UAFS Bell Tower Spring 2016

Bell Tower

spring/summer 2016

The Alumni Magazine of the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith

A nurturer at heart, Charolette Tidwell couldn’t just stand there when she saw hunger

{HOPE} HANDING OUT

14 Hoops History / 22 Chancellor’s Leaders / 27 To China with Love

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UAFS offers more than 20 intramural sports, including flag football, disc golf, Texas Holdem, indoor soccer, kickball and basketball. In the major sports, up to 150 students take part.

Flag football, 5 on 5 basketball and outdoor soccer usually attract the most teams and participants while golf has become one of the most popular individual sports. Through them students remain competitively active while developing leadership and life skills.

CoveR by

Rachel Rodemann Putman

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IN THIS ISSUE SPRING/SUMMER 2016

volume 7, number 1

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FROM THE CHANCELLOR Community at Work

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GRAND + WALDRON workforce development | we’re online | living the legacy | Constitution week | Koprovic’s diligence | Bronze Star student | fishing team | Walmart connections | grad placement

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5Q Not Just Names and Dates: Sarah Pair, ’12

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KNOWLEDGE BASE The Stuff of Music

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EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY Dave Mayo Shakes Things Up

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SENSE OF PLACE Robotics Lab

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LIONS LOWDOWN hoops history | still courting | opportunity found | volleyball rings in

Making Murals

features 16

HANDING OUT HOPE Lifelong nurse and nurturer Charolette Tidwell, ’74, couldn’t just stand there when she saw a need in Fort Smith. by Jennifer Sicking

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LEAD TIME Students selected for the Chancellor’s Leadership Council Scholarship sign on for basic training and a bit of boot camp to discover their future selves. by Jennifer Sicking

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ALUMNI + FRIENDS class notes | to China with love | tossed about | one fine day | a life of learning | flights of fancy

Chancellor’s Leaders

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Abigail Whittemore UAFS BELL TOWER

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From the Chancellor

Bell Tower

Spring/Summer 2016 Volume 7, Number 1 The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith

CHANCELLOR Paul B. Beran, Ph.D.

Community at Work

VICE CHANCELLOR FOR UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT

Acting out our commitment

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Mary Bane Lackie, Ed.D.

CONTRIBUTORS

S EDUCATORS, we teach by example as much as by lecture and lab. And if there is one thing the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith can teach by daily example, it is the value of commitment to community.

With each new student service, academic offering, outreach, campus renovation or publication, we act out our commitment to serve, support, celebrate and enhance our community.

I invite you to celebrate community commitment in all of its variety in these pages.

You’ll read about what UAFS is doing to identify and meet regional employer needs and fill the skills gap with innovative workforce development programs, and how we’re partnering with Country Music Television to extend our reach to rural communities.

You’ll read of how one community leader – UAFS alumna Charolette Tidwell – set aside her calling as a nurse to answer another call to serve the hungry in Fort Smith.

You’ll read about the bright young scholars of the Chancellor’s Leadership Council, where I take on one of the most rewarding challenges of my work – guiding and training future leaders and community members to become their best selves.

Under smaller headlines, more stories of our community of alumni, faculty and current students await. They’re painting the town, preserving its history, starting organizations, teaching abroad and finding creative ways to give back. Each makes a unique contribution to the world.

And I’m proud to say they’re all a part of UAFS.

Wanda Freeman, Jennifer Sicking, Amy Fairbanks, Julia Heffington ’15, Jessica Martin ’10, AnnMarie McCollum, Hannah Meadows, John Post

PHOTOGRAPHERS Rachel Rodemann Putman, Micheal Phan, Karen Schwartz ’86

ART DIRECTOR John Sizing www.jspublicationdesign.com

ADVISORY BOARD Dr. Paul B. Beran, Chancellor Dr. Georgia Hale, Provost Dr. Mary Bane Lackie, Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Dr. Lee Krehbiel, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Dr. Dustin Smith, Athletic Director Rick Goins, Director of Alumni Affairs

ALUMNI ADVISORY COUNCIL Lap Bui ‘93, Chair Conaly Bedell ‘56, Chair Elect Rebecca Hurst ‘00, Chair By-Laws Committee Rick Rice, Chair Awards Committee Eric Smithson ‘09, Chair Nominating Committee Karla Jacobs ‘95, Chair Scholarship Committee Shawn Cozzens ‘90, Elizabeth Echols ‘87, Jennifer Enslow ‘91, Jimmie Lincks ‘68, Jeremy May ‘07, Pam Rice ‘70

^ BELL TOWER is published semi-annually by the University of Arkansas

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Fort

Smith Alumni

Association, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913, for alumni, friends, and faculty of the University.

Tel: (877) 303-8237. Email: belltower@uafs.edu.

Web: www.uafsalumni.com.

PAUL B. BERAN, PH.D.

SEND ADDRESS CHANGES, requests to receive Bell Tower, and requests to be removed from the

mailing list to belltower@uafs.edu or UAFS Alumni Association, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

Survey says …

The Bell Tower strengthens your connection to the university, reminds you of your time here and helps you feel in touch. Alumni like you told us all that and more in our first reader survey, conducted via email in fall 2015. You told us what you like about the Bell Tower and gave us great ideas for future issues. Full results are in our online edition at belltower.uafs.edu. Keep checking your email for the next survey. If you missed the first one, be sure to let us know your current email address.

LETTERS ARE WELCOME, but the Publisher reserves the right to edit letters for length and

content. Space constraints may prevent publication

of all letters. Anonymous letters will not be published.

Send letters to belltower@uafs.edu or Bell Tower Magazine, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

Views and opinions expressed in Bell Tower do not

necessarily reflect those of the magazine staff or advisory board nor of the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.

Contents © 2016 by the University of Arkansas –

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Grand+Waldron CAMPUS NEWS AND NOTES

points of pride

Closing the Gaps Workforce development programs target most-needed industry skills GRADY CHANCEY, AN AIR FORCE veteran from Van Buren, Arkansas, returned from combat with three service medals and a need for new job skills. So he enrolled in a workforce development program in industrial maintenance at UAFS. “When I came home from combat in Afghanistan, I had a hard “Of the 116 time working the job I had,” Chancey said. “My training at UAFS people who have gave me the skills I needed and put me in a job five minutes from successfully home, with good pay and break schedule.”

He landed a job using his new technical skills at Simmons Foods. completed the UAFS created the workforce development program to close program, the the gaps between industry needs and worker skills in three areas employment – medical billing and coding, commercial driving, and industrial maintenance. With the help of funding from the Labor Departrate is 71 percent, ment’s Job-Driven National Emergency Grant – a two-year Arkanand we are sas Job-Driven grant of $734,000 received in July 2014 – the univeronly halfway sity began classes in September. Students in the program attend classes and work with caseworkers on building résumés finished.” and contacting potential employers.

Dave Robertson, director of the Center for Business and Professional Development and the Family Enterprise Center, has been encouraged by the success of the program.

“Of the 116 people who have successfully completed the program, the employment rate is 71 percent, and we are only halfway finished. We will still help so many more,” Robertson said.

UAFS also acquired two grants totaling $110,000 from the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet to plan and implement a pair of industry-driven academies offering concurrent credit as early as 10th grade and certification at varying levels.

“While working with local industries and educators, UAFS will design these two programs to educate workers for a career path in manufacturing or data analytics,” said Ken Warden, dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology.

UAFS plans to start the Automation and Data Analytics academies in July. If implementation is successful, each program will receive an additional $500,000 per semester.

The university has also partnered with Country Music Television in its Empowering Education program, designed to increase the attainment of postsecondary degrees and certificates among rural residents. CMT will assist in marketing UAFS and Rich Mountain Community College of Mena, Arkansas, through co-branding and community events. —Julia Heffington

Bell Tower The Alumn

i Magazine

as - Fort Smith sity of Arkans of the Univer

A nurturer at heart, Charolette Tidwell couldn’t just stand there when she saw hunger

{

Handing

Out

Hope ellor’s y / 22 Chanc

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with 27 To China Leaders /

Histor 14 Hoops

Love

Bell Tower Online!

With this issue, we introduce the first online version of Bell Tower, at belltower.uafs.edu It contains everything in the print edition, plus belltower.uafs.edu. additional and expanded items, including a comprehensive look at the first Bell Tower reader survey. Enjoy!

Published in Journal of Education for Business, Dan Settlage, professor of economics, and Jim Wollscheid, associate professor of economics, wrote “Analyzing Student Performance in Specific Subject Area Indicators on the ETS Major Field Test in Business.”

Selected for a juried art show at the Moran/ Valverde Studio in Houston, Ernest Cialone, associate professor of art, displayed his seriograph “American Farm Girl” for the exhibit “Road Trip from Arkansas to Texas: Arkansas Society of Printmakers.”

Awarded a grant from the College Book Arts Association, Katie Harper, associate professor of graphic design, will use it to finance a book project.

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2016 spring/summer

Continued its success, Theatre @ UAFS’s performance of “All My Sons” was selected as the top production of the Arkansas Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

For the sixth time in seven years, the program received top choice at the festival. Five students and one professor also received awards for hair and makeup, sound design, scenic design and acting.

Awarded for Haunted Union, the Campus Activities Board received the honor for best community program in the central region from the National Association for Campus Activities.

Helped a veteran. Seventeen students from UAFS spent a fall weekend making a Marine veteran’s home wheelchair accessible after his recent diagnosis with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Members of the Student Veterans Organization and the National Society of Leadership and Success constructed an accessibility ramp and an awning to shade it, and they planted trees and shrubbery around the house in Porum, Oklahoma. Camp Hope for Heroes sponsored the project and donated a wheelchair to the veteran.

