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WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 8, 2023 SEE INSIDE for
THE CAR SHOW
Fort Bend / Southwest • Volume 48 • No. 19 • $1.00
Renowned area artist, author shares stories of creative life By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
More info Page 3 FREE ENTRY! Vintage and New Cars!
UH-Sugar Land welcomes new nursing students Staff Reports
Students, family and friends recently gathered in Brazos Hall on the UH at Sugar Land campus to celebrate the College of Nursing’s 14th Annual Hands of Caring Ceremony. The event welcomes the new students to college’s Second Degree BSN program and, this year, the spring cohort of the Traditional BSN students. “Our students are brilliant and caring,” said Kathryn Tart, professor and founding dean of the college, said in a UH news release. “They are leaders of caring in the community.” The ceremony emphasized how the students have been supported and how their own caring hands will support others as nurses. To illustrate this, students stood in a circle holding hands with their family members—the first hands to support them. Next, they shook hands with their nursing professors— the next hands to support them. Finally, they held hands with their fellow students whom they’ll support as classmates, colleagues and life-long friends. Each student also received a Hands of Caring pin. The Second Degree BSN program is a rigorous 11-month program for students who have degrees in other areas, but now want to become nurses. Tart shared that students have earned degrees in various areas, such as kinesiology, human nutrition, psychology, fine arts, language and literature. The Traditional BSN program is a four-year program that receives students as pre-nursing majors their freshman year on the UH main campus. Following completion of their prenursing courses, student complete the program at UH at Katy instructional SEE NURSING PAGE 5
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Local artist, sculptor and author Tony Sherman speaks to an audience during his talk at the Missouri City branch library last week. (Photo by Ken Fountain)
African-American sculptor, artist and author Tony Sherman, a longtime mainstay of Fort Bend County, regaled a capacity audience at the Missouri City branch of Fort Bend County Libraries Saturday with tales of his life and career, particularly encouraging youngsters to pursue their own creativity. Sherman's 1998 "The Protectors" sculpture graces the Missouri City police and fire department complex on Cartwright Road.
His son, now an adult, was the model for the boy wearing a backpack in the piece. His busts of four American Indian chiefs (inspired by the fact that his grandmother was half-Choctaw) and U.S. Army General William Tecumseh Sherman are on permanent display at the Missouri City library. Sherman, 83, was born in Crockett, Texas. He described growing up during the Jim Crow era in the Houston area, and how some of those experiences inspired much of his art. Sherman served in the
U.S. Air Force, ultimately becoming the crew chief of a B-52 bomber. Among his many civilian endeavors after leaving the military, he owned his own insurance company in Houston. But he said he got his start as an artist at the age of eight when his grandmother asked him to draw her a picture. Using the pictures in her large Bible for inspiration, Sherman drew a picture of Jesus Christ being baptized by John the Baptist, with a dove representing the Holy Spirit. SEE STORIES PAGE 5
Aiming sky high
Austin JROTC cade Reva Jogdand stands beside a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft at a Corpus Christi Training facility Jogdand was recently selected to attend an elite flight training academy. (Contributed photo)
Austin JROTC cadet selected for elite flight academy By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
Austin High School junior Reva Jogdand is aiming high. Literally. The 16-year-old Naval Junior ROTC cadet recently was selected to attend the 2023 Commander of Naval Air Forces Navy and Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Flight Academy
this summer. She is one of only 26 students selected from more than 500 applicants nationwide. At the end of the eightweek program, Jogdand will earn college credit and have an opportunity to get her private pilot's license. Jogdand emigrated with her family from India to the Houston area, first living for seven years near Bush Intercontinental Airport before moving to Sugar
Land two years ago. Her father is an IT consultant and her mother is a stay-athome parent. She became interested in the JROTC in middle school in Humble ISD, when she was looking for an alternative to P.E. class. She considered both the Air Force and the Naval programs, but leaned toward the Navy after seeing the original Top Gun film. Her interest in aviation
came a bit earlier, when she competed in and won a paper airplane design contest in the fifth grade. Later, in middle school, she competed in the Scholastic Olympiad in the Elastic Launch Glider contest, in which participants design and build a plane out of balsa wood. Her father brought over a pilot friend, her introduced her to basic aeronautical concepts such as lift and drag. With those
lessons in mind, Jogdand created a plane that earned second place. A couple of years ago, Jodgand went to a Sugar Land-based flight school where, after some introductory instruction, she went up with an instructor in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk and was able to take the controls for about an hour. SEE JROTC PAGE 5
FBCA performers take home Junior Theatre festival honors Staff Reports
New nursing students at the UH Sugar Land's College of Nursing clasp hands at the recent 14th Annual Hands of Caring Ceremony. (Contributed photo)
Fort Bend Christian Academy's production of Godspell JR recently won one of nine Outstanding Performance Awards at the Junior Theater Festival held in Atlanta from January 13-15, the student company's first time attending the prestigious
event with almost 6,500 attendees. A group of 20 performers (half theater students and half American Sign Language students) were involved in the ASL shadow production, according to a news release from the school. "As first timers at the Junior Theater Festival, our
goal was to provide an experience for our students where they could share their passion and talents and create lifelong memories,” FBCA Upper School theater teacher Lana Thompson said in the release. “We never imagined that
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SEE FBCA PAGE 5
Performers from Fort Bend Christian Academy's theatre program perform a musical number, Several members took home honors during the Junior Theater Festival. (Contributed photo)