Don Boender, director of the Office of Conferences and Campus Events at Calvin College, has been elected chairman of the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau. Boender, 59, previously had been that organization's treasurer and a member of the board.

"To be a member of the Bureau has been a great experience," said Boender. "To be its chair for the next two years is exciting. Grand Rapids and Kent County are changing so much. I don't think there's an area of the country that's had so much happening in the last three or four years."

Boender notes the recent passing of a 1 percent hotel/motel assessment as a challenge for him and the Bureau. "We will have an additional $700,000 that we can use to market this area," he says, "but our challenge will be to use that money wisely and responsibly to benefit all of kent County's hotels, motels, businesses and attractions."

Boender has been director of Calvin's Office of Conferences and Campus Events for the past six years and has worked for Calvin for 30 years. His current work at Calvin sees him and his staff bring a variety of groups to Grand Rapids -- both during the school year and with even more regularity during the summer when the school takes advantage of empty residence halls, dining rooms and large meeting rooms.

Last year Calvin hit the $1 million mark in bookings for the first time in school history. This year it expects to do about $850,000 in business, but it should top the $1 million mark again in 1998. Although Calvin has been using its residence halls for lodging for conferences, family reunions and other events for about 20 years, it's only been in the last decade that the school has aggressively marketed the campus for summer activities. The summer of 1990, for example, Calvin did about $390,000 in business. By last summer it increased revenue by 260 percent in just six years.

Boender says surveys done with groups that come to Calvin indicate that they spend about $2 in the West Michigan area for every dollar that Calvin takes in. In fact, a survey done with last summer's groups indicated an economic impact of over $3 million, with $1 million to Calvin and $2 million to such surrounding industries as airlines and the airport, restaurants, hotels, museums, sporting events, taxis, bookstores and more.

Among the events coming to Calvin this summer is the return, for the second year, of Christian magicians from around the world. Last year about 450 members were present; this year that number is expected to increase to 600. As they did last year, the Christian magicians will present a series of free shows , open to all, this summer. Each night of the week, during their July 27 to August 2 stay, Christian magic will take place in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium.

Next week about 100 high school yearbook editors from the state will meet at Calvin for workshops, lectures, seminars and more on the task that will face them in the 1997-98 school year. The state chapter of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) will meet at Calvin in August.

Among other groups coming to Calvin are 200 members of the Christian Reformed Church as part of Synod 1997, the denomination's annual business meeting, and 35 high school minority students, who will stay on campus as part of Entrada, the annual summer program run by Calvin to give minority students at taste of college life.

The summer conferences will end, appropriately enough, with one of the symbols of summer -- the convertible. On Saturday, August 16 some 250 to 300 MG owners will have a banquet in Calvin's Commons Dining Hall. While they dine, their 250 to 300 cars will be parked in a special section of the Calvin Fine Arts Center parking lot. At the end of the night they'll depart, en masse, into a Michigan sunset, bringing to a close a summer of conferences at Calvin.

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