Open and operating. A ribbon-cutting and open house Nov. 5 marked the first day of the Veteran Resource Center, established to provide some 500 UAFS student veterans with a place to study, connect and unwind.

Located in the Smith-Pendergraft Campus Center, the Veteran Resource Center offers a lounging area, kitchen, study space and desktop computer.

UAFS BELL TOWER

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Living the Legacy

Alumni scholarship helps keep UAFS in the family

Rachel rodemann Putman

Chancellor Paul Beran visits students at Sutton Elementary School.

Beran, Volunteers Read for Constitution Week

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julia heffington

Chancellor Paul Beran read to students at Sutton Elementary School for Constitution Week, one of many volunteers from UAFS who devoted time to teach Fort Smith elementary students about the supreme law governing the United States.

Beran read “We the People” by Lynne Cheney to two fifth-grade classrooms. The book tells the story behind the writing of the U.S. Constitution during a sweltering summer in 1787.

Beran stressed the importance of educating citizens about the government.

“Knowledge of our government and its origins is necessary to create well-informed citizens, and it is important to begin those efforts as soon as possible,” Beran said.

“The United States Constitution created the framework that made America possible. We should strive to educate our future generations on this great nation’s history and Founding Fathers who formed it.”

The U.S. Marshals Museum donated the books to the classrooms. The UAFS chapter of the American Democracy Project donated a pocket Constitution to every student. —Amy Fairbanks

Junior College, Westark Junior College, Westark Community College or Westark College.

When looking for a university to attend, Moore, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Mulberry, Arkansas, chose UAFS. “I didn’t want to leave home. I wanted to stay close to family. UAFS is like a home away from home,” Moore said.

The freshman is following in her mother’s footsteps.

“We are not just mother and daughter, we are best friends,” Moore said, “and now we will both be alumni here at UAFS. My mom is so proud that I am going here.”

After first earning her associate degree, Pamela Moore, ’91 and ’09, returned to UAFS for a bachelor of science in middle school education.

“I was hoping Marissa would go to Fort Smith,” Pamela said. “It’s exciting that she is going to the same school as me.”

A high-achieving student, Marissa graduated from Mulberry High School with a 4.0 GPA and college credits. She’s also a single mother caring for a 10- month-old daughter, Emma Grace, while working and attending school.

“I support my daughter. I’m trying to save up for a home to call my own, but that is difficult to do while trying to save money for my education, too,” Marissa said.

Members of the Alumni Advisory Council were happy to welcome Marissa to Marissa Moore the university and the Lion family.

“I would hire her,” scholarship committee chair Karla Jacobs said. “She is so well spoken and well mannered.”

To learn more about the scholarship or to make a donation to help students, please visit uafsalumni. com/scholarship. —Julia Heffington

At 5, Marissa Moore decided she was going to be just like her uncle as she watched him clean teeth.

UAFS brings Moore a step closer to her goal, as it is one of the only schools in the area to offer a degree in dental hygiene.

“I’ve known what I wanted to do since I was 5. I haven’t changed my mind once,” Moore said.

And when Moore has a goal in her sights, she cannot be stopped. That resolve was one of the reasons she was selected as the first recipient of the $1,000 UAFS Alumni Legacy Scholarship.

“She has an incredible drive, ambition and determination. She will go far,” said Alumni Affairs Director Rick Goins.

The Alumni Advisory Council established the scholarship as an opportunity for family members of alumni to attend the university. The scholarship has been set up to assist a child, parent, spouse or sibling of a UAFS graduate or a former student who passed 14 credit hours from Fort Smith

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Koprovic Receives Award coming to Fort Smith. He worked nights at Norge in order to attend classes at Westark Community College during the day. After graduating in 1975, Koprovic bought Norman Welding before purchasing Butler and Cook and starting Kopco Steel Fabrication.

When his wife died in 2007, Koprovic established the Beth Koprovic Professorship in Nursing to honor her memory and support nursing education in the Fort Smith community. Additionally, he created the Koprovic Family Professorship in Engineering.

Both of these professorships will be funded with a gift through Koprovic’s estate plan to benefit the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.

Koprovic has served on the Arkansas Economic Development Commission for the past 14 years. He also serves on the UAFS

KAREN SCHWARTZ

CHESTER KOPROVIC, ’75, chairman of the board at Boyd Metals, received the UAFS Alumni Association’s Diligence to Victory award during the 2015 Homecoming reunion dinner.

Koprovic called the award “unexpected and very humbling.”

In the nomination letter, Koprovic was hailed for having a “true rags to riches story.”

An Army veteran and a native of Paris, Arkansas, Koprovic overcame adversity early in his life. He was the first generation of his family to be born in the United States and the only child of six to survive.

“Chester is a very deserving individual who has not forgotten his roots,” Alumni Affairs Director Rick Goins said.

After graduating from high school, he served three years in the Army before

Chester Koprovic accepts the Diligence to Victory award during the 2015 Homecoming dinner.

Foundation Board and was a member of the UAFS Alumni Advisory Council’s inaugural class. —Amy Fairbanks

ALUMNI LEGACY SCHOLARSHIP Support future Lions with a gift or a memorial in honor of a loved one to the Alumni Legacy Scholarship.

uafsalumni.com/scholarship For more information, contact Rick Goins, Director of Alumni Affairs, 479-788-7026.

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Lopez shares Bronze Star honor with family Robert Lopez, ’15, weighted down with 80 pounds of flak jacket and M16 rifle, raced along the wall, balancing on a foot-width ledge as bullets pinged the ground.

Minutes earlier in this remote Afghanistan town, the Marines had captured a house the Taliban had filled with ammunition and bombs. Bullets began flying. Men dove for cover.

Then Lopez began his run, followed by a

machine gunner, to a nearby building’s roof.

He began firing his rifle and directed one of his squad to fire mortars toward the tree line.

The firing stopped.

For that act and another in 2010, Lopez received the Bronze Star Medal with combat distinguishing service on Sept. 29.

After Lopez’s parents, Domingo and Mercedes Lopez, pinned the Bronze Star Medal, Maj. Rhett Hansen spoke to the

Rachel rodemann Putman

Marine veteran Robert Lopez accepts the Bronze Star Medal during a ceremony at his family’s restaurant.

crowd gathered outside Las Americas Too, the family’s Fort Smith restaurant. He noted that Robert was involved in two heroic incidents.

On Aug. 22, 2010, a grenade made out of a water bottle landed close to the squad. As the men turned and ran, one fell. Lopez, who had taken over management of his squad in June when his sergeant suffered a concussion, picked up the Marine and shielded him with his body. After suffering shrapnel wounds to his arm, he continued directing the squad.

His run along the wall came Aug. 23.

Lopez says he was just doing his job.

“I couldn’t leave my guys there to be shot and killed,” he said. “I couldn’t live with myself if one of my guys was killed because I was scared.”

Lopez, who presented the medal to his father at the end of the ceremony, sees the Bronze Star as a tribute for his whole family.

They emigrated from El Salvador, settled in Van Buren, Arkansas, and built their restaurant business. In December, Lopez became his family’s first college graduate. He moved to McLean, Virginia, in January to begin a position with Ernst and Young.

“Some just see us as an immigrant family.

Now they can see we can give something back,” Lopez said.

Avid student angler starts BassCatz fishing team Since Justin Harris was old enough to hold a fishing pole, he has fished. The Elkins, Arkansas, native always dreamed of bass fishing at the collegiate level, and when he enrolled at UAFS, he saw the opportunity to make his dream a reality.

Harris recently founded BassCatz, a 10-member team at UAFS. The squad recently competed in the Fishing League Worldwide College Fishing Southern Division Conference Qualifier tournament, with one team placing 30th out of 84 teams.

“I’d spend every spring and summer fishing with my dad and grandpa, but it wasn’t until I got older that tournament fishing became an interest,” Harris said. “My dad fished tournaments growing up until I was born.”

Harris and his father fished their first tournament as a team after he graduated from high school. When he heard about fishing teams at nearby schools, he wanted to create something similar.

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“Everyone involved has a genuine love of the sport and I couldn’t be more thankful to have the guys we have on the team,” Harris said.

Harris is vice president of BassCatz; other members are Kalen Peters of Alma, Arkansas, president; Fort Smith residents Andrew Kaelin; Ben Neumeier; Daniel Schwartz, treasurer; and Daniel Peek, media communications director; Greenwood, Arkansas, residents Matthew Seiter and Michael Seiter; Tyler Hammers of Poteau, Oklahoma; and Blake Tedford of West Fork, Arkansas, secretary.

BassCatz plans to compete in future tournaments, including the FLW College Series. The team also plans a summer kids’ camp and a fundraising tournament. BassCatz is sponsored by Fort Smith Centennial Bank, Barling Boat Sales, Z-Launch Watercraft Launch Cord and H&H Muddy Water Tackle. — Amy Fairbanks

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courtesy

From left, Andrew Yang, Greg Hicks and Michael Samuhasilp.

Working Together Walmart reaches out to hire UAFS grads Greg Hicks, ’87, is a rarity in the corporate world, having the unique distinction of being both a senior director of operations at Walmart and a college student.

After attending Westark Community College, Hicks worked his way to senior director at Walmart before deciding to go back to school and pursue a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership from UAFS. “One of the values here at Walmart is progressive learning, and it was important to me to look outside of northwest Arkansas when I was considering going back to school,” Hicks said. “So when I decided to go back, I chose to re-engage with UAFS and see what was there.”

What he found was a university tailoring its curricula to the needs of employers, which Hicks thought would fit into Walmart’s culture.

“I found that a lot of the students graduating from UAFS are hardworking and they have real-world experience, and those are the kind of people we want working for Walmart,” Hicks said.

