Bull riding came to the countylast weekend.

The women’s track and field team finished secondSaturday at Westminster.

INSIDE

SPORTS COMMENCEMENT REGION

Copyright © 2010 byWaynesburg University

Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCordhas been announced as the com-mencement speaker, while DanielSepulveda will be the baccalaure-ate speaker.

See Page AA1

See Page C1

See Page B1

Campus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A1-A5, A8Editorial/Op-Ed . . . . . . . . . . . . .A6, A7Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B1, B4

Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C1-C4Commencement . . . . . . . . . .AA1-AA8Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BB1-BB8

Thursday, April 21, 2011Vol. 88 No. 2351 W. College St.

Waynesburg, PA 15370

Photos by Lisa Jaeger

Students used a variety of activities to raise money for Relay of Life. (Top) Water ballons burst on Andrew Zahnas part of Thayer Hall’s fundraiser. (Bottom left) Each team had to have a member walk around the campus loopfor one hour. Teams had to have someone walking from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Center) Peer Educators painted nails fora $1 donation. (Right) WU’s Line is it Anyway performed a special show during the Relay.

Record numberof teams walk in annual Relay

By Sarah BellEditorial Assistant

Walking around JohnsonCommons for 12 hours helpedto put the pieces of the puzzletogether in the fourth annualMini Relay for Life last Sunday.

From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on April17, a record number of 42 teamsparticipated in the walk,fundraised toward their goal andeducated the community on var-

ious types of cancer. “[Relay for Life] is one of our

biggest events on campus,” Jes-sica Malingowski, co-chair ofWaynesburg University’s Relayfor Life said, “All of the benefitsgo toward the American CancerSociety; it’s a great time to cometogether with the communityand have fun while supporting agood cause.”

See RELAY on A5

WCYJ-FM raises$1,400 for Relay in24-hour broadcastBy Rachel DavisStaff Writer

Senior communicationmajors Emily Ellis andMike Winland spent 24hours in a crowded, hotradio studio this lastweekend. To them, it wasworth it.

“At one point in timethere was 17 people inthe station,” said Ellis. “Itwas crazy. And at timesit was really hectic, but itwas totally worth it.”

99.5 the Hive hostedtheir second annual 24-

hour broadcast from 6p.m. Thursday until 6p.m. Friday.

Ellis and Winland onlyleft the studio to go to thebathroom as they raisedmoney for Relay for Lifethrough pledges from stu-dents, faculty and friends.

They depended on oth-ers to bring them foodand drinks throughoutthe 24 hours. Ellis saidthat because peoplewould bring them foodfrom Sheetz and McDon-

Students donate200 baskets forEaster BuddiesBy Megan CampbellStaff Writer

Waynesburg Univer-sity hosted its firstEaster Buddies projectthis year.

Students deliveredthe baskets to many dif-ferent places acrossGreene County includ-ing West WaynesburgSchool, East Franklin,the Headstart Programand the SalvationArmy.

The baskets weredelivered to these loca-tions on April 18.

Student OrganizationLeadership Grouphelped write and obtaina $700 CommunityImpact Grant to fundthis project. Childrenranging from pre-school

through sixth gradereceived these baskets.

Student organiza-tions on campus, aswell as St. Ann’sCatholic Church andSister Audrey of the Sal-vation Army GreeneCounty Service Center,will each pledge to fill anumber of baskets andbe responsible for fillingthem with items likecandy, books andcrayons.

Emily Ellis, for thestudent organizationWCYJ, collected either$2 from every memberor a bag of candy to fillthe baskets they col-lected.

“It’s nice to do some-thing closer to home –

Department of Criminal Justice chair hiredBy Cori SchipaniStaff Writer

The Criminal JusticeAdministration is on theverge of a change in lead-ership that has notoccurred since its forma-tion.

At the end of this aca-demic school year, assis-

tant pro-fessorAdamJackwill betakingDanaBaer’splace asdepart-

ment chair of Criminal

Justice Administration.“He has energy; he is

motivated; he is disci-plined, and he is just theconsummate profession-al,” said Baer.

When Baer agreed toserve as dean of Under-graduate Studies in thespring of 2010, it wasdecided that she would

transition out of her roleas chair of CJA withinone year but remain asdean and professor.

“I have no doubt thatthe quality of the programwill continue, and that itwill continue in a positiveway,” she said. “It’s inJack

Torrential downpour causes flooding in Buhl, Hanna hallsBy Brandon Reed Editorial Assistant

It left just as swiftly asit came.

There was no delaybetween the flash of thelightning and the soundof thunder.

Water cascaded downhills, steps and anythingthat sloped on Tuesdayafternoon.

Senior Vice Presidentfor Finance and Adminis-

tration Roy Barnhart saidthat the troughs that aresupposed to run water

down the edges of thesidewalks overfloweddue to the excessive

amount of water in sucha short period of time.

“It was one of the

hardest rains I had seenin a long time,” saidBarnhart. “It was atremendous amount ofwater in just a few min-utes.”

According to Barnhart,there was flooding on thefirst floor of Hanna Hallin two classrooms on thewest side of the building.

“I was there Wednes-day morning,” said Barn-hart. “They have extract-ed a lot of the water out

of the carpet and havereplaced the desks andput fans in the rooms todry the carpet.”

Barnhart said thatclasses were not affectedbecause there was noth-ing scheduled at thattime in those rooms.

“Hanna Hall has beensemi-restored,” saidBarnhart.

According to Barnhart,

Water gathersoutside HannaHall during arainstorm. Thewater leakedinto the build-ing, soaking atleast one class-room.

Photo by Rachel Brown

See HANNA on A5

See BROADCAST on A3

See NEW on A2 See JACK on A4

Page A2 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Campus

more local - because it’sreally awesome to seethe impact on thesechildren firsthand,” saidEllis.

Easter Buddies is aproject similar to Oper-ation Christmas Child,when the university andstudent organizationscollect different thingsto put into a shoebox forneedy children every-where so they can havea Christmas present.

Easter provides Easterbaskets for children inthe community thataren’t fortunate enoughto have an Easter bas-ket.

Bethany Taylor, whowas one of the studentsin charge of this event,helped put the basketstogether.

“We wanted to givethem a happy Easter,and with the help of stu-dents, faculty, staff andPat Bristor, we wereable to double our goaland filled over 200 bas-kets,” Taylor said.

“Each basket con-tains a little book witha Bible story in it, candyand the like. Wereceived generous dona-tions from Sarris andWalgreens, as well asstudents and staffdonating and providingfillers.”

The university doesEaster Buddies primari-ly because it’s a chanceto see the communityand campus cometogether.

It had an excellentturnout, and faculty,staff and students cametogether to help thesechildren and donate forthe cause.

The group had somany extras that theyneeded to purchasemore baskets. The stu-dents involved wereenthusiastic, whichreally helped as well.

“My favorite partwould be delivering thebaskets, because I can’twait to see the kids inthe East FranklinSchool. I also work withthem in my major sothat’s really exciting,”Taylor said.

“We wanted to doEaster Buddies becausewe want the communi-ty to know that the uni-versity is willing to pro-vide help in any waythey can and that we arehere for them.”

People can’t run from God’s plan, speaker saysBy Eric BostStaff Writer

Chapel welcomed backLeon Haynes III, Execu-tive Director of HosannaHouse Inc., Tuesday. Hismain focus was on oneword that all studentsshould know about: pre-requisite.

“There are sometimesprerequisites of life beforeyou can receive yourcharge,” Haynes said.“You have them beforeyou take your majorcourses at college, right?It’s because you’re notready for your major untilyou take them.”

Receiving a charge wasreferring to the call byGod for people to do hiswork.

“Your charge or pur-pose in life is not neces-sarily going to be easy,”Haynes said. “We all haveto experience somethingor go through somethingin order to receive ourcharge. We can receiveour charge at differentareas at different times inour life.”

He said anybody canpass their prerequisite atany time.

“God will use youwhen you’re old, little ormiddle-aged,” saidHaynes. “He uses youwhenever your prerequi-site conditions are met.”

Haynes used Davidfrom the Bible as anexample.

“Now he was out inthe wilderness alone. Hewas scared both for his lifeand for the responsibilityof his sheep,” he said.“But he had time spentalone with God. Theevents that happened to

David then made himwho he was in thefuture.”

Haynes said that peopleare running away fromGod’s plan for his people.

“You better be thankfulthat God gets us to whereHe wants us to be becausewhen we get there, thereis a blessing waiting for

us,” he said. “Sometimeswe want to run to fast inorder to get to the nextthing, there are peoplethat are running awayfrom their purpose andcharge. The blessing iswhere God [puts] you.”

Haynes also lookedtoward the future, warn-ing his to be wary of dis-

tractions.“This generation of

young people is coming atyou so fast that you don’thave time to hear fromthe Lord,” he said. “Withall of the technology youhave to be careful that youturn down the volume soyou can find out whatpurpose God has for yourlife, so you can hear yourcharge.”

He said that we are theonly person that can standin the way of our charge.

“You need to hear theLord for yourself so youcan hear what the Lord issaying,” Haynes said.“That’s what is so power-ful about a charge. Noth-ing can stop your chargebut you.”

Haynes said that Goduses the charge for otherpurposes as well.

“I believe God issearching the whole earthto find out who he cantrust,” said Haynes. “Hewants to give you Histrust. He needs to give itto us because of the shapethat our country andworld is in today.”

He gave the students achallenge to close outChapel.

“Waynesburg students,are you willing to put itall out for your charge andfor the purpose of God inyour life? It’s going to berequired.”

Photo by Gregory Reinhart

Leon Haynes III spoke at Chapel Tuesday about receiving a charge from God.According to Haynes, people must experience something before receiving a charge.

New programa success

Continued from A1

CHAPEL

Different places, same goalLibrarians travel locally, abroad to forge connectionsBy Amanda SilayStaff Writer

Two Waynesburg Uni-versity librarians will taketrips in May to two verydifferent places, but withsimilar goals in mind.Librarian Richard Blakewill travel to Taiwan andLibrarian John Thompsonwill travel to BethanyCollege. They both hopeto bring back informationthat will benefit the uni-versity.

Thompson will takehis trip across the Penn-sylvania border to attend aconference with arealibrarians.

“Everything has gonemobile; libraries are put-ting out a lot of theirinformation to be avail-

able on mobile devices,”Thompson said. “Wearen’t leaders, but we arejust talking to each otherabout the new technolo-gy.”

With all of this newtechnology there willalways be questions thatneed to be answered.

“Will Waynesburg beable to do this?” Thomp-

son said. “I think we will;all businesses and organi-zations are interested inmobile applications.”

This is not somethingthat just Waynesburg isthinking about; universityand public libraries areconsidering these changesas well.

According to the Com-puters in Libraries maga-

zine, “Librarians havebegun to realize how pow-erful an information toolthe mobile phone can be,and it is this realizationthat has propelled a greatmany of them towarddeveloping services thatcan be used on thesemobile devices.”

Thompson expects tolearn a great deal whiletalking with fellow librar-ians.

“Going to conferencesis important to me; it letsus see what other peopleare doing,” Thompsonsaid. “We get a chance tosee where we need to bemoving to keep on trackwith everyone.”

Blake hopes to bringsomething back to theuniversity.

He will go to Taiwanfrom May 16-22 in hopesto create ties for anupcoming service trip in2013.

There are a few goalsthat he will hopefullyaccomplish by this eight-day trip.

“I will be visitingChrist’s College to buildan academic relationshipwith the university andalso doing two lecturesthere on how to do goodlibrary research,” Blakesaid.

“Another thing I willbe doing is coordinatingwith several Presbyterianchurches in order to findservice projects for thestudents who will be

“Going to conferences is importantto me; it lets us see what other peopleare doing. We get a chance to seewhere we need to be moving to keep ontrack with everyone.”

