Crusader
April 1
Season highlights
Take a look back at the Lady Saints season and relapse into the Saints 0910 basketball seasons.
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SEWARD COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE/ AREA TECHNICAL SCHOOL
Presorted Standard US Postage PAID Liberal, KS Permit NO.114
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Year 41, No. 9
Mentalist surprises Seward students
Classes canceled for Easter holiday
Al fredo Anaya Crusader staff
Easter holiday begins at 6 p.m. today. There will be no evening classes, and classes will resume Tuesday morning. Campus will still be open Monday, so students can enroll for the summer and fall semester.
Classes canceled for CAAP test There will be no day classes April 8 for the graduation assessment. Testing will also take place April 10. For more information, contact Alaina Rice at 620-417-1013.
Campus fiesta and car show planned
The college will host the Spring Fiesta and car show from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. April 25. The fiesta will feature clubs and organizations sponsoring various activities and games for all ages. The car show will be displaying car, truck and motorcycle divisions. There will also be a sound-off car stereo competition. To enter a vehicle in the competitions contact Butch Garst at 620-717-1681.
SC performs ‘Beauty and the Beast’ The drama department will perform “Beauty and the Beast” 7:30 p.m. April 22-24 in the Showcase Theater. Tickets are available through Terri Barnes in the Humanities office. Center isle tickets are available for $8, side isle for $6 and tickets at the door will be $10.
and very creepy,” freshman Jennifer Thach said. “I didn’t think he was going to light it, I thought he was going to break it.” Mentalist Christopher Carter enjoys freaking Carter’s time performing has taught him that out the audience during his performances, and that sometimes audience participation is all that is is certainly what he did when he performed for the needed in order to make any show fun and enterstudents of Seward County Community College taining. on March 30 in the Showcase Theater. “I don’t do any preparation before the shows. “I like it when I make people The show is kind of the preparascream,” Carter said. “I love it tion itself. It allows me to keep when I freak people out.” warming up for harder, more chalA crowd of about 150 atlenging things. So, I don’t have tended Carter’s show which is any special process that I go composed of many acts, inthrough. I just sort of set up my cluding him being able to read show and wait for the audience to and answer audience member’s come,” Carter said. questions while blindfolded The last act of the show was simand having duct tape over his ilar to a game of Scrabble. Seven eyes, lighting two fluorescent audience members were picked to light bulbs without any elecgo on stage and were given a rantricity, hypnotizing an audience domly shuffled letter. Carter startmember and spelling the word ed out by spelling the word “mile” “miracle” from letters that and then decided to get more were shuffled and kept hidden points by choosing letters in order from him. to spell “miracle”, all of this being “I like how he plays with done without knowing who had your mind,” freshman Janette what letter. Contreras said. “I was freaked out after he reCarter has been performing vealed the letter R was behind the professionally for 19 years, and number 3,” Valentin Borunda said. about 16 years for college camCarter’s show was entertaining puses. Carter has also been feabecause it involved many memtured in “American Entertainbers of the audience whether they ment” magazine and “Campus had their phones called in an act Activities” magazine. Along that involved having numbers with performing for more than Christopher Carter performs on drawn from a bag and asking a 180 college campuses a year, stage Wednesday in the Show- person on stage to think of the Carter also performs for com- case Theater. number without looking at it and panies. then having Carter point at the per“I have to be a lot more buttoned down when I son whose phone would ring, or having their queswork for businesses, I can’t be as loose with the tions answered while he was blindfolded. humor as I can be with the college kids. I enjoy “I did enjoy being on the stage. I was working for businesses, but I enjoy working with a little nervous because that was my colleges much more,” Carter said. first time being asked to go on stage by One of Carter’s most memorable acts included a performer,” Borunda said. “I had no him picking two completely random audience clue what trick he was going to do, members, giving them two fluorescent light bulbs but I was glad to be a part of it.” and having the two members light the bulbs without any electricity. “It was amazing
2010
Liberal, Kansas
Clubs pledge to raise money at phonathon Dana Loewen News editor
A Phonathon to raise money for scholarships will be April 7 to 11. “Our goal is to raise $20,000 for scholarships, and we want to get many clubs and organizations to help,” Dean of Student Services Celeste Donovan said. Clubs and teams who have already signed up include SIFE, ADN, Sigma Chi Chi, choir, Kappa Beta Delta, Phi Theta Kappa, ISO volunteers, Crusader, SGA, Sports Medicine, HALO, tennis, mens and womens basketball, womens softball, volleyball and baseball. The Phonathon will be during the evenings of April 7 and 8 and all day on April 10. Prizes for students are a 32-inch TV for the person who raises the most, a $150 Wal-Mart gift card for the person with the largest single pledge, an eight GB iPod Touch for the person with the greatest number of pledges and a large pizza for the first $100 pledge per shift. The club or team who raises the most money will get $500 for their club. There will also be prize drawings every shift. The faculty and staff will compete on April 11 for prizes including free lunch in the cafeteria, a VIP parking spot, a day off work and hourly drawings. Participants will be challenged to each get at least $100 of pledges. Participants will also receive a necklace for each pledge, to show how many pledges they’ve gotten. Once they reach $100 they will get a cookie. There are also candy bars, bubble guns and light sticks for encouragement and to make the experience more exciting. “We’re going to try to make it fun so that if they’re working one hour, maybe they’ll want to come back and help for another hour,” Donovan said. Participants will be given a list of alumni to call to request pledges for scholarships, and may bring their own lists if they choose to.