Hicks reached out to the Career Services Office and the Babb Center for Student Professional Development to find ways for Walmart to be involved on campus. The company has participated in corporate mixers, sent employees to classes and recruited at career fairs.

Senior Carl Abner of Fort Smith met Hicks at a career fair. Their conversation

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blossomed into an internship for Abner, who is majoring in information technology programming, and then to a job.

Abner created programs that benefited the company on a wide scale, such as managing and simplifying the many tabs – the tabloid-sized circular advertisements Walmart distributes – during the week of Thanksgiving. Creating macro-level programs for the largest retailer in the world isn’t easy, but Abner felt ready.

“I think I came to Walmart with a really strong skillset, and a big reason for that was because I learned a lot of [the programming language] Java at UAFS, and that’s used a lot here,” Abner said.

Michael Samuhasilp, ’15, and Andrew Yang, ’15, have also benefited from Walmart’s involvement on campus. They both learned about the company’s IT Rotational Program, where new employees cycle through teams in Walmart Technology.

“I just found it to be the perfect place to start out,” Samuhasilp said. “I like the ability to go where you want to go and not have that chosen for you.”

Hicks inspired Samuhasilp and Yang by embodying the opportunities available for UAFS students.

“He was a former student at UAFS, and look where he is now,” Samuhasilp said.

“That made me realize that if I start now, I might be in his position when I become his age.” —John Post

85% Career Outcomes Rate Among Grads

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ata gathered by the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Career Services Office shows that 85 percent of graduates from the 201314 school year either found employment or continued their education within six months of graduation.

The 85 percent takes into account the number of graduates who found jobs, continued their educations, or entered the military. The measure includes graduates of associate and baccalaureate degree programs.

Chancellor Paul Beran said the numbers reflect the quality education available at UAFS. “Students who enroll at UAFS are seeking a brighter future through education, and our career outcomes rate shows their faith is well-placed,” Beran said.

Programs with high career outcome rates include: Associate of Applied Science in Radiography: 100 percent.

Associate of Applied Science in Workforce Leadership: 100 percent.

Bachelor of Science in Imaging Sciences: 100 percent.

Bachelor of Arts in History: 86 percent.

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology: 83 percent.

Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership: 80 percent.

• • • • • •

—John Post

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Creating Big A SUNBAKED DOWNTOWN façade and a dank pedestrian tunnel morphed into bright bookends flanking a fall that challenged a group of studio art and graphic design students to create and paint big.

Mural big.

The semester began with a critical mass of related art events: The Windgate Art & Design building opened – first softly, as classes began, then grandly, with a ribboncutting gala. The Printology exhibit of prints by international street artists, including those who would paint the town during the Unexpected mural festival in early September, filled the Windgate’s main gallery.

Windgate itself got an interior mural, by the Brazilian duo Bicicleta Sem Freio.

And 10 art and design students made their mark on the streets of Fort Smith.

Bryan Alexis, who co-taught the mural

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Clockwise from top: Tunnel mural detail; a student paints a section of the tunnel; a student prepares paint for the downtown mural; downtown mural detail.

to turn a once-dreary underground walkway into a destination.

Looking back on the experience, several students prized their contact with international mural artists, while others discovered new dreams and new insights about urban art.

Stewart said he’d like to take his future art students to see and paint murals. Schluterman said she wanted to create a mural as her capstone project.

Senior Emily Gardner of Fort Smith, a studio art major and aspiring illustrator who normally works on sheets of paper, gained an eye for the grand: “I love the concept of a giant painting for everyone to enjoy.”

—Wanda Freeman

RACHEL RODEMANN PUTMAN

course with Don Lee, head of the UAFS Art Department and member of the Unexpected festival board, said working with Bicicleta on the interior mural was part of the course design for students, as was painting a wall downtown.

“They were tasked with assisting the artists that came in, delivering paint and doing whatever was needed,” Alexis said.

While the Windgate wall gave students a

climate-controlled taste of mural making, the downtown work, which Alexis designed, proved another story. The budding muralists worked into the night tracing the projected design, then stayed painting ahead of the rain. When day broke and the rain stopped, they daubed color from scaffolds in the searing heat.

Together, students and instructors alike experienced the unexpected – such as the porous wall’s insatiable thirst for ever more paint.

“It’s all a learning process,” Lee said.

Ultimately, they transformed the face of a Quonset hut at 709 N. B St. into a dazzling homage to printing-press inventor Johannes Gutenberg. It stands splashy amid a rollicking cityscape of Native American faces, dancing cowboys, furry rodents and whimsical humanoids.

Later the students would build on their downtown experience and brainstorm to make over the campus pedestrian tunnel in the 5200 block of Grand Avenue.

“The design was the hardest part,” senior studio art major Seth Stewart of Fort Smith said. “We had 10 people, and it had to be cohesive.”

Senior studio art major Kayla Schluterman of Greenwood, Arkansas, said the collaboration went smoothly once the group agreed on a concept.

“We wanted to incorporate movement,” Schluterman said. “That was our starter idea, and then we honed down. We wanted to use faces, but we didn’t know how realistic. We decided to geometricize them – is that a word?

– to use abstract shapes to draw them.”

As planning gave way to execution, sophomore studio art major Jessica Medeiros of Van Buren, Arkansas, enjoyed piecing design elements together on the long wall: “It was like solving a puzzle,” she said.

The result: an energetic work of abstracted faces, swift arrows, commanding words and tumbling letters, all working in concert

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Q 5 Sarah Pair, ’12, learned about historical interpretation after her father listened to a presentation by Tom Wing, assistant professor of history. He told her about it and from then on she couldn’t imagine a career in anything else. As a historical interpreter, she helps people relate to the topic. Currently, she is doing that at the Daniel Boone Home and Heritage Center in Defiance, Missouri.

“The goal is to inspire people to have passion about

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Why is historical interpretation important?

Historical interpretation is important because it helps people realize that the past has an impact on their lives. Without the knowledge of the past, we will keep repeating the same mistakes. It helps others realize that history is not names and dates. History is made of people, not much different from us today, who had real, human motives for what they did and the events they helped shape. If a person does not know where they come from, if they don’t know their history, how will they know where they are going?

Hopefully, we can help keep the mistakes of the past from happening again.

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What do you do at the Daniel Boone Home?

Broadly, I help visitors to the site relate to the Boones and their time period. We give tours of the Boone Home and to the collection of historic buildings we’ve brought in from

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something; history, nature, music, biology, anything really, and to maybe make a positive change in the world,” said Pair, who earned her master’s degree in education – interpretation from Lindenwood University.

“I use the tangible world, the Boone Home, the outline of the hills and the smell in the air to help visitors relate to the intangible ideas of family, relationships, peace, sorrow and joy – things that have not changed in 200 years or more.”

the surrounding area to simulate an early Missouri frontier village. To properly lead the tours, we all conduct our own research on the Boones and their time period. We also learn a variety of period skills because most of our school programs demonstrate different skills from the early 1800s.

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What one thing seems to surprise visitors at the home?

The main thing that seems to surprise people is the size and style of the home, which belonged to Daniel Boone’s youngest son, Nathan. Daniel moved in in 1813. Nathan’s home is a four-story, Georgian-style mansion. Most people assume that the Boones lived in a small log cabin, which was much more common for the time.

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courtesy

Not Just Names and Dates Sarah Pair, ’12

What does it take to be good at historical interpretation?

your story and inspire others. You have to be willing to learn and keep learning, because you never know when a new bit of information will come along and reveal more of the story and add even more depth and humanity to your story.

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What is your favorite historic period and why?

The tough question. I have never been able to stick with one time period and say, “That’s my favorite historic period.” Currently I’m fascinated by the early to mid-1800s with the industrial revolution and 1915 through 1945 with World War I through World War II. I finally narrowed it down to these two eras because they were times of social and technological change in the western world, and those changes are still affecting current events.

You have to be passionate about what you do. You have to go in each day wanting to tell UAFS bell tower

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Knowledge Base

Rachel rodemann Putman

the family’s history.

“I would send Caroline stuff and say fill in the gaps, plug the holes, and I did the same for her,” Jones said. “She would send me gobs of stuff and say, ‘What do you think of this?’”

This collaboration contributed a key part to an exhibit titled “Roots, Rhythm and Rock - Music that Moved Fort Smith.”

Part one, which covers 18801945, can be viewed at the Fort Smith Museum of History until May 28. Amid vintage instruments, songbooks and musical memorabilia, visitors can listen to a recording of Fort Smith jazz great Alphonso Trent and watch a video of Van Buren native Bob Burns playing his invention, the bazooka.

Jones is especially fond of a family portrait housed in a glass case filled with Bailey belongings – not because it depicts a smiling family in historical clothing, but because of the way William Bailey gazes toward his wife with obvious love, despite the fact that he is blind.

Speir and Jones’ collaboration isn’t over.

Part two of the musical exhibit will explore the period 1945-1995.

After part one comes down, Jones said he plans to give the box – brought to him by Allison Reeves-Plummer ’15 – to the museum or to the Pebley Center at Boreham Library.

“There would not have been a Bailey section in my book, nor the exhibit, without her bringing the box to me,” he said of ReevesPlummer.

“I am a ‘stuff’ kind of person,” Jones said.

“I like to see ‘stuff,’ such as things that people actually used, wrote on, wore, etc., from a time period. Caroline and the rest of the Fort Smith Museum of History staff do a great job of bringing history alive. … I am happy to help in whatever way.” —Amy Fairbanks

UAFS English professor Kevin Jones amid an exhibit he helped create at the Fort Smith Museum of History.

Right and below: details of the exhibit.

The Stuff of Music

Sometimes, history comes in a box When a student brought English professor Kevin Jones a boxful of old photographs and promotional items, the history buff and author of 2012’s “Fort Smith: Postcard History Series” happily used the contents for research on his second book, “Fort Smith: Images of America Series,” published in 2013.

