Quarterback Club celebrates 2023 Hall of Fame inductions

Photos courtesy HutchCC Sports Information

Spreading out the work with online and summer classes

By Victoria Lweis Staff Writer

College students know the mid-semester struggle where class loads get heavier, stress goes up, those 8 a.m. classes seem to start earlier, and care factor about attendance is at an alltime low.

What are the options for students who want to alleviate this stress?

Online and summer classes offered at Hutchinson Community College may be one answer, as they can help lighten the workload during semester or even just give students less classes to attend in person.

Online classes took the world by storm in recent years since the Covid-19 pandemic, but now that students have the choice to attend in-person classes, the question is are online classes worth the hype?

Danny Saili, from Long Beach, California, is taking ‘Death and Dying’ online this semester at HutchCC and said he enjoys the freedom and independence he gets with the class.

“I think it’s less of a workload, so to me it’s easier and there’s less teacher supervision which I like,” Saili said.

He does offer some advice to prospective online students after failing his last online class, Introduction to Baseball after falling behind on

Sports

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Four other HutchCC sophomores walked away with top-10 finishes including Caleb Manning placing fifth in the long jump and third in the triple jump, Sharim Hamilton placed fourth in the 800, Donovan Bryant placed fifth in the high jump and Christopher Brown placed sixth in shot put. The 4X800 meter relay team consisting of Christian Darrah, Douwe Benstink, Tokiwa Armstrong and Evan Avitia also brought home a fifth-place finish.

Women’s Basketball - Saturday posed a historic win over Northwest Tech, earning the Blue Dragons a firstweek bye for the upcoming Region 6 Tournament and the 250 Jayhawk Conference regular-season victory under head coach John Ontjes.

Freshman forward Monae Duffy walked away making history of her own, becoming the second Blue Dragon in 49 years to have a 20-point 20-rebound game, making this her eighth double-double of the season. Duffy scored 25 points, a career-high that contributed to the 73-63 victory.

The only other Blue Dragon to reach double-digits was sophomore guard Mya Williams who brought in 18 points.

The first quarter of the game started in favor of the Blue Dragons but ended with a 13-all tie. Hutchinson was quick to take the lead in the second quarter and maintained that for the remainder of the gameplay.

Hutchinson shot 41.1 percent for the game and outrebounded Northwest Tech 46-35. The Blue

Hilst

• Continued from Page 1 classwork.

“Rusty was my teaching mentor, my golf mentor, and my friend for 30-plus years. It was truly amazing to be able to watch a teacher always get the best out of his students. My biggest honor was to give the introduction for Rusty into the Kansas Golf Hall of Fame.” - Charles Pierce, Science Department Chairperson and Boys and Girls Golf Coach at Hutchinson High School.

“Rusty is a pro and master of his craft in all he does. It is a sincere honor calling Rusty a friend and fellow educator.” - Phil Anderson, Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach at Hutchinson Community College and former Hutchinson High boys basketball coach.

“It was really easy to fall behind because it was only a three-week class, so I’d say just make sure you stay on schedule or you could fail,” Saili said.

Another option available for students is to take a class or two in the summer semester. One student who took Public Speaking during the summer of 2022 was freshman Journey Armstead, a freshman from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She initially enrolled in the class because she wanted a smaller number of students to present in front of.

Armstead’s experience in her summer class was positive, as she found that the class “was way easier to focus in, and not only that you can get them out of the way before school starts.”

In her eyes, summer classes are well worth it and she would recommend them to prospective students.

“It also helps with your GPA in case you are failing [the] first semester,” Armstead said.

Enrollment has opened for the fall semester, and students can still enroll for the summer at HutchCC. Students wishing to enroll or enroll can sign up for classes online or make an appointment with their academic advisor.

Dragons advanced to 21-7 overall and 15-7 in the Jayhawk Conference.

They will take on Seward County on Wednesday at The Green House in Liberal.

Men’s basketball - Saturday’s win over Northwest Tech was the secondbiggest victory of the season beating the Mavericks 115-74.

