Time management master | Creston News Advertiser

INDIANOLA — Simpson College golf coach Larry Shoop said he’s never questioned Madison Hance’s serious approach to improving as a varsity player on his team.
Contributed photo
Caption Simpson College art and graphic design student Madison Hance of Creston stands by one of her photos from a May 2018 term in Ghana that received recognition at the Iowa Sate Fair last summer. The photograph is of one of the young boys at a local school in Ghana where the Simpson group did volunteer work.
But, he said there’s more to the story for the junior from Creston. Much more.
CNA photo by LARRY PETERSON
Caption Simpson College golfer Madison Hance of Creston strokes a putt during the Simpson Invitational on April 10. Hance will begin her senior year of golf for the Storm next fall.
“Oh yes, she works it in to improve her golf,” Shoop said. “She is so industrious. She is so involved with her music. She’s in the orchestra and band. She will be a three-time Academic All-American and academic all-conference player for us. She’s majoring in art and design. She balances everything with a heavy schedule.”
Contributed photo
Caption Madison Hance, left, and Simpson College golf teammates Kelsey Poppe, center, and Hannah Gordon show their American Rivers Conference All-Academic honors from last season.
For most collegiate athletes, the demands of participation in a varsity sport is like having a full-time job while maintaining a full classroom load. But, the youngest daughter of Dennis and Angie Hance of Creston takes it to another level with the time involved in her musical pursuits and extra work associated with her major.
Contributed photo
Caption Madison Hance of Creston, center in front row, plays the flute at a Simpson College orchestra concert. Hance is also a member of the Simpson band and takes weekly flute lessons for credit.
Hance lays out the individual pieces of her weekly schedule, leaving one wondering how there’s time for the studying that’s involved in maintaining a 3.88 grade point average.
“I’m in concert band and we meet three times a week for an hour in the evening,” Hance said. “For orchestra we meet on Sundays from 6:30 to 9:30 in the evening. I also do flute lessons, so I have to practice solos in the weekly lessons for that. I’m an art and graphic design major, so the classes that I take are usually more like six hours a week instead of three or four, because of the time spent on projects.”
Gallery job
Through her major, Hance has an undergraduate paid assistantship with the Simpson art gallery. Her work hours come in bunches, based on set-up and tearing down visiting exhibits.
“It’s not a set number of hours per week,” Hance said. “The gallery openings are about every month and a half or so. I will have maybe 12 hours in a couple of days to set up the gallery, measuring everything and putting it up. Then, taking it down and putting up the next show. In that two-week span I might work 25 hours or so.”
This term, Hance is also taking a one credit course preparing her and other students for use of photography equipment and the culture of New Zealand for a May term course in her art major. That’s on top of the one-hour credits for participating in band and orchestra, as well as for the weekly instrument lessons. It all adds up to 20 credit hours this semester, on top of daily golf commitments.
“I’m excited about the New Zealand trip, so that course is a lot of fun,” Hance said.
She received Iowa State Fair recognition for a photograph of a young boy in Ghana she took while on a trip there in May. That student group assisted a local school/orphanage and volunteered in a Ghanian medical clinic.
“It was a life changing experience,” Hance said.
The primary competitive golf season for the women’s team is in the fall, and because of an orchestra concert last weekend and her upcoming trip, Hance played her final meet of the spring season under winter-like conditions in the Simpson Invitational last Wednesday at the Indianola Country Club. The Storm edged Southwestern Community Collge for fourth place in the tournament by one stroke.
Temperature at tee-off was 51 degrees, with 30 mph winds from the east gusting to nearly 40 mph.
“When they said in the morning it would be about 50 degrees, I thought 50 would feel warmer than that!” Hance said after the five-hour event. “It was especially hard on those last four holes when we were hitting straight into the wind. I was like 130 (yards) out from the green and tried to hit my 150 club and I still went short into the hazard. It’s kind of a guessing game out there on a day like that.”
Golf ‘escape’
Yet, Hance said she’s never entertained thoughts of a lighter schedule without golf.
“Sometimes, in the busy schedule I feel like maybe I need to work on school or do this or that,” she admitted, “but golf is kind of that escape. It’s a break from all of that hectic stuff. Even on a day like this that can be frustrating, it’s nice to get out and express myself that way.”
Shoop, who announced this week that this was his final season as golf coach, said Hance’s hard work paid off in being named the team’s most improved player this season. She lowered her 18-hole round stroke average from 90.4 to 86.6 in one year.
“Madison has accepted the things I told her she needed to improve on, and he has improved as a college player, mechanically,” Shoop said. “She understands that you don[t have to swing 175 miles an hour.”
Hance has a long history of juggling many activities. For two years in high school she ran on the track team as a hurdler and 4×400 relay runner during the spring in addition to building a golf career that led her to the state tournament three times, including as a Panther team member her senior year along with Haley Osmun, Camryn Somers, Ashton Carter and Sophia Groumoutis.
The 2016 CCHS co-valedictorian along with Danielle Funderman, Ryan Kucera, Jami Sickels, Angela Sorensen and Jenna Taylor also made it to the state bowling tournament with the Panthers three times in high school. Her older sister Taylor was on the Grand View University bowling team.
Shoop was worried Madison might follow those footsteps.
“We got her away from Grand View,” Shoop said. “She’s a proficient bowler and she was considering Grand View for that. I considered it a coup to get her.”
Madison said she was told by junior golf coaches as a youngster that she had a “natural swing” for golf and that bowling didn’t come as easily to her, although she enjoyed it.
“At our first team qualifying round as a freshman on the golf team I was really nervous,” she said, smiling. “I probably cut off 30 strokes the next time I played. Coach asked me where that came from, and I said that was more like me! I just wasn’t myself that first day. It’s been really fun being a member of this team.”
“She gets along very well with everyone on the team,” Shoop said. “She’s a great teammate and they respect everything that she’s trying to do.”
Hance said her goal is to help the Storm improve next fall into a position among the top three of the American Rivers Conference.
“We were in fifth place this year and our goal was to get third or higher, and the second day was rained out so we couldn’t try to make it,” Hance said. “That’s definitely a goal for my senior year.”