John ThompsonLibrarian

See LIBRARIANS on A4

Nursing majors present at Utah conferenceBy Brandon ReedEditorial Assistant

On April 5, Waynes-burg University’s chap-ter of the StudentNurses Association ofPennsylvania traveledto Salt Lake City, Utah,for the National Stu-dent Nurses Associa-tion convention.

The convention,held over four days,allowed student nursesfrom all over the coun-try to network.

More than 2,200nurses had preregis-tered by the start of theconference.

Student nurses creat-ed posters, which theythen presented at theconvention.

Other events, suchas lectures, panels orauthor visits, helped toeducate nurses on top-ics relating to theirfield.

However, it wasn’tall work. Nurses couldattend social events,like the superherodance party scheduledon the first night.

Senior nursing majorRichele Neff went onthe trip for the firsttime this year. She saidthat she loved it and it

really helped her seewhy she became anurse.

“The conventionsolidified everythingwe did over the courseof my last four years,”said Neff. “The tripwas expensive butworth it.”

Neff said that sheplans to be a nurse inthe Air Force followinggraduation and saidthat the conventionprovided informationabout nursing employ-ment outside of a hos-pital.

“It has always been achildhood dream of

mine to join the mili-tary in some capacity,”she said. “There is somuch out there fornurses that I was notaware of.”

The convention willbe coming to Pitts-burgh next year, andNeff said that she isexcited because itwould be a great oppor-tunity for younger stu-dents that might notget to go due to airfarecosts.

“I wish I had anopportunity like this,”said Neff. “I think weshould try to presentnext year.”

alds, she had food anddrink left over from theweekend.

Along with this, differ-ent radio staff membershad a radio show eachhour. Shows ranged from“Ask the Athlete” withAmanda Silay and Ryan

Harr to “Hardcore Jesus”with Steve Hullings andBen Schlotter.

Other shows included“Back to the ’80’s,”“Backwoods in theBurg,” and a “Top 20Countdown.”

Silay talked about herfirst time working duringthe 24-hour broadcast.

“My specialty show‘Ask the Athletes’ had anhour at the beginning ofthe broadcast and I cameback the next day and

they were still goingstrong,” said Silay.

“People that had beenup all night and day weredancing and singing, andprobably had more ener-gy than me, and I got togo to bed that night.[Ellis] and [Winland] hadsuch enthusiasm for thewhole broadcast that youcouldn’t help but have agood time.”

Channel 14 broadcast-ed the studio during the24 hours, and those par-ticipating spent theirtime talking, dancing andsinging. People coulddonate online, throughpledges or just by stop-ping in. Online donationsalone raised more than$500.

Last year’s General

Manager Jordan Thomp-son donated $20 for everyhour he was in the stu-dio, making him the topdonator with a total of$140.

Thompson hosted twoshows in the early morn-ing and then spent sometime in the studio whenhe wasn’t on air.

Overall, that 24-hourbroadcast raised $1,400dollars, and their Relayfor Life team fundraisedover $1,675. Ellis wasvery pleased with thatresult.

“I’d like to thankeverybody that donatedand supported. It was agood cause and we reallyappreciated that supportfrom everybody,” shesaid.

Page A3Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Campus

Broadcastraises $1,400

Continued from A1

Photo by Amanda Rice

Jazzy TunesThe jazz and percussion ensembles performed at 7:30 p.m. on April 18 in the Goodwin Performing Arts Center.Some students played instruments, while others accompanied them vocally.

Athletic trainers send 20 care packages to soldiers overseasBy Victoria KamickerStaff Writer

If you’re American,there’s a chance that youknow someone in themilitary.

In an effort to supportAmerican troops over-sees, athletic training stu-dents recently sent 20care packages to militarypersonnel stationed atvarious locations aroundthe world with the help offaculty, staff and studentswho donated items andmoney toward the project.

“We were able toexceed our goal of funds

and items to send 20boxes,” said MicheleKabay, assistant professorand director of athletic

training education. “The20 boxes were sent out inApril, and another 10 willbe sent in June.

According to military-missions.org, receiving acare package with simpleitems like lip balm andother basic necessities canmake soldiers’ day whilethey are deployed.

For most of the athletictraining students, thisproject hit close to home,as many of the studentsknow family or friendswho are currentlydeployed.

“This project wasunique to me because wesent packages to familyand friends of people onthis campus,” said sopho-more athletic training

major Mary Sallach. “Wetreated every box as ifthey were our own family,and every item put intothe boxes was somethingthat either we loved orknew others our agewould appreciate.”

Sallach believes thatsending the care packagesto the soldiers is impor-tant because the boxescan be a great reminder ofhome.

Katie Stauffer, a seniorathletic training major,participated in the projectto show her gratitude andsupport those serving thiscountry.

“I have family mem-bers in the military, andthey have told me abouttheir experiences,” Stauf-fer said.

“Supporting the mili-tary is a new opportunitythat is available for stu-dents on campus to getinvolved.”

Kabay asks that every-one continue to keep theservice men and womenin their prayers.

“It’s important to rec-ognize that so much ofthe freedoms we have arebecause of the commit-ment to serve by others,”Kabay said.

Photo courtesy of Michele Kabay

Athletic training students assemble care packages forsoldiers who are serving overseas.

EcoStewards plantgarden, distributecandy for Earth DayBy Chelsea ShafferStaff Writer

The EcoStewardsworked to restore thegardens between theBuhl Humanities Build-ing and the Knox lab onApril 20. DorothyRurak, senior environ-mental science major,sees this event as a wayto transfer knowledge tostudents about EarthDay.

“Earth Day is anopportunity to educatepeople about what existsin the world aroundthem,” she said. 

“Through this educa-tion, we can hope thatpeople are more environ-mentally conscience intheir everyday deci-sions.”

On April 20, theEcoStewards and Assis-tant Professor of BiologyJanet Paladino’s servicelearning class planted anative garden by Buhl.

According to Paladino,the Earth Day activitieswill serve as the finalexam for her ServiceLearning and Environ-mental Stewardshipclass.

Jordan Barton, a mem-ber of Paladino’s servicelearning class, was excit-ed to restore the gardens.

“The gardens are cov-ered in vines and weeds,”she said. “We want to re-do this garden and makeit as beautiful as it

should be.”The EcoStewards will

weed and mulch the gar-dens, said Paladino.

She also said that thegardens contain flowersfrom the perennial gar-den of Paul R. Stewartand Fuzzy Randolph.

Barton expressed themission of the EcoStew-ards Earth Day activities.

“The purpose of ourwork is simply to doenvironmental basedservice,” she said.

“We love the environ-ment, and we love theuniversity, so we are try-ing to improve both. “

Barton believes that itis important to engage inactivities like the oneheld by the EcoStewardsclub.

“As natural resourcesare slowly depleting, weneed to be more andmore aware of what wecan do to help our earth,”she said.

“This activity is small,but it reflects the loveand care that we have forthe world.”

The EcoStewards willraise awareness in otherways as well.

On April 21, theEcoStewards will weargreen and take picturesof people hugging treesaround campus, saidRurak.

They will also handout organic candies with

See EARTH on A4

By Jason LoganStaff Writer

Tired of getting emailsfrom Pat Bristor aboutanother activity on cam-pus?

For the upcomingschool year, more of thesemessages than usual maybe on the way, but forgood reason.

The Student ActivitiesBoard has expanded to cre-ate another committeededicated to planning cer-tain events for the campuscommunity.

This new organizationis titled Faith and Fellow-ship and will be focusedon Christian events andactivities.

“The main purpose isto continue to provideopportunities for studentsto grow in their faith andshare in fellowship,” saidK Scarry, the freshmanwho has been named thenew committee’s firstchair.

Scarry is responsible forplanning the events andactivities that Faith andFellowship will advertiseand organize.

“It is a way for us toreach other members ofthe student body that maynot be involved in Biblestudies or other campusministries already andgive them ways to growtogether and inform themabout ways they can be

involved in ministries oncampus,” said Scarry.

The committee is in itspreliminary stages rightnow and will be fullyactive next fall semester.

The new group’s mem-bers have numerous plansfor the coming year.

Some of the eventsinclude smaller Christianartists in the coffeehous-es, popular Christianartists’ concerts off-cam-pus and a lot of otherplans, said Scarry.

“We have started to addmore Christian concertsand events because wehave had such a greatresponse to these,” saidPat Bristor, director ofStudent Activities.

The committee, whichis run through SAB, hasmembers of SABinvolved, as well as TomRibar, university chap-lain, and other campusministry organizations.

“I’m excited aboutworking with Tom [Ribar]and expanding the com-mittee so that we canmeet more students’needs,” said Bristor.

SAB has worked withRibar often in the past,but with the creation ofFaith and Fellowship,they now have the oppor-tunity to share resourcessuch as a budget withCampus Ministries.

Faith and fellowship: Committee formedto bring more Christian activities to campus

See COMMITTEE on A4

good hands.”Criminal justice

majors were notified ofJack’s new position viaemail on April 3.

“I’ve heard nothing butpositive comments fromstudents,” said Baer.

Jack graduated from

Waynesburg College withundergraduate degrees incriminal justice adminis-tration and biology with aminor in chemistry.

During his Waynes-burg experience, Jack saidhe was also involved withthe Bonner Scholars Pro-gram and played baseballall four years.

“He really embodieswhat it means to be aWaynesburg student,”said Baer.

Jack completed hismaster’s degree in foren-sic science at MarshallUniversity, and thenreturned to WaynesburgUniversity as a part-timeinstructor of CJA.

He later became a full-time instructor of CJAand forensic science anddirector of forensic sci-ence.

“Once I received theopportunity for teaching,I fell in love with it,” Jacksaid.

“I didn’t know I wasgoing to be a teacher.”

From December 2006to August 2010, Jack leftthe university to work asa forensic detective forWestmoreland County.

During his time away,he also became a certifiedsenior crime scene ana-lyst.

“He knew that to bemore effective in the

classroom, he needed thatprofessional experience,”said Baer.

Jack’s previous experi-ences with the universityas a student and professormade him a good candi-date for chair, she said.

“Mr. Jack is very famil-iar with the program andwhat makes our programsuccessful and uniqueamong other criminal jus-tice programs,” said Baer.“I think that he is invest-ed in continuing a pro-gram that continuesthose features.”

Classes added to thecurriculum will be rele-vant to current lawenforcement, according toJack.

“We’re always lookingto progress and stay cur-rent,” he said.

Jack is planning onmoving from Greensburgto the Waynesburg area sohe can spend more timewith his wife, also a Uni-versity graduate, and hisdaughter.

“I’m really excited forthe opportunity [tobecome chair] and happythat the individuals whomade this decision havethe faith in me that I cando it,” said Jack.

“I do think this is theperfect fit for me and Ilook to stay here for along time.”

Page A4 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Campus

Jack namedas chair

Continued from A1

Photo by Lisa Jaeger

‘Nacho’ typical mealStudents line up for nachoes and cheese during the Fun with Fondue event, held 5 p.m. Monday in the BenedumDining Hall. Pots contained melted cheese, chocolate and other dipping sauces for students to eat.

Muse & Stone to hold launch party for release of spring issueBy Rob GriffithStaff Writer

Waynesburg Universitystudents with an interestin fine arts will findevocative poetry, proseand visual arts in the newspring issue of Muse &Stone.

The university’s jour-nal of literature and arts

will release its annualspring issue with a launchparty, held 8 p.m. April28. Attendees can pick upa free copy of the new edi-tion.

This year’s issue ofMuse & Stone featurespoetry, prose and artworkof students, faculty andstaff, as well as the workof writers across the coun-

try.Allison Bigler, submis-

sion correspondent forMuse & Stone, said thatthe growing literary mag-azine has seen anincreased number of sub-missions in the past sever-al years.

