year is tired of playing against yourselves. You just need to have that outlet of playing against somebody else, and I think we did that really well playing extremely hard. We were very unselfish in the way that we played. I thought we just kept the pressure, kept the intensity, kept the energy going the whole way through."

Kimberly-Clark continued its partnership with the Golden Eagles for the ninth year, donating 4,000 rolls of toilet paper. Fans exchanged canned food items for half the rolls, with all donations and remaining toilet paper benefiting the Manna Center, a local food bank in Siloam Springs.

The Ecclesia College Royals returned to Bill George Arena for their fourth appearance in the crowd-favorite matchup. The first three matchups were in 2017, 2018 and 2025.

The Golden Eagles defeated the Royals with a final score of 107-58.