Six Blue Dragons came up with double figures. Freshman Kieran Carr had a career-high 24 points, 11 of which contributed to the first-half eruption.

Aaron Franklin finished with 15 points and a career-high of seven assists. Dre Weathers and Aaron Potter had 13 points each, Antonio Green had 12 points and Ra’Sean Frederick had 10 points with a careerhigh of six assists.

For the first time since 2017 the Blue Dragons shot a 60 percent game at 64.5 percent. They also tied for the second-most assists in one game with a season-high of 33 assists and outrebounded the Mavericks 36-29.

Hutchinson advanced to 17-11 overall and 11-11 in the Jayhawk Conference.

Softball - The Blue Dragons advance to 8-3 overall following a doubleheader sweep over North Central Texas on Saturday.

Sophomore Ella Dougherty and freshman Olivia Sandoval each brought in three runs to contribute to a 12-6 victory in game one.

The Blue Dragons came in hot for game two with five runs in the first inning and four points in the second inning to create a 9-2 lead. Alexis Maston sacrificed a fly ball to score Sandoval in the third quarter for the tenth run of the game, closing out with a 10-2 victory.

“He truly is an amazing man. Rusty’s impact over the years in education, broadcasting, and coaching has been pivotal in many kids’ lives. He’s been a constant in this community on so many levels and has made a ripple effect that will last for generations.”Bryan Miller, Boys Basketball Coach at Hutchinson High School.

“He is one of those rare gentlemen who makes a wonderful first impression, and then the better you get to know him, the more you like and respect him. Whenever Rusty talks, on the radio or across from you at the dinner table, it’s worth listening.” - Dan Naccarato, Business Management/Entrepreneurship

Professor

at Hutchinson Community College. Naccarato also calls Hutch High and HutchCC sports on KWBW radio.

Kerrick

• Continued from Page 1 is there any way to convert this into a co-op?’ and he said ‘no’. I decided I’d ask my boss if he would let me work at two other departments at NASA so I could get some exposure. I would do my job here and I would spend extra hours working on projects. I told my boss ‘at the end of the summer, I’m going to have three letters of recommendation from three different people, and you’re going to come with me to the coop office and you’re going to demand that I be converted’ and he said OK. So we did that and I went to the co-op office and I was able to get converted. I didn’t know I could do that, I was just trying anything.”

At this point, Kerrick had already shown more than enough resilience and determination to make her way into NASA. Even with this determination, however, she would soon learn that it would take even more to make it where she wanted to be.

“When I became a co-op, NASA was supposed to give me a permanent job when I graduated,” Kerrick said. “Two months before graduation I got a letter that said ‘we regret to inform you that the president has declared a hiring freeze on all civil servants, so we won’t be able to offer you a job when you graduate’. I got the letter in October, I graduated in December, and the hiring freeze carried on in the spring.”

The hiring freeze would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as Kerrick used the extra time she had to make sure that, by the time the freeze was over, the people at NASA would remember who she was in a positive way. Her solution for this ended up helping her in the best way possible.

“I started calling them every Friday at 1 (p.m.),” Kerrick said. “I wanted them to remember my name. I called every Friday and said ‘Hello, this is Ginger Kerrick from Texas Tech University calling to enquire about the status of the hiring freeze,’ and they would say ‘ah yes, Ginger. The way it works is the president will release the hiring freeze and we’ll be notified and then we will call you so you don’t need to call’. I would reply OK. I did that all of January and February. Right around March I started sensing a little hostility so I thought ‘let me change my approach and let me tell some more jokes,’ because I wanted them to remember my name but in a good way. Finally, in April I called and they had me on speaker phone and I could hear people giggling in the background. After I gave my little spiel they said ‘we’ve been waiting for you to call. This morning we were given permission to hire 12 of the 60 graduating co-ops and you were one of the 12. So I was able to get in.”

Ginger Kerrick’s story is one of sheer tenacity and resilience. Even when every obstacle was stacked against her in ways that would make anyone else give up, she found a way to overcome them and then some.