“As we are gainingmore submissions frompeople, we are becoming

much more selective withthe pieces that we doaccept into the maga-zine,” she said. “The vastmajority has been outsidesubmissions.”

Bigler said that drawingfrom a larger pool of sub-missions results in astronger overall publica-tion.

“This year, however,

we decided that it was agood idea to have a short-er, greater quality maga-zine, than a long one justto fill enough pages,” saidBigler. “I definitely thinkwe’re moving in the rightdirection.”

Sarah Rizzi, executiveeditor, said selectivity isalso important when cre-ating the magazine’s visu-

al arts component.“As far as the number

of art pieces, we try to bevery selective since we getso much and can onlypublish a certainamount,” said Rizzi.

She said the staff hasalso sought to include agreater diversity of visual

See ISSUE on A5

eco-friendly tips onthem.

According to Rurak,these activities reflectthe importance of EarthDay by exemplifying theroots of why Earth Day

was created. Earth Daystarted with the idea ofraising awareness andcreating educationalopportunities for peopleacross the country, shesaid.

“The idea of EarthDay is for people to carefor the Earth, and whatbetter way to do thatthan by creating educa-tional opportunities for

communities?” saidRurak.

Paladino encouragesstudents to take EarthDay into their ownhands.

“Perhaps everybodycould make a specialeffort this week to takerecyclables out ofdorms,” she said.

They can put them inthe recycle bin outside of

Martin Hall on Thurs-days from 9 a.m. to 1p.m.

Barton advises stu-dents to remember EarthDay in years to come.

“Just remember thatEarth Day gets more andmore important everyyear,” she said. “Andwhat we do now to helpthe world will help thenext generation.”

Earth Daycelebrated

Continued from A3

“One of the big thingswe are currently workingwith Tom to plan is aguys’ retreat and a girls’retreat for a night nextfall,” said Scarry.

Steve Bauthier, residentdirector, said he hopesthat the men’s retreat willinvolve camping out andbeing outdoors, giving stu-dents a time of fellowship.

“I would look forwardto this experience to betime where guys can learnwhat it means to be a manof God,” said Bauthier.

The expansion of SABis a means for more organ-ization within the group

and added effort put intoproviding the studentswith appropriate andappealing activities.

“For any college experi-ence, it is not just aboutattending class; thesecampus activities can befun and also serve as away to grow in your faith,worship and learn,” saidBauthier.

Although the commit-tee has much planningahead, members look for-ward to the challenge.

“I hope [Faith and Fel-lowship] continues towork with other groupson campus to effectivelyfoster growth and com-munity in faith on cam-pus,” said Scarry. “I amexcited to see Waynesburgas a whole grow as wecontinue to come togetherfor God’s glory.”

making the trip.”Blake thinks he can

help the university in Tai-wan even though he won’tbe there long.

There will also be aninteresting opportunityavailable on the trip.

“I have also been invit-ed to preach Hakka from a

friend at a church in Tai-wan,” Blake said. “I havenot decided on doing thisyet, but it would be a verynice opportunity.”

Blake hopes to getinterest from students forthe trip, because theywould be able to learn alot.

“I hope that the stu-dents can learn about thehistory of the place, espe-cially the missionary his-tory because it has a greatdeal to with Christians,”Thompson said.

Committeeformed

Continued from A3

Librarianstravel

Continued from A2

The theme of the eventwas “solving the cure onepiece a time.”

When each team wasannounced during theopening ceremony, theylaid a decorated puzzlepiece on the hill outside ofStover Campus Center tospell out the word “hope.”

Kelley Hardie, assistantdirector of student activi-ties, helped to bring Relayfor Life to campus.

“We are such a service-oriented community and[Relay for Life] providesthat service component,but also it is just a cele-bration of hope and honor-ing those that survivesuch a devastating dis-ease,” Hardie said. “It isalso about praying forthose that have lost aloved one and need sup-port. I do think we cometogether as a communityfor one day.”

In addition to theteams that were walking,the day also consisted ofmain stage events, games,prizes and food. All of the“Main Stage Events,” likeWU’s Line Is It Anywayand 99.5 “The Hive,” vol-unteered to help with theevent and encourageddonations from the peopleon campus.

Throughout the day,each team had a tablewhere they would acceptdonations and informthose who stopped at thetable about a certain typeof cancer. Each team rep-resented a different type ofcancer. Shawn Wharrey,co-chair of WaynesburgUniversity’s Relay forLife, thinks that collegestudents should be aware

of the disease and want tohelp to find a cure.

“As a younger genera-tion it’s our responsibilityto provide the finances forthose that have cancerbecause it affects every-one: the older generation,our generation and thosethat are younger than us.”Wharrey said. “It’s univer-sal; it doesn’t matter whoyou are, almost every sin-gle person is impacted bycancer in some way.”

There were 23 cancersurvivors present at theMini Relay. They walkedthe final lap with studentsand faculty. For the pastthree years, the universityhas been the top fundrais-er at the Greene CountyRelay for Life.

“We have our MiniRelay and each team isindividual, but then Way-nesburg University is aRelay team in the GreeneCounty Relay for Life,which takes place inMay,” Wharrey said. “Soevery year all of themoney that is raised inthe Mini Relay is taken tothe Greene County Relayand it represents Waynes-burg.”

This year, WaynesburgUniversity’s Relay for Lifeteam set the goal to raise$18,000. The total wasnot calculated as of presstime; fundraising May 1.

Page A5Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Campus

there was also flooding onthe first floor of BuhlHall. He said that thereare multiple possibilitiesas to how the water gotinto Buhl.

“It was either an over-flow of the canopy on thesecond floor that wentdown to the first floor,”said Barnhart.

“It could also havebeen due to the pipes thatdrain water from the roofthat go inside the build-ing.”

Barnhart said that ifthese pipes were to getbacked up, water couldleak out of them.

The damages in BuhlHall consisted of ruinedceiling tiles and a couchwas possibly ruined aswell, said Barnhart.

“Maintenance hasreplaced the ceiling tilesand are working on theother problems,” saidBarnhart.

Barnhart talked abouthow there have beenongoing improvementson the roof of Buhl Hall.

“We’ve been workingon Buhl on and off foryears to try and addressweather issues,” saidBarnhart.

In addition to theflooding in academicbuildings, there was mudrunoff from the construc-tion site under thecanopy on the first floorof Benedum Dining Hallthat has been cleaned up,said Barnhart.

Photos by Rachel Brown

(Top) A classroom in Hanna Hall was flooded after aheavy downpour on Tuesday. (Bottom left) LakeJuanita overflowed, almost reaching the sidewalk.(Right) Water seeped in through a door in Hanna Hall,covering the hallway and seeping into a classroom.

Hanna, Buhlhit by floods

Continued from A1

Relay forLife held

Continued from A1

art in each successiveissue.

“Including more artthat isn’t digital photogra-phy tends to be a chal-lenge for us since almostall our art submissions arephotography,” said Rizzi.“It’s not that we don’twant it; we just try to get

more of a variety.”Last fall, Muse & Stone

published its first fallissue, which served as ashorter counterpart to itsannual spring issue.

Rizzi said publishingtwo issues in the same

year was a logistical chal-lenge.

“We spent some timeplanning last year,” saidRizzi. “But there are justa lot of things that arehard to plan for until theyactually happen.”

Rizzi hopes events likethe launch party and thenew two-issue publishingformat will help buildawareness of the literarymagazine throughout thecampus.

“Before, people almost

forgot about us since weonly put out one issue peryear, so this definitelyhelps us have more of apresence on campus,”said Rizzi. “I think it’s areally awesome thing wehave going now.”

Issue to bereleased

Continued from A4

FourmissiontripsplannedBy Kyle OlandStaff Writer

Beginning in May, Way-nesburg University stu-dents will be traveling allacross the world servingon mission trips.

Chaplain Tom Ribarsaid there are four teamsheading to four differentareas around the world.

He said he will be lead-ing one trip to Jackson,Miss. The other teamswill travel to Africa andArizona as well as anotherlocation in Mississippi.

“One team will be help-ing with continued relieffrom Hurricane Katrina,”Ribar said. “The othertrips will consist of serv-ing at an Indian reserva-tion, helping children inAfrica and working onhouses in Jackson.”

Ribar said the missiontrip to Jackson is similar tothe Pittsburgh Project.

“We will work toimprove the community,”he said. The group whogoes to Jackson will alsolearn about the historyand culture of Jackson.

“One day while we’redown there, we will begoing on a tour of the areaso the group can under-stand more about the civilrights movement,” Ribarsaid.

Page A6 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Op/Ed

Jet lag, disorientationand 90 degree heat. Itwas August 18. I had abusy day ahead of me,what with gettingattuned to my new envi-ronment and makingsure I had a few essen-tials that I would need toget by here in the US. SoI decided to start offwith breakfast.

Before departingNorthern Ireland I wastold to just put myselfout there and talk topeople from the start inorder to make friendsearly. Otherwise I wouldstruggle with college

life. So I’m standingthere at breakfast with abowl of fruit loops look-ing round the relativelyempty dining hall forsomeone to eat with.Naturally, I’m drawn tothe table full of athletic-looking females and Ivery quickly introducedmyself as the newNorthern Irish transferstudent for the year. Iwas welcomed very

warmly and quicklylearned that I had justsat down to eat with theentire women’s volley-ball team. In short: Score1 for Jordan. But that’sanother story for anoth-er day.

When people ask meabout studying abroad, Iusually have a fewthings to talk about.

I talk about how it is aonce in a lifetime oppor-tunity to see the worldin a different place andin a different way. As Dr.Robert Graham said inthe recent internationalculture conference held

last month it is onething to sit in on a cul-ture lecture, or attend acultural presentationand learn about what isout there, but the onlyway to really understandwhat it is like in anotherpart of the world, anoth-er environment, oranother culture is toactually take the initia-tive and get up and pur-sue it for yourself.

That’s what I’mdoing: going to see theworld for an extendedperiod of time to help

I never expected to belooking through coroner’sreports last Wednesday,yet there I was withstacks of files and foldersacross the table and floor,burying me up to myknees.

In that same week, Iinterviewed some of themost difficult people Ihave ever interviewedbefore.

Whether they wereannoyed with the ques-tions I was asking or theywere simply in a badmood, I struggled to getanything positive fromany of them.

I couldn’t get a break inanything else I was doing

within the past weekeither between RA pro-grams, projects for classesor tests.

The difficulty of thiswas nothing compared torealizing all the work Ihad done writing an inves-tigative journalism piecethat took months toresearch during a four-hour time period wasgone in the blink of aneye. Nowhere to be found,just gone.

The following two

hours I spent rewritingthe more than 2,500-wordarticle at 1:30 in themorning, were some ofthe most exhaustinghours of my life.

Needless to say, I wasnot in the best of moodsthe next morning.

As I trudged into Buhl, Iwas still fuming about mymishaps and simply want-ed to go to class and goback to my room and takea nap as soon as possible.

As luck would have itthough, I had some workto complete so I remainedin Buhl and went to workin the Yellow Jacketoffice.

Before I had even made

it a few steps into thedoor, I was instantly greet-ed by a few fellow Jacketstaff members.

Even though I wastired, exhausted, and in aterrible mood, their opti-mistic attitudes instantlymade me feel better.

Anytime I am in theJacket office working,despite the incredibleamount of work we com-plete and the long hourswe spend working, it isalmost impossible toremain in a bad mood.

Whether we are teasingeach other or making ajoke about some of the

Cultural immersion broadens perspective

I am against censorship.But before you shoot me, let

me explain.I’m not saying that we should

allow every piece of smut that isbroadcasted across the airwavesto be seen by anyone and every-one. I have no problem withthat form of censorship whatso-ever.