But it wasn’t until an acquaintance at the Fort Smith Museum of History contacted him for help with an exhibit on musical history that he realized just how important his cardboard treasure trove was.

The box’s contents belonged to the Bailey family, who made major contributions to the musical culture of Fort Smith. Renowned violinist William Worth Bailey Jr. and Katherine Price Bailey opened the Southwest Studios of Musical Art in 1912 10

and started the Fort Smith Symphony in 1923. Artifacts included rare photographs, news clippings and a souvenir ivory-encased notebook from 1902 with photos of the violinist, who was hailed as the “American Paganini.”

Former UAFS student Caroline Speir, exhibit designer at the Fort Smith Museum of History, had worked with Jones in 2003 at Roland High School and was familiar with his research on the Bailey family.

“He brought the box in, we swooned over it, praised the history gods, and reveled in astonishment that it was intercepted before it was lost,” Speir said.

From there, the two set about piecing together

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Dave Mayo, Professor/Quake Maker

RACHEL RODEMANN PUTMAN

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s Dave Mayo turned a knob, the table began to slide backward and forward causing the balsa wood tower to gyrate.

“It’s dancing,” a Chaffin Junior High student said.

That dancing led to its collapse, just as what can happen with steel and wood structures when the ground begins to quake.

Mayo, an assistant professor of physical science, brought the shake table to the junior high as part of the university’s Adopt-A-Professor program. Fort Smith area elementary and junior high students “adopt” a professor who brings unique, hands-on learning activities to their classrooms.

“It really comes down to recruitment and outreach,” Mayo said about the program. “It’s fun as heck, too.”

Mayo worked with gifted and talented students at Chaffin on a seismic design competition where students planned and built towers from 20 sticks of 36-inch-long balsa wood and wood glue.

Students also had to present their designs before a panel of potential investors as they explained costs to build, potential rental income and the economic viability of their towers.

But then came the real test. Could the towers withstand a 20-second earthquake? Who could use the least amount of materials (a cost savings in a building project) and still stand strong after the earth moves?

Twenty-five teams placed their structures on the shake table, built by Mayo and one of his university students, for testing against three earthquake magnitudes. The structures had a further burden with an additional 6 ½ pounds of weights to simulate dead load in buildings. Some of the teams’ structures didn’t factor in crossbracing and collapsed under the 3.5- to 4-level earthquake. Others fell with the 5.5- to 6-level earthquake. Only 12 made it to the final quake.

“We took the accelerometers off and really shook those buildings,” Mayo said about the third quake test.

Seven survived.

In learning about earthquakes, Mayo hopes students will seek education and careers in the geosciences.

“We need young folks that have experience to step up and fill openings,” he said. “There are good viable career options.”

^

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY

“

It really comes down to recruitment and outreach.

It’s fun as heck, too.

”

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Sense of Place

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THE ROBOTICS LAB: Where Teaching Is Learning The future is now in the Baldor Technology Center, where a roomful of gleaming white arms stand ready for their instructions in Room 108, the campus robotics lab. This is the home of Robot Operations and Maintenance class, the room where UAFS and Western Arkansas Technical Center students come to gain skills for rewarding high-tech careers telling obedient robots what to do.

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popular Robot Operations and Maintenance class. It is one of nine in the John McFarland Robotics Lab, named after the retired Baldor CEO; three other ABB models are used in the Echols Building for workforce training, and one serves a welding class in Baldor.

RACHEL RODEMANN PUTMAN

1. Weighing in at $15,000 and capable of moving objects at 7,000 mm per second, this ABB robot is the smallest from the company that acquired Fort Smith motor-builder Baldor, according to electronics technology professor John Martini, who teaches the

2. The robotic arm or manipulator

has six moveable axes: the waist, the shoulder, the elbow, the forearm, the wrist and the endefector, which on this model shows a gripper, the fingerlike extensions. The gripper can be replaced with a tool, such as a drill or cutter. Martini said the armlike construction for robots is fairly common, and because they’re infinitely reprogrammable and easy to retool, robots are well-suited to ever-changing needs in manufacturing. The fully humanoid

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2 6

1 4

robot is a rarer phenomenon.

another receptacle.

3. Unlike the other moveable parts

5. Below decks is a “glorified com-

on the main arm, which can spin or rock on a single plane, the endefector is capable of precise maneuvers. Students can program it to pick up tiny objects, move through three-dimensional space at infinite angles and place the objects in receptacles. In the workplace, these actions translate into attaching parts, turning screws and more.

puter,” which works as a controller feeding instructions to the robot from a “teach pendant” the student programs.

6. Martini, left, shows students how to program the teach pendant, a handheld electronic touchpad that instructs the robot and its endefector how to move in order to pick up items, turn them around, position them and drop them into receptacles. “People have worried that robots will take away jobs, but somebody has to operate them, so actually they’re creating jobs – better jobs,” Martini said.

7. About half of the time in robot-

4. A tube of lightweight balls

provides a deceptively simple-looking challenge for robotics students, who must program the robot to take a ball from the bottom outlet and drop the ball into

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ics class is spent programing and operating robots, partly from remote computers and partly using the teach pendant, Martini said, while the other half is spent learning to perform maintenance on the mechanical and electrical systems. The work of a robotics technician is a hands-on job installing, repairing and maintaining robots – one that brings “higher-end pay as maintenance jobs go,” such as $20 per hour starting out, Martini said. Local employers that use robots and hire robotics technicians include Baldor, Pernod Ricard, Georgia Pacific, Hickory Springs, Rheem, Trane and Gerber.

—Wanda Freeman

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Lions Lowdown

UNIVERSIT Y OF ARKANSAS - FORT SMITH ATHLETICS

Still Courting Mike and Sharon Daniels keep their UAFS love alive

Hoops History UAFS made history Jan. 16 with the university’s first nationally televised athletics event. The Lions and Lady Lions basketball matchups against Lubbock Christian at Stubblefield Center were broadcast across the country on American Sports Network.

The sold-out games were also part of Blue & White Night and featured entertainment and performances from local organizations including Girls Inc. and Tiny Tots Dribblers. The crowd included numerous former student-athletes and coaches from men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and volleyball who were honored on the court between games. A drawing for four $1,000 scholarships proved a big hit with students in attendance.

Though the Lady Lions suffered a 73-50 loss in the opening game, the men’s team came out strong and capped the night with an 84-74 win. – Jessica Martin

RACHEL RODEMANN PUTMAN

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met Mike during the 1975-76 school year MIKE DANIELS, ’77, AND wife Sharon when she took choir during her lunch break.

Daniels, ’78, finished their careers with In May 1976, the Westark choir traveled UAFS – his in mail service, hers in financial to Washington, D.C., to represent Arkanaid – in December, but their long connection sas and sing for the country’s bicentennial to the university will continue through a gift celebration. they made: an endowment to fund scholar“On that trip some feelings started to ships for men’s basketball. come up,” Sharon said.

“We just wanted to do something to Mike proposed in February 1977, but pay it forward. I was on scholarship. I was Sharon’s mother wouldn’t let them marry taken care of all these years, so I believe in until he had a job. the system,” Mike said. “And we wanted to So when classmate Becky Kraby, ’77, do something to continue to help the asked Mike to sing in her wedschool. Long after we are gone, ding, Mike spoke with her this scholarship will still be father, who happened to be here helping kids be able Westark President James to go to school.”

Kraby, about needing The couple also a job. Kraby made a helped the men’s job offer that changed basketball team campus mail service. renovate the locker At the time, the room. The new mail was dumped space will be called on a table where staff the Mike and Sharon and faculty had to dig Daniels Locker Room. around to find what “Every player that they needed. Mike began walks into the locker sorting and delivering camroom will know who they pus mail in July 1977. are,” Athletic Director Dustin “It began as a job taking Smith said.

Mike and Sharon Daniels mail around campus, but it The couple’s lives have evolved into more. I started shipping and been intertwined with the institution since receiving and taking inventory,” Mike said. it was called Westark Community College Sharon worked different jobs over the 40-plus years ago. years, but in 2006 she returned to UAFS to After graduating from Greenwood High work in financial aid.

School in 1973, Mike was working in a Fort “I decided it was time for me to come Smith grocery store when the Westark back to what I called home,” she said. music director, Logan Green, offered him a At a friend’s urging, the couple began atchance to audition for a music scholarship. tending UAFS basketball games in 2009.

As the first male voice from Greenwood to “We’re hooked on it now,” Sharon said. make the All Region Choir, Mike performed “We feel like they’re our kids. We have just with the choir while earning an associate of come to love the men’s basketball system, the arts in music. team and the coaches.”

Sharon, a 1968 Van Buren High School “They are amazing people,” said UAFS graduate, began working for the college in senior Lions hoops player Dusan Stojanovic.

1973. She worked all day and attended night “They are always there to support us and they classes for four years to earn her associate need to be recognized.” —Julia Heffington of applied science in secretarial science. She

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AS OZZIE HURT prepared to graduate from Bryant (Arkansas) High School, he didn’t want to put down his baseball glove just yet.

He considered three different roads. He could enroll at UAFS and walk on to the baseball team. He could try out for a walk-on spot at another university. Or he could leave playing baseball behind and study to become a coach.

He chose UAFS and that has made all of the difference.

“I think this was the best decision that I ever made,” Hurt said. “Because I’ve had the opportunity. If I’d gone somewhere else, I don’t know that I’d have had the opportunity.”

And it wouldn’t be paying for his school.

In 2014, his award-winning play earned him a baseball scholarship.

“It felt good to call my mom and say, ‘You don’t have to pay for my school,’” he said.

