06r1_UAFS_SPSU11:04r1_UAFS_SPSU11 6/10/11 7:36 PM Page 6
Grand+Waldron
Water Boys
Juniors Harold McKeown (left) and Adam Schwartz
EVERY SPRING, students taking Cameron McKinney’s Advanced Program Logic Controllers write intricate programs to control the laminar jet fountain installation in front of the Baldor Technology Center. Trouble is, it’s been years since the fountain actually worked, so the students got to watch the results of their programming only as a computer simulation. Until this spring, that is, when juniors Harold McKeown and Adam Schwartz decided they’d prefer to see the real thing. Pretty soon, they’d struck a deal with Plant Operations—if they’d to the work, Plant Ops would buy the parts. After three or four years of disuse and Fort Smith weather, the complex plumbing, circuitry, and machinery were rusty, deteriorated, and badly in need of … well, two guys who knew about that kind of stuff to make up their minds they were going to fix it. And just in time for finals, after weeks of wet, chilly, knuckle-skinning work, McKeown and Schwartz had the fountain fully revived, with all 25 nozzles sending their weirdly solid streams arcing improbably through the air. Next time you’re around campus, swing by and enjoy it for a few minutes.
spent much of the spring semester repairing the laminar jet fountain in front of Baldor.
ZACK THOMAS
TELL US ABOUT IT
Lion Love Stories JESSICA MEINARDUS PHOTOGRAPHY
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BELL TOWER spring/summer 2011
We didn’t plan it, but for some reason this issue ended up populated by lots of couples who first met at UA Fort Smith/Westark/Fort Smith Junior College—Rance Bighorse and his wife Linda (p. 24), Rennetta and Terrence Carter (p. 31), and a bunch more in the class notes starting on p. 28. Then there’s Jacob ’09 and Hillary Welch Kleck ’10, who even had their engagement photos shot on campus (left). A mechanical engineering major and an electrical engineering major, they met working a National Engineers Week event in early 2008 and married a week after Hillary’s graduation in May 2010. Did you meet your better half at UA Fort Smith (or Westark or FSJC)? Tell us about it, and we’ll share your story in a future issue. Mail stories and pictures to belltower@ uafortsmith.edu or Bell Tower magazine, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.