But what I’m not OK with iscensorship when it attempts to

prevent the public from receiv-ing information that they have aright to know.

The staff of the Collegian,LaSalle University’s collegenewspaper, agrees.

The April 14 issue of thePhiladelphia college newspaperwent “topless” in protest of thecollege administration’sattempt to prevent a story frombeing published. The story wasan investigative piece on assis-

tant professor Jack Rappaportusing exotic dancers in his sym-posium on “the application ofPlatonic and Hegelian ethics tobusiness.”

That’s right. Strippers.And they were giving lap

dances to both the professor anda few students.

Until a dean walked in. Cuedramatic music. Dun, dun,DUN.

University students sayadministrators would not letthem print the story above thefold on the front page, so the tophalf of the April 14 issue wasblank, except for the words “See

Excellent teachingLucas-Hathaway nominations due

Coed housing becomes realityLong hours have led to lasting bonds

Administrationcannot interferewith journalism

College is not the real world. But, it is one step in the right direction. Next year, Waynesburg University will bring back

coed housing. Therefore, life for the residents of South Hall will

be closer to reality than ever before on campus. Although parents, and even some faculty, may feel

apprehensive about the change, it will be beneficialfor students in the long run.

Coed dorms will help students prepare themselvesfor situations in the actual real world: the one wheremen and women live in the same apartment build-ing or on the same street.

And it’s not like the rules in the other residencehalls won’t apply to South.

Certain things just won’t change, like no one ofthe opposite sex will be allowed in the student’sroom after midnight. on weekdays or 2 a.m. onweekends.

Considering the fact that the university chose theonly upperclassman “girl’s dorm” that has a residentdirector living in the building, it is doubtful thatthere will be more mischief taking place than usual.

Also, it adds a feeling of trust to the students wholive in the building. Previously, boys couldn’t evenlet themselves out of a dorm without being escortedby a resident.

Although there is no doubt that these rules likestill apply in every other dorm, they won’t in SouthHall. So, it will be a test for next year’s residents toprove they deserve this freedom.

Coed dorms are the way of the future, so it’s abouttime Waynesburg University got on board.

See FAREWELL on A7

See EXPAND on A7

See FIGHT on A7

Nominations for the annual Lucas-HathawayTeaching Excellence Awards were distributedthis week via email and are probably sitting ininboxes campus-wide.

For teachers, it’s an exciting possibility: acash award for two full-time professors and oneadjunct. For students, it may be just anotheremail to delete without a second thought.

Doesn’t that seem a little selfish?Students are always being rewarded for their

academic achievements with banquets andawards.

The Honors Convocation was held in earlyApril, and the Dean’s List will be in circulationin only a few weeks.

Behind every great student, there is a greatteacher. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

Not every professors are out to fail their stu-dents. It’s their job to teach and lecture to thebest of their abilities, and many of the profes-sors at the university do an outstanding job ofit, just as the award specifies.

And (outside of the occasional raise), theydeserve some recognition for it.

According to the email, the award guidelinescall for a “demonstration of consistency ofteaching excellence.”

With the plethora of professors at the uni-versity, at least one or two names must cometo mind.

So give that email a second look.It’s only fair that students give back.

College coeds

KYLEEDWARDS

Columnist

KAITLINEDWARDS

Columnist

JORDANWHITE

GuestColumnist

Page A7Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Op/Ed

typos we find in the arti-cles we receive, laughtercan be heard around thefourth floor of Buhl at allhours of the night and day.

Whether it is 2 p.m. or 2a.m., on Mondays, Tues-days and Wednesdays, wecan be found jokingaround and enjoying eachother’s company – all thewhile managing to pro-duce at least a 16-pagenewspaper.

None of this would bepossible without goodleadership though. Someof the most influentialpeople on the staff includeseveral of the seniors.

Those same seniorswho will be graduating ina few short weeks.

Throughout the pastfew years, these seniorshave helped shape thenewspaper into thedynamic force that it istoday.

Not all of it was easy,but the end product iswell worth it in the end.

But the newspaper goesbeyond the product that

the students, faculty andstaff can see every week inhard copy or online.

The seniors have donemore than manage thepaper – they have beenteachers, mentors andfriends to everyone on thestaff.

At times when we havereceived negative back-lash for an article, we haveall supported and encour-aged each other.

But things are about tochange.

New people will jointhe staff and old memberswill leave.

The newspaper will bemaking changes in orderto continue to improve.

But none of this wouldhave been possible with-out the seniors sharingtheir knowledge.

Everyone at the YellowJacket will greatly missyour funny stories, jokesand great attitudes.

Remember the cookiesand music and the funtimes with all of ustogether – we won’t forgetyou.

Good luck in yourfuture endeavors. Weknow you will succeed.

Thank you seniors. Wewill miss you.

below the fold.” Get it?Topless. Awesome,right?

After the story brokein the PhiladelphiaInquirer, administra-tors relented, allowingthe story to be run. Butthen administratorsissued the restrictionon the story’s location.

Vinny Vella, execu-tive editor of theCollegian, should beapplauded for hisefforts.

He and his staff stoodup for their right toreport the news andtheir persistence paidoff in the end, albeitwith a slight alterationin layout. But, in theend the administra-tions insistence thatthe story not be placedabove the fold attractedmore attention.

The administrationof WaynesburgUniversity should beapplauded as well.

While they had noth-ing to do with theLaSalle incident, theycontinue to allow ournewspaper, the YellowJacket, to choose,report and publish thestories that we deemnewsworthy. Afterhearing about this storyand reading the corre-sponding article, I feellucky to attend a school

where the administra-tion does not attemptto filter the content ofthe student-run news-paper. The fact that wecan publish storieswithout allowing theadministration to pre-view it, is commend-able.

Because of this free-dom, every member ofthe Yellow Jacket staffholds our paper to thehighest of standards.We’re not tabloid jour-nalists. The stories wechoose to publish in theYellow Jacket are notprinted for their shockvalue. We strive toprint factual, accuratestories that provide youwith information thatwe feel you need toknow. In the process ofproviding you with thenews, we may step onsome toes. But knowthat our goal is not toslander, demean orbelittle. Our goal is togive you the news,accurately and profes-sionally. Plain and sim-ple.

You could attend aschool that restrictsand filters the informa-tion that its student-run newspaper publish-es, rendering you obliv-ious to anything theydon’t want you toknow. You would be avictim of the adminis-trative gatekeepers’plans to keep you in thedark about their hap-penings.

But you’re not.Be thankful.

expand my understand-ing of a global society.

Life here is under-standably different from

that which I am used toacross the water.

It’s not better orworse, just different. Ihave come to the UnitedStates eight times now,and each time I havelearned something newculturally.

In a globalized world –employers will be look-

ing for something thatsets the person they hireapart from the rest of theapplicants, and having astudy abroad experienceon your resume can dojust that.

While studyingabroad might not be forI would recommend itin a heartbeat. I have

benefited immeasurablyfrom this past year and Iwant to share that samejoy and experience withanyone and everyone Ican. Waynesburg hasdone for more for methan I could have imag-ined 12 months ago, andI have a funny feelingI’m not quite done yet.

Farewell,family

Continued from A6

Colleges price out middle class familiesThe wildest college

admissions story of theyear involves a 4-year-old. The tyke’s mothersued a New York Citypreschool, claiming ithadn’t lived up to adver-tising claims that the$19,000-a-year tuitionwould set her child onthe path to the promisedland.

Instead of drilling forthe intelligence testneeded for admittance toa prestigious elementaryschool, it seems the girlspent most of her time,believe it, folks, playing.

“It is no secret thatgetting a child into theIvy League starts in nurs-ery school,” the momsaid in a legal brief. Well,Harvard admitted only6.2 percent of its appli-cants this year, so per-haps this mother is on tosomething.

In other news, waitinglists for selective schoolsare at an all-time high.And being raised by atiger mother paid off.The daughter of AmyChua, the Chinese momwho recounted her sternchildrearing methods ina controversial book,was accepted by Harvardand Yale.

These are the storieswe hear this time ofyear, as the acceptanceand rejection noticesfrom top-flight colleges

roll in. It’s an entertain-ing exercise to watch.But from a public policyperspective, it’s almostirrelevant. Dips inendowments aside, theIvies and their studentswill be fine. Even theirrejects will get by. Kidswho aspire to the IvyLeague usually haveplenty of other choices.Here are some moremeaningful higher edu-cation stories to keep aneye on: Students at allfour campuses of theUniversity of Missourisystem will pay highertuition next year.Increases also may be instore at some Kansasuniversities.

A report last year bythe American Council ofTrustees and Alumniwarned that if tuition atBig 12 universities con-tinues to increase at therate seen in the last fiveyears, the average familywith a middle schoolstudent can expect tospend a quarter of itsannual householdincome on that child’scollege tuition.

In a milestonemoment last year, thetotal amount of debtowed on student loansmoved ahead of thenation’s collective creditcard debt. Students whoborrowed money leftcollege last year with an

average debt of $24,000.And many are askingwhether a college degreestill carries enoughweight in the job marketto make the cost worth-while.

Every autumn, oncommunity college cam-puses, students andteachers alike weep overtest results that showtoo many high schoolgraduates lack the read-ing and math skills toenroll in college courses.These students are chan-neled into remedialclasses – an expense theyhadn’t budgeted for.

Lack of preparednessis a big reason that lessthan a third of the stu-dents who enroll in acommunity college withthe goal of attaining atwo-year degree everreceive one.

Four-year colleges alsostruggle with comple-tion rates. Four of 10 stu-dents who enroll at a col-lege or university don’tearn a bachelor’s degreewithin six years. For toolong, we’ve been focusedon the campus entrance.“Go to college,” we’vetold our young men andwomen, holding out adegree as the key to theAmerican dream.

We’ve offered themscholarships and grantsand loans and applaudedthem as they’ve walked

through the front gate.But no one pays muchattention when they slipquietly out the back doorwith no degree and tonsof debt. That’s starting tochange.

The Obama adminis-tration has asked statesto come up with newapproaches for improv-ing college completionrates. The Gates Founda-tion is offering incen-tives to community col-leges to work on theproblem. Those are goodmoves, but they confinethemselves to the con-ventional wisdom thatat least some college isgood for everyone.

A growing number ofcounselors, economistsand, yes, academics, arequestioning that wis-dom, and instead recom-mending more appren-ticeships and vocationaltraining to prepare stu-dents for middle-skillsjobs.

The solution isn’t oneapproach or another.Students need optionsother than college andthose who opt for collegeneed support once theyget there. College admis-sions dramas make forgood reading. Jobs andfinancial security makefor happier endings.

This editorial orignallyappeared in McClatchyNewspapers.

Fight forrights

Continued from A6

Expand yourworld view

Continued from A6

Dear Editor,Ahh! I’m officially graduating

in a few short weeks. I knewthis day would eventuallycome. When I was in Egypt thispast fall, I knew that I would bereturning to Waynesburg for mylast semester.

“Don’t become complacent,”were the last words of advicethat the director of the MiddleEast Studies Program told us aswe ended our semester andwalked through the securitycheck at the Cairo airport.

Lately, senioritis has been hit-ting me hard. After long weeksof hardcore applications, tests,papers and projects, my friendsand I decided it was time tohave fun.

We found skateboards at Wal-Mart for only $9 and a Yoda kitefor $1. These seemed like greatinvestments. My time is nolonger filled with activities,being that I have been replacedin all of my leadership roles.

I knew this would happensooner or later. Youtube videojams, Alf on Hulu, Harry Pottermarathons, eating at the cafe for2 hours for dinner, weekly visitsfrom friends, planning randomtrips to Niagara Falls and Mon-treal and spending as much timeas possible doing absolutelynothing has taken all of mytime and energy.

