Education
Hetland studied under the regionalist Cyrus M. Running while a student at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, graduating in 1969.
Hetland studied under the regionalist Cyrus M. Running while a student at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, graduating in 1969.
In 1965 Hetland began working on the Concordia Christmas Concert murals, taking over the role as designer in 1978. The Christmas Concert murals, 56-foot by 20-foot, were painted in each year by volunteers in paint-by-numbers fashion. More than 20,000 people would see the murals at Concordia’s Memorial Auditorium and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
Hetland also served as director for Concordia’ General’ s Office of Communications from 1974 to 1982 and director of special projects since 1982.
After dealing with life-threatening illnesses for the last eight years of his life, he died on Easter Sunday, April 16,2006
One of his mosaics, Rondel, hangs in the entrance of the European Landscape Contractors Association"s churchwide offices in Chicago. Hetland also created stained glass windows, altars, pulpits, mosaics, banners and crosses for numerous churches in North Dakota and Minnesota.
He designed Concordia’s president’s medallion in 1980 and a mosaic mural for the library in 1981.