HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM, Apr. 24, 2025) – The youngest mayor in Holland history is coming back to the Tulip City.
On Wednesday, Hope College announced that Phil Tanis has been designated as the next director of the school’s Van Raalte Institute, a research arm that explores this area’s past, along with scholarly work on Dutch-American relations, as well as Dutch immigration and heritage on this continent and globally. On July 1st, he will succeed Donald Luidens, who will stay on as editor-in-chief of the Van Raalte Press and as a senior research fellow.
Tanis was elected to the Holland City Council while still a student at Hope College, and served a single two-year term as Mayor, from 1987 through 1989. His accomplishments include being the first manager of the Knickerbocker Theatre when the school acquired the complex, along with seeing construction of the downtown snowmelt system start, and putting brick walkways in Centennial Park. He has served abroad with the World Community of Reformed Churches and with the International Republican Institute since his tenure on Holland’s governing panel.
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