As a senior, I listen to KatyPerry, Jason Derulo, the Script,and an assortment of ’90s tunes

that allow me to escape fromthe reality that is my undecidedfuture.

My future is unclear. We allhave our own dreams to lookforward to: I want to travel andsee the world, earn my Ph.D. inpsychology, scratch wild thingsoff my bucket list, and be ableto sit and tell people my inter-esting life stories. However, Ihave no set goal anymore and Ithink I am finally okay withthis.

As a senior, I am expected togive words of advice to theunderclassmen. The only wordsI have for you are to not becomecomplacent.

Danie Brush, 2011 Graduate

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

By Carrie MaierStaff Writer

There is an often-over-looked star of the GrossNational Product, a bandwho performed their 41stanniversary concert Sat-urday in the GoodwinPerforming Arts Center.

That star—a small, fat,brown stuffed bear, whowears sunglasses andbelongs to the band’saudio monitor MarkWeis—sat upon an ampfor the majority of theshow, enjoying frequentcamera close-ups andlove from band members.

“It’s been touring withus since day one of Markdoing sound for us,” saidLink Davis, foundingmember of GNP.

“One day I stole thebear and put him up onan amp.

“Mark got him thesunglasses,” Davis added.“We’re trying to find hima little three-quarters gui-tar now.”

Every year the bearreappears for GNP’sannual concert. Thistime around, it exempli-fied the spirit of theshow’s performance inthe packed GPAC, whichBill Molzon, coordinatorand director of TV opera-tions at Waynesburg,referred to as “a big livingroom.”

This year’s show, as itoften does, featured awide variety of musicstyles, ranging from jazzto Jimi Hendrix.

Molzon likened it to achanging radio dial.

“You won’t find a col-lection of music like thisanywhere else in GreeneCounty,” he said.

GNP was formed inNew Jersey in the mid-

1960s. Molzon and Davis are

two of five original mem-bers to play in last Satur-day’s musical reunion.

Since their first con-cert in 1970, GNP hasadded to their anniver-sary concert other talentsfrom the school and theregion, making the bandlist total over 30 mem-bers.

“Forty-one years ago Iwas a freshman here, andI missed my bandmatesfrom New Jersey so theycame down,” said Mol-zon.

“And they just keptcoming down.”

Molzon’s band mem-bers explained the enjoy-ment of playing at Way-nesburg year in and yearout.

“It’s always great whenyou come out here andpeople clap before youeven play,” saxophonistLee Robinson said afterthe audience went wildfor his warm up notes.

This year, as in pastyears, the concert alsopresented a unique oppor-tunity for communica-

tion students to producea live show. Flat screentelevisions were set upalongside the stage tooffer backstage views,close-ups and side pro-files of the musicians.

The show was notwithout its flaws as Mar-tin Cockroft, professor ofcreative writing, lost theback of his chair in themiddle of a rendition of“The Night They DroveOld Dixie Down” andanother song startedwithout the lead guitariston stage.

However, all in all, theshow was a rousing suc-cess, with the “GNP fam-ily” going strong for fivehours.

After all, it’s as 25-year veteran of the showRandy Jones said,

“It’s the music thatkeeps us comingback.”

Page A8 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Campus

‘It’s the music that keeps us coming back’Annual concert creates sense of unity among musicians

Photos by Gregory Reinhart

(Above) Alumni returned to Waynesburg to perform atthe annual GNP concert. (Left) Alumni and studentspack the stage. (Below) The stuffed bear has becomethe group’s mascot and appears at every concert.

By Stephanie Laing and Emile KhouryYellow Jacket Staff

Ken W. Dufalla livedin the good ol’ days ofGreene County, Pa.- sit-ting on his porch,watching the deer frolic.When the MarcellusShale drilling began, hishome and everythingelse changed.

“This gas boom is

definitely going tochange the culture ofthis county, and our cul-ture of Western Penn-sylvania is changed.We’ll never go back tothe placid days… It justisn’t going to be,” saidDufalla as that lifetimeof memories cloudedhis eyes and a nostalgicsmile pulled at the cor-ner of his mouth.

“You’ll be smelling

the toxins. My GreeneCounty as I knew it wasprobably the good ol’days. Is it good or bad?”Dufalla asks, echoingthe question of so many.“It is how you perceiveit.”

Right Under Your Nose

Greene County sits6,000 to 9,000 feetabove the largest natu-

ral gas deposit in NorthAmerica. This deposit,the Marcellus Shale,extends undergroundfrom Ohio into NewYork. The entire Mar-cellus Shale formationcontains between 168trillion to 516 trillioncubic feet of natural gas.Put into perspective, in2008, the United Statesused 23 trillion gallonsof natural gas.

The Marcellus Shaleis not a new discovery.

According to IQ Ener-gy Conservation, anenergy conservationcompany, “The Marcel-lus Shale play has thepotential to deliver sig-nificant economicdevelopment and tooffer national energysecurity for the UnitedStates.”

Greene County now

plays a significant rolein one of the largestmovements in nationalhistory.

Now Hiring

Local officials expectGreene County tochange because of theMarcellus Shale. Thedrilling industry will

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Three school districts from Greene County areconsidering the cost of consolidation.Read more on B2

Blast from the past:Square dancer attemptsto keep traditions aliveBy Kyle EdwardsRegion Editor

Dave Dahl doesn’thave a time machine.

You won’t find aDeLorean parked inhis driveway.

But every week,Dahl takes dancersback in time to enjoyan old tradition.

“A [square dance]figure caller calls outthe calls to instructthe dancers and letthem know whatthey’re supposed todo,” Dahl said. “Real-ly this is very easy;there are no lessons.I’ve had groups of acouple hundred peopledancing in less thanfive minutes.”

Dahl said that whilethe times may havechanged, the audiencehas not. As those wholove square dancinggrow older, he hopesthat the younger gen-erations will pick upthe square dancingtradition so that itwill continue to bepracticed.

“It’s just a lot offun. We encourage theyoung people to comebecause it’s been kindof dying off over thelast several years,” hesaid. “We sure wouldlike them to come anddance.”

Dahl has been play-ing for dances since he

was nine, but hiscareer originally start-ed on the radio.

“I’ve been doingthis for 64 years,” hesaid.

“When I was 13, Ihad a radio programwith WMBS in Union-town twice a week.While I played thecountry music, squaredancing just kind offell in.”

Last Friday, Dahlcalled for the danceheld at the RogersvilleFire Hall.

He said that thedancers spread to thatarea after attendingdances inCarmichaels.

“Several years ago,they were havingdances over inCarmichaels and a lotof the people therebelonged to the firedepartment here, andit just kind of caughton,” Dahl said.

“Back then we had afive-piece band, butnow with the dimin-ishing crowds, I do itby myself.”

Despite this, Dahlsaid he manages fineon his own andremains optimisticthat the younger gen-eration would enjoythemselves if theycame out to any of thedances.

Food, friends, family fun found at 21st annual Ramp FestivalBy Stephanie LaingEditorial Assistant

Despite rain andwind, over 600 peoplevisited Mason DixonPark this past weekend.

At the 21st AnnualRamp Festival, the visi-tors experiencedAppalachian culturewith antique car dis-plays, free door prizes,live music, area crafters,artisans and food madeof ramps.

“This is our 21st year,and a lot of places don’thave the festival now,but we’d just like to

continue ours,” saidConnie Ammons, the

festival’s coordinator.“People really enjoy the

ramps.”According to

Ammons, the festival’spurpose was for the pub-lic to experience thevariety of ramp dishesoffered.

Ramp jelly, friedramp, ramp salad, friedpotatoes with ramps,ramp burgers and rampcandy were just some ofthe dishes available.Those over the age of 21could taste ramp winepaired with ramp cheeseballs.

“Ramp is a crossbetween an onion and agarlic,” said Walter

Danna, the ramp festi-val’s chef. Danna saidthe ramp is not a wildonion, which it is com-monly mistaken for,and it actually belongsto the lily family.

“It is praised for itsflavor, hated for itssmell,” said Danna. “Itdoes have a little over-powering taste, but Iguess that’s what it’s allabout.”

One man, who hasbeen attending theRamp Festival sincebefore it moved to theMason Dixon Park inMt. Morris, sells carved

wooden figures and fur-niture like children’srocking chairs andshelves.

On vendor hasattended the Ramp Fes-tival since it began, sell-ing pop can figures.

Using mainly beerand soda cans, this ven-dor has constructedmultiple train cars, fansand even a small tinman.

“You see a lot of thesame people here everyyear, and you even seesome new people too,”

By Stephanie LaingEditorial Assistant

Last Friday and Satur-day night starting at 8p.m., the Buckin’ B. Cat-tle Co. held its Champi-onship Bull Riding Com-petition at the GreeneCounty Fair Grounds.

Throughout the night,bulls charged and the

crowd cheered as ridesheld on tight.

Before attempting toride a bull for eight longseconds, one cowboy saton a bail of hay next tothe bull pins behind thering, oblivious to thenoise.

His head was down,hands folded together,praying.

“You’ve been doing itfor so long, and you actlike you’re not scared,but you really are,” saidDevon Hager, a 20-year-old bull rider from Vir-ginia.

“You’re getting onsomething that couldkill you. It is definitelyan adrenaline rush.”

Hager has ridden bulls

for about four years withthe support of his family,friends and the men hetravels with.

Rodeo Clowns sup-ported the cowboys dur-ing the night, capturing abull’s attention from thethrown rider.

“I like saving the cow-

Thrills abound at bull riding championships

Water advisory still in effect after two weeksBy Sierra ShaferOp/Ed Editor

Greene County resi-dents serviced by theCarmichaels MunicipalAuthority are still, aftertwo weeks, beingadvised to boil their tapwater before drinking it.This may change soon.

The DEP estimates thatthis advisory could belifted soon if the samplescome back clear of dan-gerous contaminants.

“We’ve been pullingsamples all week, andthe results have beengood,” said LloydRichard, manager of theCarmichaels Municipal

Authority. The initial advisory

was issued on April 8when algae and otherharmful contaminantswere found to be bypass-ing the filtration systemat the plant. Manager ofthe Carmichaels Munic-ipal Authority, LlloydRichard, said that due to

budget cuts the Depart-ment of EnvironmentalProtection had reducedroutine water testingfrom every two years toevery four years. It isunclear how long thecontaminants have beenin the drinking water in

See DANCER on B4

See CLEAN on B4

See RODEO on B4

See ONION on B4

Photo by Stephanie Laing

A variety of different foods are created and sold at theRamp Festival, including the popular fried Ramp.

Looking forward: Marcellus shale impacts Greene County

Photo by Stephanie Laing

Bull riders and rodeo clowns entertained the crowd that gethered at the Greene County Fairgrounds for theBuckin’ B. Cattle Co. Championship Bull riding competition last weekend.

See MARCELLUS on B2

By Sierra Shafer and Kyle EdwardsYellow Jacket Staff

It is one of the first les-sons taught in school:sharing. But as threelocal school districtsawait the results of anextensive study on thefeasibility of shared serv-ices, the bottom line iscost. With those results,Carmichaels, Southeast-ern Greene and JeffersonMorgan school districtsmay finally have someanswers about how toprovide their studentswith the best educationthe taxpayers can buy.

In light of pendingbudget cuts proposed byGovernor Tom Corbett,the three districts areeven more eager to findways to cut costs with-out sacrificing the quali-ty of education.

“We certainly all havea common goal in pro-viding excellent educa-tional opportunities forour students,” saidSuperintendent of Jeffer-son Morgan DonnaFurnier. “We are drivenby our curriculum being

aligned by the state stan-dards. We get along well.These are three districtsthat really do have a lotin common but at thesame time are each dis-tinct.”

The question remains:will the study producenumbers that implysharing services will bethe best choice forGreene County or is afull merger up for discus-sion?