treme Challenge attracts potential peers with prizes Joseph Hoffman Crusader staff
More than 250 students from 12 high schools competed in the fifth annual Xtreme Challenge contests at Seward on March 24. The event offered 12 categories of competition, which seemed to be popular for firsttime students as well veterans of the Xtreme Challenge, open to high school students from freshmen to seniors. “The Xtreme Challenge was
an overall great experience for me,” Liberal High School sophomore Austin Applebee said. “It opened my eyes to what Seward has to offer me, I am definitely looking forward to next year.” High schools new to the competition this year included Garden City and Booker, Texas. They joined Elkhart, Rolla, Liberal, Turpin, Tyrone, Forgan, Satanta, Sublette, Moscow and Bucklin. The technical school offered challenges for the first time this year for students interested in trade and industrial education. Category winner Travis Perkins of Elkhart felt motivated by the
contests. “The challenge gave me a chance to show people what I can do in automotive mechanics,” Perkins said. “I also was able to see the different programs the college has to offer.” The top three winners in each of the 12 categories were announced at an awards assembly where the winners were presented prizes such as digital cameras, iPod Shuffles and Flip camcorders. The college also presented three scholarships from a drawing to Rene Boaldin of Elkhart High School, Beth Glave of Rolla High School and Amy Mikles of Turpin High School.
Elkhart High School earned the Overall Award by having the most contest points in the overall placings. Elkhart sponsor Terri Houtz expressed her appreciation to the college for having Xtreme Challenge. “We were very pleased with the categories,” Houtz said. Those categories included three new areas, adding English, health information management, and trade and industrial education to the existing nine categories of accounting, business administrative technology, agriculture, art, computer information systems, cosmetology, criminal justice,
journalism and marketing/ management. SCCC/ATS English instructor Janice Northerns experienced her first year as a category coordinator. “It went very well, and I was excited to see the quality of writing,” Northerns said. “We got some excellent stories and essays.” More than 18 enrolled in each of the first year English competitions, while art instructor Susan Copas saw her fourth year contests grow to more than 30 for each competition. “I am very pleased with the participation,” Copas said. March weather presented a
mix of wind, rain, sleet and snow. Copas was afraid that would put a damper on the digital photography contest, which usually counts on outdoor photos. However, she said that she and the judges were pleasantly surprised with the creativeness of the photography entries. Xtreme Challenge photos are posted under the multimedia link on CrusaderNews.com. The top 10 students in individual competitions will be posted at scccxtremechallenge.blog spot.com.
• See Xtreme page 2
Concealed weapons bill raises fiscal and security concerns
Rusti n Watt Crusader staff
Making its way to the Kansas legislature Senate floor is a bill that would allow people to carry a concealed weapon into any state or municipality facility, as long as they had a license to do so. That includes community colleges and universities in the state of Kansas, and the person could be a student, employee or visitor. The only way a state or municipality facility can deter these individuals from bringing guns into their workplaces is also stated in House Bill No. 2685. “No state agency or municipality shall prohibit an employee
who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon under provisions of the personal and family protection act from carrying such a weapon at the employee’s work place unless the work place has adequate security measures to ensure no weapons are permitted at such work place.” Adequate security, as the bill defines, would be the installation of metal detectors and security at buildings’ entrances to ensure no weapons can make it inside. The average cost of a modest metal detector is around $2,500 and the average pay to a security worker is around $50,000 a year, according to legislators. With more than 100 entrances to campus buildings, that could
add up quickly at Seward County Community College/Area Technical School. “The argument is not in the cost,” said Rep. Forrest Knox, who introduced the bill. “It is, ‘Do those signs on the doors make you more secure?’” Rep. Carl Holmes from the local district sees that change needs to be made. “The signs on the doors make it illegal for license holders to carry a concealed weapon onto the premises,” Holmes said. “But the people who illegally own weapons or don’t have a license to carry a concealed weapon continue to carry those weapons into buildings, sign or not.” Holmes also sees another error
in the system that needs fixed. “Allowing those people coming into workplaces and illegally carrying weapons, without being able to control it and not providing security leaves them liable for a lawsuit if something were to happen.” The cost proves to be the big issue, along with security in the matter, despite Knox’s intentions. “There are several issues with this bill,” Dr. Duane Dunn, president of SCCC/ ATS, said. “One is the sheer financial aspect for SCCC/ATS. We have over 100 entrances that would need metal detectors, including overhead doors to our shop areas. The cost for that alone would be more
than $1 million for our facilities. That is a terrifying budgetary expenditure when we are already faced with declining revenues. So that would mean we would have to raise property taxes in order to meet that requirement.” Dunn also commented on the implications the bill would put on security. “The intent of the law may be noble in trying to ensure that a person has a right to protect themselves in a public building with a legally obtained weapon; however, the implications are being lost in that intent,” Dunn said. Holmes said he voted no on the bill during final action after Dunn contacted him. Despite
Holmes’ vote the bill did pass in the House 65-57. Holmes does not see the bill passing in the Senate, but the vote is imminent. If the bill does not pass in the Senate, the bill is killed and would not be able to be reintroduced until next year. “Each of us do our very best to create a safe environment for our public, our employees, and in our case for our students.” Dunn said. “This bill has so many frightening implications, I seriously don’t look forward to dealing with the fallout when someone does get harmed.” Dunn encourages constituents to contact Senators and ask them to vote against the passage of this bill.