But that call came after he seized upon an unexpected opportunity. Hurt played as a second baseman. But in his freshman year, the team needed a shortstop, and coaches asked him to switch to the other side of second base.

“I had a month to learn it before the first game,” he said.

At first, he thought there would be little difference in the two positions. Both players must be quick with their hands and their

feet. But Hurt discovered a difference.

“It’s a harder position to play,” he said.

For one reason, it’s a longer throw from shortstop to first base. For another, Coach Todd Holland said, 87 percent of balls hit on the ground either go to shortstop or second base.

“I love it,” Hurt said. “It’s a lot more exciting.”

And he’s proved his worth at the position. His freshman year he snared a Gold Glove, awarded by the Heartland Conference for defensive skills.

“It was shocking,” he said. “I didn’t

RACHEL RODEMANN PUTMAN

Opportunity Found

expect it, to win a Gold Glove at a position I never played before.”

He thought the award would assure him a place on the team his sophomore year. But he returned to find a former Division I shortstop had transferred to the school.

Hurt watched the other player take the field for the first few games. But Hurt ended up winning his position back and earning another Gold Glove award.

In Hurt’s junior year, Holland awarded him a baseball scholarship.

“I thought, ‘Golly, this kid’s good.’ He’s one of the best shortstops I’ve ever had,” Holland said about watching the shortstop play during the fall of 2014. “He hustles. He plays the game hard. He’s just a really, really sound guy out there.”

In return, Hurt won another Gold Glove.

Now in his last year, Hurt has another goal besides capturing a fourth Gold Glove.

“We have to win a conference tournament while I’m here,” he said. “I’ve seen volleyball win one, seen basketball win one.

It’s our time.”

Volleyball Rings In

T

HE LADY LIONS VOLLEYBALL TEAM UPHELD ITS REPUTATION AS A FORMIdable powerhouse throughout the 2015 season, dominating conference opponents as well as teams from across the country.

After sweeping Newman University to claim a fourth-straight Heartland Conference title, the Lady Lions advanced to the NCAA Division II South Central Region Tournament as a No. 6 seed, upsetting nationally ranked No. 1 seed Angelo State University in the championship match.

The team then went on to the NCAA Division II National Championship Tournament in Tampa, Florida, finally falling in the Elite Eight round to Wheeling Jesuit, ending a winning streak of 28 consecutive matches and closing the season with an overall record of 29-4.

A banquet Feb. 2 at The Blue Lion at UAFS Downtown honored the Lady Lions’ achievements on and off the court and raised money to purchase the team’s championship rings. – Jessica Martin

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Handin A

s Charolette Tidwell, ’74, stood in line at the grocery store, she noticed the elderly woman in front of her only had cans of cat and dog food to buy. She listened as the cashier asked for the lady’s name, which the cashier wrote down. She watched the woman shuffle away.

“Nosy me, I asked the cashier why she took her name,” Tidwell said with a laugh.

The cashier told her that elderly customers would buy canned pet food to eat and the store took their names to monitor it. Tidwell thought about that conversation on her drive home and as she put away her groceries.

“Why are we monitoring it?” Tidwell wondered. “Why aren’t we doing something?”

Tidwell knew about the hungry in Fort Smith. She co-founded Antioch for Youth and Family, which includes a food pantry as well as youth development programs focusing on academics and the arts. As a retired nurse, she knew medication and medical bills absorbed many retirees’ incomes, leaving little money to buy food. She also knew many hospital visits could be deterred with proper nutrition.

She stepped into the gap.

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ing

out

Nurse and nurturer Charolette Tidwell, ’74, does something about hunger in Fort Smith

by Jennifer Sicking

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all photographs by rachel rodemann putman

hope

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Antioch for Youth and Family Programs

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Community garden developed in conjunction with First Presbyterian Church, Northside High School, Extension Service and surrounding elementary schools

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Nursing home visitations with gifts and music five times a year

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Locations of senior mobile pantry deliveries

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National History Day competition with Spradling Elementary School and the U.S. Marshals Museum

In 2009, Tidwell began the Senior Citizen Delivery Food program. Now, she finds herself the face of battling hunger in Arkansas as she provides food for 7,000 families a month through Antioch. Though she receives donations and small grants, Tidwell uses about 50 percent of her pension from more than 30 years of nursing to feed the hungry.

“She’s just unreal … I can’t say enough good things about her,” said Robert Miller, a Fort Smith businessman who allows Tidwell to use a building he purchased for the pantry. “I don’t know of another agency that touches as many lives as she does with so little money.”

Ken Kupchick, director of

Young Actors Guild that works with students at nine local schools and Girls Inc. in art, drama and music

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1

Health, nutrition and wellness fair called “It’s a Family Affair” held yearly at local schools

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The number of days a week Antioch is open.

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she delivers sustenance to the elderly and bags food for those who daily visit her food pantry.

She saw them when she handed out 1,004 turkeys and food at Thanksgiving and still was 250 turkeys short.

And she knows another statistic. Seventy percent of students in Fort Smith are on free or reduced lunches. Without help, many of those students go hungry.

“As many people as I feed, I don’t touch the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “Hunger in the surrounding area of Fort Smith is at a crisis level.”

The loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of other positions with benefits have made life difficult for families in Fort

“Charolette doesn’t feed, she nurtures. She recognizes that hope is as important as food.”

1

The number of times in a year the pantry becomes Antioch in the Park with the help of community volunteers, Darby Junior High cheerleaders and Southside High School’s work program

hungry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” The state had a household food insecurity rate of 19.9 percent, the highest in the nation, from 2012 to 2014, according to the USDA. The national average was 14 percent in 2014.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services has noted that 40 percent of Arkansas residents age 60 years or older live with food insecurity. Like the household rate of food insecurity, the rate for this age group ranks highest in the nation.

—ken kupchick, river valley regional food bank marketing and development with the River Valley Regional Food Bank, described Tidwell as the intersection of passion and tenacity.

“To imply to Charolette that something cannot be done is the first step in achieving it,” he said. “When Charolette supports a family’s food budget, she’s helping them pay rent, clothe their children, put gas into the car they drive to work, take their sick child or ailing senior parent to a clinic for help and supplement their family meals with other healthy foods.”

Many people in Arkansas go

“Charolette is determined to tackle Fort Smith food insecurity and I believe she has only begun the fight,” Kupchick said. “The work she has done has already captured national notoriety.”

Tidwell has testified before the National Commission on Hunger, a 10-member congressional panel, and before Feeding America.

“I’m not going to stop until everyone hears the drum that ‘one can help one,’” Tidwell said.

For Tidwell, statistics melt into individual faces – white, black, Hispanic and Asian – as

Smith and surrounding areas, she said.

“I can see a problem of despair and a loss of hope in the community,” she said.

Kupchick said Tidwell does more than feed people.

“Charolette doesn’t feed, she nurtures,” he said. “She recogOpposite page: Volunteers, bottom left, load foodstuffs onto trucks for delivery to Fort Smith nursing homes. Top right, Gorman Towers resident Gene Landolt welcomes Tidwell’s visit every month: “It helps a lot of people, including myself.”

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Jessie Woer

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nizes that hope is as important as food.”

That hope and belief in self began early for Tidwell, who was born the sixth of 10 children. “We didn’t know we were poor,” she said. “My mom and dad never spoke it. Our community never spoke it.”

A 1-acre garden next to their house and neighbors helped out in lean times.

“It was a community.

Nobody would let people be hungry,” she said.

Tidwell saw other examples of generosity as she attended St. John’s Catholic School and

watched the nuns serve others.

“At school, at church, at home, I was surrounded by community support,” she said. “It was bred in me. From the time I knew myself, it was a part of me.”

Tidwell said her mother wanted to be a nurse, but found

it impossible with 10 children.

Instead, when she heard of someone sick, she would head over to that person’s home to make a pot of soup or to clean a house.

“She said I’d cry to follow her. I was the only kid who’d do that,” Tidwell said. “Nursing has

“Community is caring, compassion an You can’t tell me you care if you’ re —Charolette Tidwell

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always been my calling. I was born to be a nurse.”

After high school, Tidwell enrolled at St. Edward Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. But the summer after she started, she married Lawrence Tidwell.

She left St. Edward because, at that time, married students

were not allowed to study to become nurses. A few years later when Sparks Hospital School of Nursing opened its program to married students, Tidwell transferred to its program and completed her studies.

“When I graduated I went on an education blitz,” she said

n and helping. u’ re not helping.”

with a laugh.

And she did it all while continuing to work as a nurse.

She earned her certificate in psychiatric nurse technology from Westark Community College in 1974. Her quest for knowledge included two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree from institutions of higher learning in the state. In 1988, she returned to Westark Community College to work as a clinical instructor in nursing for two years while maintaining a management nursing position at Sparks Regional Medical Center.

“I was always born to be a nurse. I wish that I could do it now, but what I do now reaches a broader sector of people,” she said.

On a winter morning, she and her volunteers prepared to take food to part of that sector – residents living at Gorman Towers in Fort Smith. In a relay line working to the hum of industrial freezers and refrigerators, volunteers hefted two brown paper bags, each filled with 40 pounds of food, turned and handed them to the next person in line until the bags reached a cavernous silver trailer. Tidwell loaded bags of frozen sausage patties and chicken as well as fruit bags and salad mixes into coolers for the trip across town.

At Gorman, the residents would receive fruit and vegetables, meat, cereal or pasta, and on this day, a voucher for a gallon of milk from a local grocery store. Other times dairy could be powdered milk or eggs.

Residents began gathering in the large day room as Tidwell and the volunteers unloaded two trailers of food.

Gene Landolt, a resident at Gorman, said he looks forward

to Tidwell’s visit each month.