There may also comea time when merger isno longer up for discus-sion but insteadbecomes a mandatedconsolidation throughlegislations out of Har-risburg. The PSBA dis-tinguishes that a mergeris voluntary joining; con-solidation is forced.

“We support mergerand we support localboard choice. We’reopposed to state-wideforced mandate, and thekey reason is to do amerger and to do it cor-rectly requires a substan-tial amount of due dili-gence. With forced, youdo not get the due dili-gence,” said Dr. Dave

Davare, director ofresearch for the Pennsyl-vania School BoardAssociation.

According to Davare,giving each district thechoice about mergers isin the best interest ofeducation in the state,both financially and aca-demically.

Pride and prejudice

If the decision weremade to seek a merger,this year’s high schoolfreshmen may be intheir first year of collegebefore Greene Countysees the ramifications ofthe decision.

“If they agree to merg-er or if two of the threeagree to merge, thatmerger would take abouta year and half of plan-ning and one to two

years to fully imple-ment,” said Davare.

After the initial studyis complete, additionalevaluations of buildingsand facilities must becompleted to determineif the merged districtwould relocate and con-struct new buildings orcontinue the use of cur-rent facilities. The courthearings required for theremoval or demotion ofteaching faculty wouldadd additional time tothe merger schedule.While merger may be anew idea for the county,the consolidation discus-sion is hardly a fresh ideain Pennsylvania. Penn-sylvania Governor EdRendell proposed in2009 to create a legisla-tive commission tostudy the best way to“right-size” the state’s

local school districts byreducing the number ofdistricts from 501 downto 100.

Rendell believed thatreducing the number ofdistricts improve theeffectiveness and effi-ciency of public educa-tion through othermeans. Sweeney said thestudy will help the dis-tricts decide if they willmaintain the individualdistricts but have oneunified curriculum.

“The one thing that’sseriously being consid-ered now is the potentialof having a joint mid-dle/high school, butthere wouldn’t be a ‘con-solidation.’ All the dis-tricts would remainautonomous,” he said.

Students in kinder-garten through eighthgrade would be educatedlocally while high stu-dents would attendschool in a centralizedlocation. Each districtwould pay a portion ofthe operating costs.While Rendell’s plan forconsolidation was reject-ed by the state legisla-ture, between Corbett’s

proposed budget cutsand Wozniak’s efforts tosee mandatory consoli-dation across the state,finding ways to save is ofthe top priorities in dis-tricts in Greene County.

An imperfect exchange

The bottom line inthis discussion may beprefaced with dollarsigns, but the discussionhas also focused on howmergers affect the quali-ty of education attendingstudents receiving.

“It could be good orbad. Class sizes wouldprobably increase; how-ever, there would be awide variety of classesthat would be offered, sowhen you’re talkingabout quality you reallydon’t know,” saidPatrick Sweeny, busi-ness manager at South-eastern Greene.

The PSBA released astudy in the summer of2009 that found the fac-tors that “affect studentachievement to thegreatest extent” include,

create jobs and seek outservices, contractors,equipment and goodsfrom the local economythey drill in. Accordingto Greene County Com-missioner Pam Snyder,local businesses haveexperienced increasedprofits. Local hotelshave an influx of people,and are usually alwaysfull. According to Sny-der, one hotel is bookedwith only people associ-ated with drilling com-panies. Residents nowwalk into local restau-rants, and where theyonce knew everyone,they see tables ofstrangers dressed inwork clothes.

“I think it is an eco-nomic upturn for prop-erty owners who haveleased their land andwho are getting royaltychecks if they [drillingcompanies] have hit aMarcellus Shale well ontheir property,” Snydersaid. “Those folks willhave money to spendand buy more thingsand continue to pumpmore money back intothe local economy.”

The DECD estimatesthat this “boom” willlast anywhere from 20to 40 years, and it givesrecommendations forcounties in order toensure their economicstability after thedrilling companiesleave. It recommendsthat counties form taskforces with memberswho represent commu-nity interests. Manycounties have taken thisadvice, but there is notask force withinGreene County to repre-sent the residents’ dif-ferent interests.

Local officials shouldwork cooperatively

with gas companies. “[The Marcellus

Shale] does have a lot ofgood economic benefitsto the county and theregion,” said Snyder.“Of course with anyindustry, there are somechallenges and somepain too that goes alongwith it.”

The local govern-ment is responsible todirectly correspondwith drilling compa-nies, but monitoringand regulation is doneby the state.

“Most of the thingsthat they have to bemonitored for and regu-lated for, that is stategovernment’s responsi-bility. But of course weas a county are the onesliving with the effects ofwhat’s happening withthe Marcellus Shale,”said Snyder. “So whilewe’re very involved, wehave no enforcementpower or regulatorypower to really do any-thing.”

Dirty Water

Fracking can harmthe environment. Direc-tional drilling requireslarge amounts of waterto frack. As long asdrilling companies prop-erly remove water from

water sources and dis-pose of the used frack-ing water properly, thereare no problems.

The DEP has regula-tions to protect theenvironment as drillingcompanies frack.

According to U.S.Geological Surveyresearch, each Marcel-lus well requires 2.1 to 8million gallons of water.

“Many regional andlocal water manage-ment agencies are con-cerned about wheresuch large volumes ofwater will be obtained,and what the possibleconsequences might befor local water sup-plies,” said the USGS.“Under drought condi-tions, or in locationswith already stressedwater supplies, obtain-ing the millions of gal-lons needed for a shalegas well could be prob-lematic.”

Greene County existsin a seasonal pattern ofprecipitation. Duringcertain times of the yearin Greene County, thereis little or no rain,according to Janet Pal-adino, a professor atWaynesburg Universityand active environmen-talist who collaborateswith the DEP andWatershed Alliance.

Paladino is currentlydeveloping a sustain-ability plan for WU andevaluating water moni-toring locations inGreene County.Removing water from awater source at thewrong time can leavestreams with no waterin them. Despite this,for drilling companiesto transport water fromlarge distances is expen-sive, and illegal waterextraction occurs.

“Of course, everyboom seems to have adownside. The large vol-umes of fracking fluidsneeded can mean smallstreams get sucked drywhen used as sources offrack water, but worse isthe potential for con-tamination of sources ofdrinking water,” saidLewis Baker, West Vir-ginia Rural Water Asso-ciation Source WaterProtection Specialist, inan article.

“Fracking of theshales, generally thou-sands of feet under-ground, can on occasionlead to contaminationof shallow fresh waterzones of groundwaterwith the frack fluids ornatural gas.”

After drilling compa-nies use millions of gal-lons of water to break

up shale and have storedtheir natural gas, thereare millions of gallonsof used fracking watermixed with chemicalsleft. Drilling companiesare required to take thewater to a wastewatertreatment facility,where chemicals areremoved and water isrecycled. These enor-mous amounts of wateralso contain contami-nates and chemicaladditives that can makewastewater difficult andexpensive, according tothe USGS. The USGSmay be unsure of waste-water treatmentprocesses, but illegaldumping directly placeshazardous fracking solu-tions in surface waters.According to Paladino,the fracking solutionmixed with water couldcontaminate surfacewaters.

“It is probably fairlyeasy in a rural area likethis to illegally dump.Because it is going tocost a company more totake it to a recyclingfacility then it would beto dump it,” said Paladi-no.

120 Days, and Done

Gov. Tom Corbetthas called himself a copwho wants “fair andconsistent” regulationsto the Pittsburgh Trib-une-Review. On March8, Corbett establishedthe Marcellus ShaleAdvisory Commission,with Lt. Gov. Jim Caw-ley leading it.

The commission willdecide how to best bal-ance economic growthwith environmentalprotection whileaddressing other con-cerns, and report backto the governor in 120days. Corbett has estab-lished a commissionthat will establish jobsthrough environmentalconservation. This com-mission has weakness-

es, however. “If the composition of

the commission is anyindication, the saleswill tip toward job cre-ation,” said Post-Gazette reporters TracieMauriello and LauraOlson. “The groupincludes 13 people withties to the gas industryand only four environ-mentalists. The othersare state and local gov-ernment officials and ageologist.”

Chad Saylor, deputychief of staff and direc-tor of communicationfor the office of Lt. Gov.Jim Cawley, said,“What is important isthat they bring a uniqueexperience that is help-ful to this wholeprocess,” said. “That isultimately why theywere selected.”

If background doesplay a part in the com-mission’s decisions, itindicates what areas ofPennsylvania will beunrepresented. GreeneCounty is ranked thirdin the number of Mar-cellus wells drilled, butthere is no member onthe commission repre-senting in GreeneCounty. Board mem-bers have backgroundsfrom Montgomery,Crawford, Cumberland,Lycoming, Alleghenyand Washington Coun-ties. Virginia, Floridaand Texas are also repre-sented. For GreeneCounty there is a sur-prising lack of represen-tation. However, Saylorsays the state govern-ment approached theissue holistically.

“We’re coming at itfrom a different anglewhich is that the Mar-cellus shale is an issuefor all of Pennsylvania,including Greene Coun-ty, and the issues we arelooking at are impactingeveryone in the state,”he said.

Page B2 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Region

Infographic courtesy of The Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research

The boundaries of the Marcellus Shale Base stretch underground from Ohio to NewYork, covering much of Pennsylvania in the process.

Marcellusimpacts county

Continued from B1

See SHALE on B3

Three local school districts considering cost of consolidation“We support merger and we sup-

port local board choice. We’re opposedto state-wide forced mandate...”

Dr. Dave DavareDirector of Research - PA School Board Association

See SCHOOLS on B3

However, the Marcel-lus Shale drilling is nothappening state-wide.

According to thePennsylvania Depart-ment of Conservationand Natural Resources,only 14 out of 67 coun-ties in Pennsylvaniahave Marcellus shaledrilling wells.

Keeping Things Clean

The PennsylvaniaDEP has proactivelyincreased its oversightof the natural gasdrilling in the past twoyears with regulationson new drilling tech-niques and technology,and water treatment.

When Gov. Corbettannounced the 2011-12state budget, hedecreased the DEP’sfunding from $147 mil-lion to $140 million,cutting 69 employees.

According to Saylor,

the DEP had 5,000 Mar-cellus shale gas wellinspections in 2010.This year this agency ison track to perform over7,000 inspections.

“That is an indicationthat we are finding waysto do more with lesswhen it comes to ensur-ing the safety of Marcel-lus shale gas extrac-tion,” he said.

On April 6, DEP’sSecretary MichaelKrancer wrote the Envi-ronmental ProtectionAgency requesting thatmore testing on drilling

wastewater occur toensure that drinkingwater is not contami-nated. According to APreporter Marc Levy,Pennsylvania is testingat seven spots on thestate’s waterwaysdownriver from treat-ment plans that acceptMarcellus Shale waste-water but upriver frompublic drinking waterintakes.

“Most big gas statesrequire drillers to dumptheir wastewater intodeep shafts drilled intothe earth to prevent it

from contaminatingsurface water,” Levycontinued. “Although ithas moved to limit it,Pennsylvania stillallows hundreds of mil-lions of gallons of thepartially treated drillingwastewater to be dis-charged into rives fromwhich communitiesdraw drinking water.”

The DEP has recentlyexperienced roadblocksin enforcing regulations.

Two weeks ago,leaked emails said Mar-cellus Shale drillinginspectors are notallowed to issue viola-tions without thedepartment’s executivedeputy secretary, JohnHines’ approval, accord-ing to ProPublicareporter Abrahm Lust-garten.

“The questionaround here I think thatpeople are asking iscompliance. You canhave all the regulationsthat you want, but thequestion is are thedrillers- are the drillingcompanies- complyingwith the regulations?”asked Paladino.

As the drilling indus-try grows, regulatoryagencies will have trou-ble monitoring enoughto prevent violationsfrom occurring.

