Taylor Fruetel

Taylor Fruetel is an International Relations major at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is a staff reporter for Bethels newspaper the Clarion. She is passionate about human rights and currently is a storytelling intern at ECHO inc. She enjoys travel and speaks fluent Spanish. 



Articles

Bridging the gap

Alivia Wulff and Grace Christensen stood behind a table surrounded by boxes of fresh greens.  Flurries of people came through the line: a young couple, a man wearing glasses fogged from the cold and a teen in Mario Bros. pajamas. Wulff and Christensen offered bags of grapes and boxes of spinach to each person, letting them know they could take three types of produce from the next table until all of the boxes on the table were empty and the doors closed for the night. 
“We fed 300 families today,...

Ready set vote

Click. Bethel University student Noah Schmit turned off his TV in the middle of the first presidential debate. When the second debate aired he couldn’t bring himself to watch it. The theatrical nature and lack of policy description left the new voter disappointed in the 2024 election.  
 “I’m definitely turned off to the news more often now,” Schmit said. “National politics has become so emotional, kind of stressful, and then the coverage of it is really like reality TV.” 
Schmit decided to get...

Minnesota women's sports fans can finally see their teams, and they're loving it • Minnesota Reformer

Before Kelly Pannek helped Minnesota win the first ever Walter Cup of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, she was a star for the University of Minnesota Gophers. 
Back then, she flew across the ice at the 2016 NCAA women’s hockey championship at the Whittemore Center Arena in Durham, New Hampshire, scoring the team’s third goal of the night. The Gophers took home their seventh national championship title. 
Other than the 3,211 fans in attendance, however, no one saw it. 
Gophers fans couldn’...

Finding a traditional way to play

This story is part of a partnership between Bethel University’s journalism program and ICT.Taylor Fruetel Special to ICTNina Polk stepped onto the muddy field, raindrops on the black lacrosse bag slung across her shoulder. She stood by the rest of her team, and laced up her white cleats and grabbed her black ashwood stick, its maroon leather pocket bound tight by twine. On this day in early May, they played for parents, healing and for the Creator. Not for what modern lacrosse is known for today...

Six thousand miles to snow

The Robertson Center Gym melted into a mixture of squeaking sneakers, laughs and bluegrass fiddles as Japanese intercultural students do-si-doed across the polished court. While the speakers blared Bobby Osbourne’s “Old Joe Clark,” a cowboy-hat-clad square dance instructor yelled out moves he’d taught just minutes ago.
“Wagon!”
Everybody found a partner, put hands on each other’s shoulders and moseyed around the gym.
“Rip and snort!”
Some pairs raised their palms against each other’s into a barn...

Honoring wounds to the human spirit

Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition works to support survivors and advocate for the end of sexual assault of Native women and children.

Native women walk with stern faces and straight backs. Red fabric lies over their shoulders to symbolize Natives surviving violence. Purple and teal tassels honor victims of domestic and sexual abuse. The fringe symbolizes tears shed by Indigenous women over generations. The shawl also embodies notions of strength, beauty and solidarity.

The Soli

‘The human experience’

Hana Ko stared out the car’s window as it rumbled down the unpaved roads of the Guatemalan highlands. All around her, flora flourished, the thick forest of vibrant green trees stretching as far as her eyes could see. Surrounded by the Textura documentary team — composed of Bethel University journalism professor Scott Winter, journalism and international relations major Soraya Keiser and Guatemalan director Nataly Basterrechea — Ko traveled to a small village in the mountains. There, they would s

Cheer Night kicks off Homecoming Week

Bethel University students dressed in an array of colors flooded through the doors of the Robertson Center Gym last night for the kickoff of Bethel’s Homecoming events. Flags waved above them as the gymnasium echoed with screams, cheers and claps of students who had anticipated this moment for days.
Cheer Night is an annual Bethel Homecoming tradition in which each dorm competes against one another by coming up with their own cheer to show off the most school spirit. 
“Extravagant.” That is the...