“It helps out a lot of people, including myself,” he said. “It helps supplement my food.”

As volunteers distributed the bags, placing many in wheeled carts, Kay Williams said she was thankful for the volunteers and Tidwell.

“Without this I’d not be able to make it month to month,” she said.

Gloria Perkins, whose corneas are clouded with Fuchs’ dystrophy, can no longer drive to the store from Gorman Towers.

“It means everything to me,” she said of the food delivery.

“I have my Meals on Wheels and I have my food from Antioch.”

Tidwell distributed hugs almost as liberally as she handed out food and milk vouchers.

“The elderly are very private,” she said. “You have to win their confidence to show them that what you are doing is meant to help supplement with nutritious food to help increase their independence and stretch their very limited incomes.”

Back at the two-story brick building that houses the food pantry, Tidwell talks of her plans for a community garden that encompasses a city block.

She worked one before for three years, but it became too much. Fort Smith’s Northside High School built raised beds in fall 2015, and the garden will come to life again in the spring.

Schoolchildren will be involved in planting and working the soil as an educational space. And, in turn, Tidwell will have fresh fruit and vegetables that she can pass on to others.

“Community is caring, compassion and helping,” she said. “You can’t tell me you care if you’re not helping.”

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lead time

by Jennifer Sicking

Chancellor’s scholars find their best selves through ‘basic training’

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into an organization and diffuses them into a variety of areas,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the only good thing I do all week long in which I can say that I’ve impacted somebody’s life. … As a chancellor, I should be engaged in the core mission of what we’re doing.”

And students and alumni say the experience changed them.

“Really the opportunities afforded in CLC were life changing and unforgettable,” said Jourdan Scoggins, ’11, who hailed from Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. “I want to thank Dr. Beran and the scholarship donors for helping a girl from a little bitty small town open up and find herself.”

Beran drives those changes in the students’ first semester at UAFS through a class he teaches on leadership to the scholarship recipients.

“The concept of leadership in our culture has become trivialized,” Beran said. “We see supposed leadership in our government, for example, as little more than people in elected positions who respond to poll numbers rather than making values-based decisions and standing by them.”

(top) Rachel rodemann Putman, (bottom) annmarie mccollum

hukwukere Ekeh, ’15, paused before coming up with a description for the Chancellor’s Leadership Council Scholarship.

“I compare it to basic training,” he said about the scholarship that drew him from North Little Rock, Arkansas. “Yes, they’ll pay you, but you serve after that and you come out on the other end a better person.”

The Chancellor’s Leadership Council Scholarship, known across campus as CLC, is the most prestigious one offered by the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. Former Chancellor Joel Stubblefield began the scholarship when UAFS became a bachelor’s granting university to help attract baccalaureate students to the school. It covers tuition and fees for four years and housing and meals for two years, and totals more than $40,000 per student.

It began with faculty members teaching the class, but Chancellor Paul Beran, who taught a similar class at a previous institution, wanted to be more involved.

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Chancellor Paul Beran teaches the Chancellor’s Leadership Council class, which begins with a threeday boot camp (below) in August, followed by boardroom-style class meetings and reading and writing assignments during the fall.

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The next generation of leaders needs to be sent out ready to participate, Beran said, “so we don’t destroy each other shooting each other or shouting each other down, neither of which extends leadership, in my opinion.”

During the class their freshman year, in addition to working on their projects, they read books and discuss leadership.

For 2015-16, they read John Maxwell’s “The Five Levels of Leadership” and Randy Leadership scholars attend boardroom-style class sessions with the chancellor.

Pausch’s “The Last Lecture.” They must “I’m looking for students who perhaps had the same write a paper to defend why they identify experiences I did in high school.” Beran said. “I was a with the Republican or Democratic political terrible pupil because I didn’t take instruction well, but I parties. In doing so, they learn what was a good student because I was always in the pursuit of they value and who they are. knowledge.”

“They learn what they beAbout 300 students applied for the 2015-16 scholarship. lieve as an adult, separate from Of those, Beran and a selection committee interviewed the perspectives of parents, about 40 students before offering it to 20. Seventeen preachers or teachers,” students enrolled in the fall as CLC scholars.

Beran said.

Each year before the fall semester starts, the incoming “It’s challenging you to CLC students participate in a three-day boot camp. They think in a way you never have their leadership styles analyzed. They learn study have before. You keep skills. They learn about manners and professional dress. an open mind and really “When they finish with my class, they are kids who figure out who you are,” —Francesca Boone, know how to dress, how to talk to adults, how to negotiate, said Francesca Boone, freshfreshman nursing major how to find out information in a respectful way,” Beran man nursing major from Fort said.

Smith.

He also warns them.

“It was figuring out who I was “Dr. Beran tells us everything is a test,” said Paige as a person,” Scoggins said. “In high

“It’s challenging you to think in a way you never have before.

You keep an open mind and really figure out who you are.”

school, you’re molded by the people you’re around.

I changed that first semester so much.”

While Beran looks for strong academics in the students, it’s not the most important quality on his list. He looks for natural leaders – those who edited a yearbook, worked as a shift leader at McDonald’s or attained the Eagle Scout rank in the Boy Scouts.

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Stewart, senior communication major.

That scared Stewart at first. Then as she became better acquainted with Beran, her perception changed. She couldn’t wait to tell him about her successes.

“It doesn’t become a test anymore,” she said. “You truly grow from it. You become a better person because of it.”

At the boot camp, Beran also separates the students

(top) Rachel rodemann Putman, (bottom) ann mccollum

During leadership boot camp, students are divided into “antagonistic pairings” to organize group projects for the fall.

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into groups with the “most antagonistic pairings.” Those groups must conceive, develop, organize, implement and report on a project during the fall semester. This fall, students organized It’s a Ruff Life to raise awareness of animal abuse and neglect as well as Glowing Up Healthy, a fitness extravaganza, among others. Ekeh’s group organized a program connecting new foreign students to the campus and community, which is still used. Scoggins’

When they finish the class, they become part of the loosely formed Chancellor’s Leadership Council.

They take leadership positions in student government, sororities and fraternities and other organizations across campus. They

“When they finish with my class, they are kids who know how to dress, how to talk to adults, how to negotiate, how to find out information in a respectful way.”

—Chancellor Paul Beran

Rachel rodemann Putman

Fall 2015 Chancellor’s Leadership Council scholars organized several group projects, including It’s a Ruff Life, a campus event to raise awareness of animal abuse and neglect.

group worked with the original organizers of Paint the Park Pink, which continues each fall. And as they plan those events, students learn to work with others.

“We are in the process of becoming the future,” said Bailie Coger, freshman math with teacher licensure major from Huntsville, Arkansas.

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sponsor the campus Angel Tree each year at Christmas.

Ekeh said his experience with CLC taught him to bring value not only to the people around him, but also to the wider community.

“I can see it being a launching place for who I’m becoming,” he said.

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Alumni+Friends DROP US A LINE! Let us—and the people you went to school with—know what you’ve been up to! Please take a few minutes to sit down and tell us what’s been going on since your time at UAFS, Westark, or Fort Smith Junior College. Tell us about your job, your family, your hobbies, your adventures, your plans— whatever you want to share with other alumni. We love to get photos too, and we’ll happily run them in this section.

Be sure to include your name (and your name while you were in school if it has changed since then) and the year you graduated or the years you attended. Email your class note to belltower@uafs.edu or mail it to Alumni Office, UAFS, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

1950s

1960s

Randy Wewers, ’58, wrote in to say, “I am so proud to see how our alumni organization has grown in numbers and outreach.” He also recently became a great-grandfather of Jarrett Reese Binkley.

Jerry McBride, ’61, finished first in five events (high jump, long jump, triple jump, pole vault and javelin), including setting a new state record in the high jump, during the Arkansas State Senior

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uafsalumni.com/perks 26

Olympic Games. He took second place in the shot put and discus.

In July 2015, he participated in the National Senior Olympic Games in Minnesota. He competed in seven events and placed in five, including a best finish of second place in the pole vault.

1980s Danny Neff, ’84, studied at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was licensed and ordained with the Southern Baptists in 1989. He served as a pastor of Baptist churches in the greater Fort Smith area. He also served with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Missions Board in Colorado as a church planter. He retired in 1999 due to illness. He and his wife, Beverly, live in Lavaca, Arkansas.

Shelli (Curlin) Henehan, ’86, was a charter member of The Pride of Westark in 1985. She is an assistant professor in the UAFS School of Education and assessment coordinator.

Her husband, Brian Henehan, is an assistant professor in information technology at UAFS. “It’s a family institution,” she wrote.

Paul Reano, ’83, graduated from Westark College’s prestigious nursing program. Carolyn Branch Moore was his first-semester instructor and became his mentor, lifelong colleague and friend. He went on to complete his undergrad studies and MBA. He now works as a hospital CEO and is the owner of a hospital management company in southeast Oklahoma.

“My years at Westark/UAFS were some of my best college days,” he wrote. “I spoke to Carolyn Moore just a few weeks ago reminiscing about those times.”

Greg Stanfill, ’89, was promoted by Arvest to director of community banks in Benton County.

1990s Andrea Matlock, ’95, accepted a position as a life and health insurance agent for United Financial Advisors and Summit Benefit Partners.

2000s Misty Archer, ’09, and Ryan Remilliard welcomed Madison Lee Ann Remilliard on Aug. 25, 2014.

She weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 19 inches when she was born.

Robert Gilyard, ’07, went on to earn a law degree and founded Bondfiles Inc. Shopping Network.

Joseph Hopper, ’06, was appointed sanitation department director for the city of Conway, Arkansas. He previously worked as superintendent of the Fort Smith Sanitation Department.