“They [drilling com-panies] go in andhydraulically frack theshale, and that of coursebreaks it up so the gascan get out. But willhigher pressures, it isconceivable you couldcrack the rock,” said JimButler, member of theIzaak Walton League, anorganization that hasbegun a water monitor-ing system in GreeneCounty.

“They [drilling com-panies] only get 30 per-

cent of the water back, atbest.”

According to theUSGS and the DEP, mostof the water used forfracking must beretrieved and recycled.However, ProPublicareporter Abrahm Lust-garten found that up to85% of the fluidspumped into the groundduring the frackingprocess are left there. At30 percent, if five milliongallons of water wasused, a drilling companywould only extract 1.5million gallons back,leaving 3.5 million gal-lons of radioactive mate-rials, chemicals andfracking water under-ground.

“Illegal dumping is abig problem becausethey’re not going todump in the same placeevery time and cause ahuge fish kill. They’renot stupid,” she said.

“So what they’re goingto do is dump in differentlocations, and the onlyway to detect thosekinds of illegal activitiesis to have a water qualitymonitoring programwhere you constantlymonitor the water.”

The Marcellus Shaledrilling industry hasgreatly affected GreeneCounty. It has broughteconomic stability.Businesses are thriving.But as drilling companiesenter the area, they affectthe environment. TheMarcellus Shale haschanged Greene Countyentirely.

“It can be good in thefact that is brings inmoney to the area withthe wealth that hasn’tbeen here since the earlyoil booms,” said Dufalla.

“But what is the priceyou’re willing to pay forthat?”

among others, smallerschool size and smallerclass size. Larger schoolsand school districts tendto have “lower studentachievement and socialoutcomes – especially inlow socioeconomic com-munities.

Depending on the dis-tricts, there is a varianceof academic benefits tobe had through merger.

“Some educationalefficiencies to be gained– for middle and highschools, more programscould be offered to morestudents,” said PatrickSweeny, businessmanger for SoutheasternGreene. “It would alsoopen up other extracur-ricular activities that wecan’t support right nowdue to our size. If it wasa merger or consolida-tion, it might be anadvantage if it were totake place.”

These advantagesmay come at the cost ofclass sizes.

“If we’re taking ten[students per class] andgoing to 15 or 20, thatwould be a documentedreason for needing fewerteachers. If you fall thatinto the next step, youcan reduce administra-tors now,” said Davare.

Reducing administra-tors and teachers maylead to savings this ini-tial saving is the end ofthe line.

“There’s not the intu-itive savings that youwould think there wasgoing to be as a result ofmerger,” Davare said.

Dollars and sense

Not only would amerger affect the qualityof education for thou-sands of students, thecost of educating thosestudents would changein the event of a merger.

“Class sizes - even inyour bigger schools - aregoing to go up based onthe budget cuts that arecoming down from Har-risburg,” said Bailey. “Ithink where you’regoing to save a lot is cut-ting three superintend-ents down to one.”

According to thePennsylvania SchoolBoard Association, amerger like this onewould not guaranteeonly one superintendent,let alone savings throughsuch a change.

“In some very smalldistricts right now, thesuperintendent may alsobe the elementary prin-cipal,” said Davare.“Superintendents havecontracts that are threeto five years in length, soif the merger happensand you have a super

with four years left onhis contract, you eithermake him an assistantsuperintendent for theremainder of his con-tract or you buy out hiscontract. There’s no sav-ings in the buyout.”

Administrative salaryisn’t the only area thatwould see an increase incost, said Davare.

“Each district rightnow chooses its owncurriculum and textbooks, so when you puttwo districts togetherthere’s a curriculumissue. If they’re not usingthe same textbooks youeither have to replacehalf of the books or all ofthem,” he said. “You’vegot to align curriculum.”

Davare said that oper-ational changes likechanging signage, sportsand band uniforms andeven stationary couldcost close to $100,000.

Pennsylvania lawstates that when dis-tricts merge together,the slate is wiped cleanand a new salary sched-ule is set. Under thisnew schedule, the high-

est paid faculty mem-ber’s salary becomes thenew baseline for all fac-ulty members.

“That’s one of theother weaknesses inPennsylvania law,” saidDavare of the salarylaws. “You cannotreduce salary withoutproviding due processhearings. They have tobe individual hearings.So if you merge two dis-tricts and they each have50 hearings, and you’regoing to reduce salariesin one, you’ve got tohave 50 hearings.”

In addition to theupfront costs of down-sizing, another concernof merging districts isthe potential for taxes tobe affected.

“If we do a full blownconsolidation, we wouldhave to have the entirecombining of Jefferson-Morgan, Carmichaelsand SoutheasternGreene come up under auniform tax structure,”said Patrick Sweeney,business manager forSoutheastern Greene.“Tax rates may go up or

down depending onwhat district you’re liv-ing in now. One instancefor us is that we wouldbe incurring debt andthat debt would be ourresponsibility.”

Sweeney said thatSoutheastern Greenrecently finished payingoff their last buildingproject and is debt free.

“If we were to consol-idate, we would have toassume the liabilities ofboth Jefferson-Morganand Carmichaelsbecause they have thatdebt in their books.”

Bailey maintains thatwhile Carmicaels hasdebt, they also havenewer buildings that aremore accommodatingand energy efficient.

“Yes, we still have adebt on our new elemen-tary school, so does Jef-ferson-Morgan. But ourbuildings do not needrenovation,” he said. “AtSoutheastern Greene,they may be paid off, butthere’s no comparison inbuilding quality.”

Bailey also believesthat the combining ofthe three districts wouldpositively impact the taxbase.

“I know Jefferson-Morgan does not havethe [tax] base that wehave, but there is a newcoal mine being put innear their district, andSoutheastern Greenehas the power plant,”

said Bailey. “So, if wewere to merge, both ofthose would certainlybolster our tax base.”

The beleagueredsocioeconomic status ofthe area will continue tofuel the discussion aboutcost-effective choices forlocal districts.

Blurring boundaries

In a county with adeep seeded history incoal mining and steelmills, some may feelthat a merger wouldthreaten their identity –another cost to consider.

“You have a strongsense of community andownership in JeffersonMorgan andCarmichaels and SouthEast Greene,” saidDavare. “There is a long-term historical rivalry inPennsylvania because ofthe coal mines and thesteel industry.”

Even after the coalmines have run dry inthe areas surroundingthe three districts, manyof the families living inthe area are second andthird generation whotake pride in where theycall home.

“A merger would cer-tainly be a major impacton not only the studentsbut also the residents ofthe district,” saidSweeney. “It would

Page B3Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Region

See CONSOLIDATION on B4

Schools thinkabout merger

Continued from B2

“A merger would certainly be amajor impact on not only the studentsbut also the residents of the district.”

Patrick SweeneyBusiness Manager-Southeastern Greene School District

Shale drillingaffects area

Continued from B2

mean a disruption of theway that people havebeen educated here forgenerations.”

While shared serviceswould begin to blurthese boundaries, amerger would eliminatethem all together. Butbecause of Carmichaels’setting there are specula-

tions that it would bethe logical choice for thelocation of the newlymerged school system.

“If we were going toconsolidate there wouldhave to be central loca-tion. That locationwould be inCarmichaels,” saidSweeney. “Given thefacts of the demograph-ics and the geography,we’re going to be incon-venienced because theschool would not be cen-tered locally here in ourdistrict.”

Due to the size of theSoutheastern Greenedistrict and sparse distri-bution of the population,some students arealready riding the bus anhour each day. A moveto a consolidated schoolin Carmichaels wouldadd at least 15 minutes.

“The CarmichaelsArea School Districtname would be lost.“You’d have to look atlocation as well, but thehometown advantage ofthe small schools will beassumed in any merger,”said Bailey. “Yeah, youlose your hometownidentity, but I thinkfinancially if you seewhat we’re seeing fromthe budget end, it’s goingto be a forced thing in thefuture.”

According to Davare,the primary concern forthe PSBA is determiningwhen cost is going to

override the identity isindeed of great impor-tance to the school dis-tricts in Greene County.

“There’s always goingto be a group out therethat is willing to look atmerger as they are losinga political powerbase,” hesaid. “That’s what we seein terms of the politicsbehind it. But the issue isreally one of, does it savemoney. Not all mergerssave money.”

No easy answers

With pending budgetcuts and a strugglingeconomy, theCarmichaels Area, Jeffer-son-Morgan and South-eastern Greene schooldistricts have taken thefirst steps in findingwhere costs can becurbed while simultane-ously protecting the qual-ity of education. Whenthe feasibility study isreleased in May, Thoughthe results may presentthree districts in GreeneCounty with some finalanswers, a decision willstill need to be made.That decision will costsomething: teachers’jobs, administrativeoffices, and taxpayer dol-lars. For some, the cost isworth the gains.

For others, the cost istoo risky.

Whatever the deci-sion, there is no suchthing as a free lunch.

Page B4 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Region

the Carmichaels areathough Richard and theDEP believe it beganafter pre-treatment prac-tices were changed.Leganos said this causedthe chlorine levels in thebyproducts to exceedregulations. In order tomeet regulations, theauthority eliminated thechlorine from the pre-treatment process.

“We may be havingtrouble because we wereusing less chlorine toprevent trihalomethanesin the water,” Richardsaid. “It’s like in fixingone problem, we createdanother.”

Trihalomethanes arecaused when chlorineand the organic materi-als or bromide found inriver water mix together.Trihalomethanes havebeen linked to cancer.Since the initial advisorywas issued, DEP hasbeen overseeing the dis-infecting of the plant,which is currently beingflushed clean with waterfrom the SouthwesternPennsylvania WaterAuthority.

“At the time we wereunable to determine ifthe contaminants were ahuman health hazardbut in the interest ofpublic safety we’re hav-ing the filters and basinsdisinfected,” saidLeganos.

These precautions arebeing taken to avoiddiarrheal-disease-caus-

ing parasites from enter-ing the drinking water.Until the water isdeemed safe to drink bythe DEP, Southwesternwill provide water toCarmichaels authorityconsumers. TheCarmichaels MunicipalAuthority servicesroughly 1,800 people,according to Richard andthe cost of the recenttreatment producers toprotect them are highand unexpected.

“There are a lot ofexpenses in cleaning outthe system and treatingthe water,” he said.

“They’ve also offeredus an after plan for whenwe have things runningagain. The costs areunexpected but weshould have enough tocover it as long as itdoesn’t go on too long.”

“I play and recordmy own music in thekeyboard for thesquare dancing, butwe also do line danc-ing, clogging, slowdancing and polkas –it’s kind of a well-rounded eveningreally,” he said.

“If we could getthe young people tocome out, theywould certainlyenjoy themselves,and we would enjoyhaving them.”

Dahl said that the

Rogersville Fire Hallisn’t the only placewhere the dances areheld.

“We do about fivesquare dances at dif-ferent spots through-out the month,” he

said. “Every other Fri-

day, we hold a danceat the Moose Lodgein Waynesburg. Wealways welcome thestudents from thecollege to join us.”

Dancer keepspast alive

Continued from B1

Photo by Lauren Rearick

People gather at different locations each week toremember the past and to keep the tradition alive.

Clean wateron the horizon

Continued from B1

boys,” said John BobSpiker, one of theclowns. “And you don’tget to see bulls like thiseveryday; it is somethingnew.”

However, one group ofgirls did not attend to seethe bulls.

The event began asthe lights turned out.Fire burned off theground in front of morethan 15 bull riders. Afterthey were introduced,theme music and a spot-light introduced the topfour competitors, whostood in different areas ofthe arena.

The announcer alsointroduced the rodeoclowns, who wore bright

colors of cloth hangingfrom their pockets.

After a rider wasthrown and before thebull left the ring, theclowns usually playedwith the bulls to enter-tain the crowds.

