Roesch combining graphic design, religious studies at Tabor

   Kansas Golf Foundation Junior Scholars: Tim Roesch

   Quinter’s Tim Roesch doesn’t have a defined career path as of the holiday break this year…and that’s okay. The Kansas Golf Foundation scholar is studying both graphic design and religion while attending Hillsboro’s Tabor College.
   He says he enjoys working with young people and youth ministry might be in his future, but that’s not a certainty for the 20-year-old.
   “I’m just playing it by ear right now,” says the multi-talented Roesch, who’s also been singing in the choir and had a role in a musical at Tabor. “I’ve got the double major with graphic design and we’ll see where that leads me.”

If the cows can’t eat it…
   As with many youngsters, Roesch says his introduction to the game of golf came at the hands of his father…his at the public Quinter course.
   “My dad introduced it to me when I was pretty young…I’d say about 10 years old,” Roesch Tim Roesch

recalls. “He’d take me out to the golf course every once in a while. Then I started to get into it when I was in eighth grade -- in junior high. I just loved going out there and practicing.”
   Roesch says he enjoyed the practice, despite the nine-hole Quinter Municipal’s limited turf.
   “The greens are astro turf,” he says. “So, having to practice on those made it difficult, so during my high school years we’d have to go WaKeeney, which is just 20 miles away. We drove over there once or twice a week and practiced our putting because we couldn’t practice our putting on these greens.”
   Roesch says he also played in a junior golf league that toured northwest Kansas towns during the summer as his skills developed before taking his game to Quinter High.
   “I think (golf) taught me responsibility overall…if you hit a bad shot you have to deal with it and go on from there,” Roesch says. “I think my dad just taught me to just keep grinding away. If you hit a bad shot just put it out of your mind and focus on the next shot. The most important shot is the next one. And I think playing by the rules is one of the most important parts and the history of the game, just respecting that.”
   Roesch used that philosophy as a member of the Quinter golf team all four years. Roesch’s career coincided with the Bulldogs’ development as a squad.
   “At the beginning the golf program wasn’t really that great…and there was another guy in my class that I’d played golf with and we went out,” Roesch says. “My first year, as a freshman, I played as (No. 2) man. I ended up beating the No. 1 man out and from then on out I was the No. 1 guy the rest of my career.”
   According to Roesch, the team went from not having won a tournament since the 1970s to winning the regional event his junior and senior seasons. Roesch, who also played football, basketball and ran cross country at Quinter, had a career-high 11th place finish at the state golf championships at Dodge City Country Club his junior year. His basketball team placed second at the 1A state tourney his senior season.

Transitioning to campus life
   Roesch, also a member of a state-winning forensics squad at Quinter, said he had his college choices narrowed down to Oklahoma Christian College in Oklahoma City and Tabor College in Hillsboro. Late in his senior year he decided on the Kansas school.
   “It’s a Christian college and I just really liked the environment,” Roesch says. “It was three hours away compared to six hours away from my home city and I wanted to stay in state so I

decided to go to Tabor.”
   At Tabor, Roesch has undertaken a double major in graphic design, and biblical and religious studies.
   “I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with that…maybe youth ministries,” reveals Roesch, who’s become active in student religious organizations at Tabor.
   Roesch says he’s become aware just how important the financial assistance provided by the KGF scholarship is as he’s moved along in his college career.
   “Going to college and seeing just how much it does cost…getting the money from the Kansas Golf Foundation, it helps,” he says. “Going to a private college it does cost a lot and that does help with the cost of everything that goes along with that. It takes a burden off our shoulders. I’m looking for a job, but it’s hard to have a job with all the activities I do. It kind of frees me up to concentrate on my studies, my homework and all the responsibilities that go along with it.”