Melanie Keith, ’06, moved into a human resources specialist position with ABF Logistics in Fort Smith. She will be handling interviews, orientation and engagement of the ABF Logistics employees.

Heather Manchester, ’08, joined the Cardiology Center at Sparks Hospital. As an advanced practice nurse, she provides follow-up treatment and care for patients who have risks of cardiovascular diseases. She lives in Muldrow, Oklahoma, with her (continued on page 28)

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LION FILE

To China With Love

COURTESY

longest so I picked it. I wanted to really experience it,” he said.

The program, Learn and Teach Ulsan, provided him with the opportunity to take classes studying Korean and a part-time job tutoring students in English.

Also learning Korean was Shasha Wang, a student from China.

“She was a lot better at it than me. But it wasn’t really fair because Korean and Chinese are kind of similar,” Russell said with a laugh. “We started talking, and it just went from there I guess.”

When he returned to America in 2012, they continued to talk regularly using Skype and other video calling apps. In the fall of 2013, Wang came to America to work at Epcot, part of Walt Disney World theme park in Florida. They visited as often as possible, and before her return to China in 2014, she took a trip to Fort Shasha Wang and Smith, to see Russell. They planned a trip to visit Las Jemal Russell, ’15, Vegas and the Grand Canyon after seeing Russell’s visited the Grand Canyon hometown. But Russell had more than sightseeing in during Wang’s stay in mind for the trip. the United States.

“I actually planned to propose on our trip, but then I thought that would be too obvious,” Russell said. “So As he struggles his way through a sea of people, fighting for a place we were sitting down at a small stadium taking a break from walkon the crowded subway car, gawking stares follow Jemal Russell, ing on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, and I guess the anxiety ’15, everywhere he goes. just hit me and I couldn’t wait anymore. I already had the ring on As a 6-foot-tall black man, Russell stands out among the 2.1 me, so I just went for it. I told her I wanted to show her a trick, so million people living in Changsha, China. He slowly adapts to living she closed her eyes, I got the ring out, got on one knee, and asked on the opposite side of the globe from his hometown of Forrest her to marry me.”

City, Arkansas, a delta town with a population of 15,000.

She said yes.

Few things hold the power to inspire such a move. For Russell, Engaged to a woman who lived across the globe while he tried it was love. to finish his degree, Russell needed an answer to the question, Russell started college in 2009, at Lane College in Jackson, what’s next?

Tennessee, majoring in physical therapy, unsure of his future.

Living in Korea changed the way Russell saw the world and his “Going into college I knew I wanted to go to grad school, future. He began looking at graduate programs abroad, but really even though I knew nothing about it,” Russell said. only considered one option: Hunan University, in Changsha, China.

After one semester, he returned home and looked for a The capital of the Hunan province in China is just an hour away better fit. from Wang’s hometown.

“I was into computers and a friend told me if I liked computers “I only applied to Hunan University, kind of risky, but I was deI needed to check out UAFS. They have a good computer program. termined,” Russell said.

So I looked into it and then I saw the Sebastian Commons apartThe risk paid off when the university accepted him into the ments, and that’s what got me.” computer science master’s program and the Chinese government Russell found a home at UAFS majoring in information technolapproved his scholarship. ogy networking. However, he looked for more.

He found his way to China and to his future.

“Around my second year I started looking at the study abroad “I might get my Ph.D., or I could work for one of the big tech program. I wanted to see something different,” Russell said. companies. I’d like to try something in marketing, and if I can’t get After a visit to the international office on campus, Russell chose a job doing anything else, I can teach English. But Shasha wants to to apply for a yearlong stay in Ulsan, South Korea. stay close to family, so I definitely plan on staying in China,” he said.

“They offered me some programs, but the one in Korea was the —Julia Heffington

UAFS BELL TOWER

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Alumni+Friends (continued from page 26) husband and two sons.

Brock Schulte, ’08, was honored by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Northwest Arkansas as one of the finest young professionals of Northwest Arkansas. Walk This Way with the Finest Honorees recognizes those who exemplify leadership qualities, are active volunteers and have excelled in the business community. Honorees then fundraise in the community and raise awareness for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Brandon Vick, ’09, spent 10 months in England for medical rotations in obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, surgery and pediatrics while studying with the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine. In the

next year, his medical studies will take him to Virginia for wilderness medicine, Fort Smith for radiology, Michigan for intensive care, Indiana for family medicine and New York for physical medicine and rehabilitation, emergency medicine and trauma surgery. “It has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to travel all over and study medicine,” he said. “I really look forward to completing my training and returning to Fort Smith to work as either a family medicine or emergency medicine physician.”

Shannan Walker, ’06, accepted a human resources generalist position at ArcBest in Fort Smith.

2010s Bradley Andrews, ’14, was hired as a product manager with

Weldon, Williams and Lick in Fort Smith.

Stacey Chu, ’11, successfully completed her Pediatric Nursing Board Certification and passed her exam by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She joined the pediatric clinic staff at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith.

Megan Clover, ’15, graduated from the police academy and is an officer with the Van Buren, Arkansas, Police Department.

Mark Crane, ’10, graduated with a master of science in education with an emphasis in special education from Arkansas State University.

Kristina Davis, ’15, went to work as a graphic production artist for Viverae in Dallas.

Tamara Fitzpatrick, ’12, was hired as executive director of the

Callaway, Missouri, Chamber of Commerce. She previously held the position of director of operations at the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce. She will oversee the chamber’s operations as well as the Fulton Area Development Foundation and the Show-Me Innovation Center.

Alisha Garland, ’15, is attending graduate school at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. She is pursuing a master’s degree in music, vocal performance.

Danielle Kling, ’15, took a position as graphic designer at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.

Katie Knight, ’14, became engaged to Ed Hug. She works as (continued on page 32)

The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith

would like to give special recognition to the following classes celebrating milestone anniversaries:

10th Anniversary

Class Of 2006, the first UAFS graduating class

25th Anniversary

Class of 1991, graduates of Westark Community College

50th Anniversary

Class of 1966, graduates of Fort Smith Junior College / Westark Junior College

Office of Annual Giving

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To give a gift in honor of an alumnus or friend, contact Christy Williams, Director of Annual Giving christy.williams@uafs.edu , 479-788-7022

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Tossed About

rachel rodemann putman

In the evening, the color-changing lights on the exterior of the Windgate Art & Design building at the UAFS campus illuminate a 14-foot aluminum sculpture.

UAFS alumnus Greer Farris, ’63, with the help of a welder, created Tossed About, which the university purchased with a gift from Bill and Peggy Weidman. The Weidmans searched for a piece that would complement the new art building and as soon as they set their eyes on Farris’ work, they knew it was the one.

“I love the university, and Greer Farris has been a friend for years,” Peggy Weidman said. “I wanted to see if he had a piece that might go well with the building, and Tossed About was the perfect fit. Art is music for the eyes, and this piece is a symphony.”

Although the sculpture appears to have been made with the building in mind, Farris had started on it five months before the Weidmans saw it.

“The sculpture repeats the use of rectangular shapes of the building design along with aluminum, which is one of the important materials used in its construction,” said Farris. “It just entirely echoes

the building without being too similar.”

Although Tossed About took several months to physically create, Farris explains that including all of his prior thoughts and experiences, it took a lifetime.

Farris’ interest in art began as a child. He created things out of whatever he could get his hands on, and specifically remembers when he made an airplane out of wooden boxes and convinced his little brother that it was real.

“You have to keep that imagination alive, otherwise, it becomes

rachel rodemann putman

Artist Greer Farris, ’63, unwraps his work Tossed About before installing it in front of Windgate Art & Design (top right).

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lost along the way,” said Farris.

Farris earned an associate degree in art from Fort Smith Junior College in 1963. He received his bachelor’s in art from Western State College (now Western State Colorado University) before teaching at Memorial High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While he taught, he also attended Northeastern State University for his Master of Education, and then received his Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University. He taught ceramics at Tulane University as well as Westark Community College. Currently he teaches thirdthrough fifth-grade art at Alma schools and 3-D design at UAFS. “I have fun teaching young students because they are fresh and exciting,” said Farris. “I wouldn’t trade places with anyone.”

Teaching helps him fund materials for his art. Throughout his art career, Farris has worked with a wide variety of materials, creating art out of what he could get his hands on. His abstract piece Crossroads, created from recycled car bumpers, was selected to be part of the Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition in New Orleans. His piece Patronus consists

of five identical painted steel forms and appears at the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Farris created Broken Promises from bolted wood assembled in disarray that makes it look like a broken fence. This piece is on public display in Huntsville, Arkansas.

“I make sculptures through a process-oriented approach,” Farris wrote in his artist’s statement. “Ordinarily, I work without sketches. The piece begins with the spark of an idea, then I continue intuitively, based on what I see, feel and judge to be right ... as I proceed. The journey itself lends definition and meaning to the resulting composition.”

Farris creates art for himself, works that tweak his imagination, and if it catches someone else’s attention, that’s an added bonus.

As soon as he completes one piece, he knows another follows right after, creating a never-ending quest.

“I don’t always think a lot about what art means nor necessarily the message it attempts to convey,” said Greer, “but I know it’s part of who I am and something that I must do.” —Hannah Meadows

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Alumni+Friends

One Fine Day through the English Language Institute of China’s summer program, Engage, after her junior year.

While she was in Hong Kong, she learned of opportunities to teach in Mongolia.

“People often ask me why I decided to teach in Mongolia,” said Kasworm. “I tell them, ‘I don’t have any school debts, I’m not married, and I don’t have kids.’ This is the perfect time for me to experience the world and travel.”

Kasworm teaches at New Era International Laboratory by helping students ages 12-15 for three hours a day, four days a week, focusing on grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension. “I want to help my students know that they are capable by improving their English skills in the best

CO URTE SY

During the opening ceremony on the first day of school, children sang and performed traditional dances in celebration. Then in front of students, parents and several cameras, Cheyenne Kasworm, ’15, stood and gave a speech in a language foreign to the audience.

As she spoke about her hopes for the school year, Kasworm kept jumping ahead of the translator because this was her first time speaking with one. It was then that she realized this place was going to be different.

Kasworm began teaching in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in July after graduating from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith in May 2015.

Kasworm went to Hong Kong

way I know possible,” said Kasworm.

Kasworm explains that in Mongolia many ceremonies celebrate teachers.

National Teachers Day, her favorite celebration, began Cheyenne K asworm, righ with teachers attending t, celebrates N ational Teac classes taught by stuhe rs Day with colleag ues in Mongo dents. Later, the teachers lia. attended a black-tie event at a hotel where they played traonce a week where the ditional Mongolian party games, students learn basic skills on how handed out awards and danced to tell a story in English. She also for hours. attends English Corner, which is “I don’t think of teachers atopen for anyone to practice Engtending fancy parties like that,” lish at a local coffee shop. said Kasworm. “Teachers in “I’ve grown so much as a America don’t get as much recperson from living in Mongolia beognition as they should. Students cause my mind is being expanded here appreciated me so much.” on how big the world is,” said KasBesides teaching, Kasworm worm. “I would advise other recent keeps busy with other activities. graduates to teach abroad if they She and some of the other foreign get the chance. If not now, then teachers lead a storytelling club when?” —Hannah Meadows

GIVING may be easier than you think.

There are ways you can support the university today while still providing for your family and preserving your assets for retirement.

Office of Planned Giving 30

For more information on how to create a lasting legacy, please visit uafslegacy.org or contact us at 479-788-7033.

Request your free guide to planning your will and trust.

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lion file

A Life of Learning

hannah meadows

Slowly, Bob Pruett, ’78, paced himself through the eight flights of stairs to reach his student housing because there was not an elevator. On reaching his floor, he found a cold room, just big enough to fit a twinsized bed.

To Pruett, this was his chance to continue his college education, alone in a foreign country, at almost 70 years old.

Pruett has taken advantage of the opportunities that have come his way, from attending nursing school to returning to Korea after retirement. He enrolled in the Army at 17 and served in the Vietnam War. While stationed in Korea during the war, he befriended Korean soldiers and they taught him Korean.

“We got to where we’d practice every day,” said Pruett. “I got fairly good at it.”

After serving nearly nine years, Pruett decided not to re-enlist so he could be with his wife and three children. Then five years later, at age 31, he decided to enroll in the nursing program at Westark Community College. It was 1976. He worked full time as a maintenance engineer at St. Edward Mercy Hospital while balancing good grades in his classes.

After he graduated from Westark in Decades after graduating from Westark, Bob Pruett, ’78, keeps studying.

1978, Pruett stayed at St. Edward, moving to nursing services before transferring to Love County Healthlearned while serving in the military, but he soon realized that it care Center, a 30-bed hospital in Marietta, Oklahoma. Pruett also had faded. Other students in the classroom said they had been worked at a hospital in Houston before returning to Arkansas to studying the textbook for a year. When Pruett told them he had work in Springdale, Fort Smith and Fayetteville. just gotten his book, they said the class was going to be very dif“Even though nursing is a difficult job, I’ve enjoyed my career,” ficult for him – and it was. He studied for four to five hours every said Pruett. “I was always lucky enough to be put on a good team. night, and the younger students would help him when he didn’t The camaraderie among the staff always made the job much more understand the assignments. pleasant.”

He attended university games and made friends everywhere After Pruett retired in 2010 from the Veterans Administration he went. He met a couple who helped him recharge his subway Outpatient Clinic in Fort Smith, he decided to return to school. He card, and they invited him to church. He walked to church with earned an associate degree in industrial science and a certificate them weekly. in welding technology. And his thoughts turned to languages.

People regularly ask him, “How come you always meet nice When Pruett was stationed in Korea, he made lifelong friends people?” He replies, “Because I seek out nice people.” with nine men in his battalion. One by one through the years, Pruett returned to the United States in May 2015. He continues those friends died. After the last one passed away, Pruett deto study Korean with a pastor at Korean Presbyterian Church in cided that he would visit Korea again for closure and to relearn Fort Smith. He also practices the language with the church’s the language. Sungkyunkwan University, Korea’s oldest university members. established in 1398, accepted him as a student to study Korean “If you have a chance to do something or see something, go do for a semester. it,” said Pruett. “I don’t know why people wouldn’t take advantage Pruett thought he would remember some Korean that he had of that.” – Hannah Meadows

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Alumni+Friends lion file

Flights of Fancy

(continued from page 28) an executive assistant at ArcBest in Fort Smith and he is a mechanical engineer at Baldor in Fort Smith.

Casey Millspaugh, ’11, was elected chair of the Fort Smith Parks Commission in October. He will serve a two-year term. He also is a young alumni mentor in Mentor Connections.

Nicole Pickett, ’11, took a position as systems accountant with Explorer Pipeline in Tulsa,

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Oklahoma.

Claudia Rucchio, ’11, became director of development for the Fort Smith Symphony. She also has participated as a young alumna in the Alumni Association’s Mentor Connections program for two years.

Elise Sample, ’12, gave birth to her first child, Dylan Wayne Schoggins,

courtesy

After another long day of her 8-to-5 job, doing the same thing, with the same people, inside the cubicle’s same walls, Abigail Whittemore, ’13, could not help her tears of frustration. Working as a marketing assistant in northwest Arkansas paid the bills but made her miserable.

Whittemore has a passion for adventure. She followed adventure to college, by moving nearly 900 miles from her home in McAllen, Texas, to attend college and play tennis at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.

“It looked like a good place to live; it’s the most beautiful campus,” she said.

Here, she met her husband, fellow Lion tennis player Lubos Sobotka, ’12. She majored in media communication with a minor in rhetoric and writing. Susan Simkowski, UAFS associate professor of media communication, is sure of her finding success.

“Abby has always been a go-getter. She has an optimistic attitude, and while others are waiting she just goes out and gets what she wants,” Simkowski said.

After graduation, Whittemore accepted a position as a marketing assistant with a large firm in northwest Arkansas, and her adventures took a back seat.

“I knew it was not what I wanted to do,” she said. “I was tired of waiting for the weekend, or my two weeks, or for retirement to live my life.”

A friend suggested she apply to Delta Air Lines.

Whittemore completed the two online assessments, which led to a video interview and then an on-site interview at Delta’s headquarters in Atlanta. Of the 70 potential flight attendants interviewing, only seven would be chosen.

“When I heard the words ‘Welcome to Delta,’ tears poured down my face.”

She had to complete seven weeks of training before she could take to the skies.

“The job is not just serving drinks and snacks, or there would just be vending machines,” she said. “Like an iceberg, there’s so much more to it.”

The training focused on working as a team with other flight attendants and safety procedures for 12 different models of aircrafts. She learned to evacuate the plane in 90 seconds, treat medical symptoms, use self-defense, and how to respond in case of fire, smoke or decompression.

Whittemore on board.

“Anything that can happen on the ground can happen in the air. I am responsible for the 400 lives on board. There are no police, firefighters or medical team.”

For her first flight, Whittemore traveled to Paris.

Nervous about putting her training to the test, she introduced herself to the other flight attendants and pilots. And she found teammates to help her learn and to explore Paris. Whittemore and three other flight attendants visited the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower.

“One of the pilots bought us dinner to celebrate my first flight, and he said, ‘Welcome to the Delta family.’”

Walking down the street in Paris, looking at the Eiffel Tower, Whittemore again cried, this time of wonder and joy.

Whittemore lives a new adventure each day. The schedule, hours and flights change, but “It makes me thrilled to go to work.”

She has set her sights on her next adventure, becoming a flight purser for international flights.

“I want to see the world before I leave it,” Whittemore said.

—Julia Heffington

on July 2, 2015.

Stanley Soultaire, ’13, went to work for the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith as a graphic designer.

Aaron St. Amant, ’15, has accepted a position of 3D digital scanning project manager with Morrison and Shipley Engineering in Fort Smith.

Michael Stevenson, ’13, was named information security officer for Sparks Regional Medical Center.

Angie Stout, ’15, was hired as an English teacher at Southside High School in Fort Smith.

Jordan (Bozeman) Taylor ’14 and Jeff Taylor, ’11, welcomed Raleigh Ruth Taylor on Aug. 16, 2015.

Eaven Ward, ’14, accepted a staff accountant position in auditing with Przybysz and Associates in Fort Smith.

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micheal phan

Tommy Dobbs, visiting instructor of percussion, plays the world premiere of “Amalgamation,� a solo snare drum piece Dobbs commissioned from composer Luis Rivera, during the fall 2015 UAFS Music Faculty Showcase Concert.

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Bell Tower

Nonprofit org. u.s. postage paid permit no. 479 Fort Smith, ARK

UAFS Alumni Association P.O. Box 3649 Fort Smith, AR 72913

change service requested

A Look Back

courtesy

Neal Pearson, ’78, shared the report cards, $79 tuition receipt

We’d love to share them in an upcoming issue. Let us know your

and yearbook photo of his mother Bettye Gerhardt, ’48. She

thoughts about the magazine, responses to stories, and ideas for

played on the basketball team, and the Numa yearbook staff named

future articles.

her “cutest female” and described her as “cute as a pig’s ear.”

Do you have any photos or memories of your time as a student?

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Drop us a line at belltower@uafs.edu or Bell Tower Magazine, P.O. Box 3649, Fort Smith, AR 72913.

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