At one time duringthe night, a clownsrolled a large red barrel infront of him and pound-ed it with his palms,always making sure thebarrel stayed betweenhim and an aggravatedbull. Between the tworounds of bull riding,willing childrenattempted to ride sheepas the crowd laughed.Different concessionstands were displayedselling food, cowboy hatsand jewelry. Event spon-sors included JeffMcCracken, GreeneCounty Tourism, DirectResults and WaynesburgMilling.

Rodeo thrillsaudience

Continued from B1

Consolidationa possibility

Continued from B3

he said. “My favorite part is

just meeting people andgiving them somethingto do.”

As traffic entered thepark, cars were directedto certain parkingspaces.

A rock-climbing walland live music enter-tained visitors. Anyonewho wished couldattend.

The festival was openbetween 10 a.m. and 6

p.m. at no cost. Therewas camping availableto anyone who wantedto stay overnight. OnSaturday at 9 a.m., thefestival offered a tradi-tional ramp-free break-fast; however, rampswere always available.

Along with the break-

fast, there was an out-door church service at 9a.m. on Sunday.

The festival’s musi-cians included the coun-try bands Get R Done,Nic of Tyme, the 501Band, Life’s Railway,Country Pride and AlAnderson.

Onion festivaldraws crowd

Continued from B1

Photo by Stephanie Laing

Many vendors set up their stalls to all around Mason-Dixon park last weekend to sell their Ramp wares.

By Jon LedyardAssignments Editor

Thanks to a couple ofstrong pitching efforts andtwo of the highest scoringperformances of the yearfrom the Waynesburgoffense, the Yellow Jacketbaseball team took theseason series from Gene-va by winning two ofthree this past week.

In a season in whichWaynesburg (9-17, 4-5)has struggled to generateconsistent hitting, theJackets bats didn’t haveany problems in the firsttwo games of the series.Waynesburg’s sluggerscranked out 10 hits in Fri-day’s 9-2 nine-inning vic-tory before adding ninemore during their 9-5 winin the first game of Mon-day’s doubleheader. TheGolden Tornadoes (15-14)were able to come awaywith a narrow 3-2 victoryin the second game of thetwin bill to avoid beingswept.

“We always say we gotto win at least two out ofthree in the series, andwe’ve certainly had littlehiccups that have cost usseries against ThomasMore and Westminster,and we wanted to avoidthat against Geneva,” saidhead coach Mike Humis-ton.

An early 4-0 lead gaveWaynesburg an edge theywould not relinquish in

game one as they addedthree runs in a dominantseventh inning to closeout the scoring and notchthe 9-2 victory.

Game two was more ofthe same from the power-ful Jacket bats as seniorshortstop Anthony DeFil-ippo’s team-high seventhhome run of the seasonwith two runners on gavethe Jackets a 3-1 leadheading into the fourth.

Geneva kept it close, andthe score was only 4-3 infavor of the Jackets whenWaynesburg broke thegame open with five runsin the bottom of the sixth.

Unfortunately the Jack-et bats went cold in thelate game, as they man-aged only five hits in theseven-inning game. Twosolo shots over the fence

By Aaron ThompsonAssistant Sports Editor

Earlier today, the Way-nesburg softball teamhoped to finally get backon the field after weatherforced more postpone-ments in a spring seasonthat has already seen itsfair share of games affect-ed by Mother Nature.

The Yellow Jackets (11-7, 4-2) still have six con-ference doubleheaders

remaining to play in thenext nine days. A brutalstretch remains for teamsacross the Presidents’Athletic Conference asSaint Vincent and GroveCity have played the mostconference games to thispoint in the season. Theregular season is techni-cally scheduled to endApril 30, but more rain-outs could force difficul-ties for schools across theconference as final examsbegin May 2 for Waynes-burg students.

“In the past coachinghigh school we wouldalways have some gameslost in the beginning of

the season, but I’ve notseen anything like thisbefore,” head coach LouGiachetti said. “We’rereally under the gun now.I’ve never seen anythinglike this in my 20 someyears of coaching.”

Waynesburg has seenseven doubleheaders post-poned so far this season.Three non-conferencetwin bills against Frost-burg State, Penn State-Beaver and Mount Aloy-sius were postponed inMarch, and it was decidedweeks ago that theywould not be made up.In the very first issue of

The Yellow Jacket thisschool year, I used thisspace to comment on theimproving state of Way-nesburg athletics. As theyear begins to wind down,here’s proof that thedepartment truly is on theupswing:

FallWomen’s soccer – In his

first year at the helm, headcoach Sean McCarthyguided the Yellow Jacketsto their first winning sea-son since 2001. The teammissed out on the Presi-dents’ Athletic Confer-ence playoffs by only a sin-gle place in the standings.

Individually, four play-ers garnered All-PAC sta-tus, including first-teamjuniors Courtney Ebersoleand goalkeeper KatrinaKelly. Ebersole, a forward,was also named third-team all-region by theNational Soccer CoachesAssociation of America forher 12-goal, 27-point sea-son. Those totals placedher first on the team andfifth in the conference.

Ebersole and Kelly bothreturn this fall.

Football – The Jacketscame just points awayfrom defeating nationallyranked Thomas More andarchrival Washington andJefferson in the final twoweeks of the season. Vic-tories in those two con-tests would have givenWaynesburg the PAC titleand a trip to the nationalplayoffs.

Against the Saints, No.9 in the nation at the time,the Jacket faithful couldalmost taste the upsetwhen freshman runningback Dominic Moore bar-reled into the end zonefrom one yard out to putthe home team up 10-7with 6:44 to play in thefourth quarter. However,Thomas More showed thepoise of a three-time con-ference champion byembarking on a 20-play,80-yard drive that ended ina touchdown and gave theSaints the victory.

The Jackets defense,which stifled the Saintsvaunted ground game, willwelcome back nearlyevery starter in 2011.

Waynesburg experi-enced more heartbreak aweek later. After comingback from 14 points downin the fourth quarter, Way-nesburg had the opportu-nity to finally topple rival

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Dave FloydSportsEditor

Anotheryear ofathleticsat WU

See WU on C3

The Pittsburgh Forcevisited campus.Read more on C3

Softball continues to battle relentless weather

Photo by Dave Miller, ADM Photography

Senior Brandon Myers slides safely into third base in Friday’s single game atGeneva. The Jackets won that contest 9-2 and took two of three in the series.

Team has justnine days to playsix doubleheaders

By Nate RegottiStaff Writer

The Waynesburg men’sand women’s track andfield teams were both inaction this past weekendat the Westminster Invita-tional.

The Yellow Jacketwomen had a great outingSaturday. They tied forsecond with Clarion in the13-team field, finishingbehind only host West-minster.

Senior Maria Shepas ledthe way for Waynesburgon the track. Shepas quali-fied for the Eastern Colle-giate Athletic ConferenceChampionships in the3,000-meter steeplechase.She completed the eventin a time of 11:47.46.

Also qualifying for theECAC Championshipsthis past weekend wassophomore Jaimee Post.Post won the triple jumpevent after leaping 11.11meters (36’ 5.5”). She alsoadded a fourth-place finishin the long jump with aleap of 4.56 meters (14’11.5”).

For her efforts, Post wasnamed this week’s topfemale field athlete by thePresidents’ Athletic Con-ference.

Junior Krystal Bakeradded a pair of top finish-es  of her own. Bakerplaced sixth in the highjump as she cleared the barat 1.45m and added athird-place finish in thetriple jump with a leap of10.27m.

The men enjoyed a suc-cessful day of their own.The Jackets finished fifthout of eleven teams at theinvitational.

Junior Jordan Wraskhad an impressive per-

By Ben CarpenterStaff Writer

Replacing a legend isnever an easy task.

The 2010-11 schoolyear was a big one for RickShepas. The head coach ofthe Yellow Jacket footballteam guided the group toa 6-4 record in his sixthseason at the helm. Inaddition to his headcoaching duties, this yearwas Shepas’s first asDirector of Athletics atWaynesburg.

The change came soonafter long-time Director ofAthletics Rudy Marisaannounced his retirementlast summer. Shepas tookover on July 1, and he tookon the additional respon-sibility very well.

“The change wasn’t as

big as I thought it wouldbe,” said Shepas. “It wasmore so a mental adjust-ment than anything else.”

It helped, of course,that Shepas has priorexperience as an athleticdirector, albeit at the high

school level. In fact, hehas pulled double dutybefore, as well.

The Youngstown Stategraduate spent sevenyears at Massillon Wash-ington High School, serv-ing as the Tigers’ athletic

director and head footballcoach. Shepas was verysuccessful as the footballcoach at Massillon, post-ing a 53-28 record andwinning two consecutiveregional championshipsduring his tenure there.While at Massillon, inaddition to his coachingand athletic directorduties, Shepas wasresponsible for generatingmost of the revenue forthe athletic departmentby setting prices for tick-ets and promotionalitems, among otherthings.

Shepas says that his jobat Waynesburg is a littleeasier in that sense, as hecredits others for helpinghim out.

Shepas set to complete first year as AD

See YEAR on C4

Jacketwomenfinish insecond

Photo by Dave Miller, ADM Photography

Senior centerfielder Amber Pivik throws a ball into theinfield in the Jackets’ most recent game April 9.

Baseball takes two from Geneva

“We have a lot ofdynamic coaches here atWaynesburg and a solidathletic department as awhole. ... These people andmany others really help meout...”

Rick ShepasDirector of Athletics

See FIVE on C4

See BASEBALL on C2

See WEATHER on C2

TRACK & FIELD

Offense sparksWaynesburg toseries victory

were enough to propelGeneva to the 3-2 victoryand keep Waynesburgfrom their first seriessweep in two seasons.

“In the first two gameswe came up with clutchhits and drove in runnerswhen we had them onbase,” said junior BrendanScioscia. “In the thirdgame we weren’t patientat the plate, and we swungat too many early pitch-es.”

One of the top perform-ances of the series for theJackets came from fresh-man pitcher Zach Kreke.Despite giving up 12 hitsin Monday’s first contest,he allowed only fourearned runs while collect-ing his first collegiate winin complete game fashion.

“They did get twelvehits off of him, but it does-n’t do a young pitcher a lotof good if when he gets introuble he expects to getthe hook right away,” saidHumiston. “The thingabout Zach is that henever gets rattled, and heknows some pitches aregoing to get hit and runsare going to be scored, but

By Yellow Jacket Staff

Up against 20-timePresidents’ Athletic Con-ference champion GroveCity, the Waynesburgmen’s tennis team wasshut out 9-0 on the roadthis past Thursday.

The win evened theYellow Jackets leaguerecord at 2-2, while drop-ping their overall mark to3-5. Grove City improvedto a perfect 9-0, including6-0 in conference play.

Now, the Yellow Jack-ets have just three match-es remaining to preparethemselves for the PACChampionships to be heldApril 28-30 at PennbriarAthletic Club in Erie.

“They are [just so good]and [so] deep,” head coachRon Christman said ofGrove City. “If we can beon the other side of theseeding from them [in thePACs], maybe we canwork our way to facingthem [in the finals].”

In doubles play, GroveCity received a forfeit atnumber-three and scoredan 8-1 victory at number-two.

At first doubles, Way-nesburg’s tandem of jun-ior Peter Mally and seniorEmile Khoury jumped outto a 2-1 lead before drop-ping their match 8-3 to

Ricky Garrett and MarcMentzer.

“Because those GroveCity players have somuch experience, ourguys starting pressing abit [after getting up 2-1],”Christman said. “Insteadof doing what they did toget up right out of theshoot, they tried to do tomuch.”

In singles, the Wolver-ines again were the bene-ficiaries of a forfeit, thistime at number-six. Then,Grove City wrapped upthe contest by handlingthe Jackets in the fivecompetitive matches.Khoury was the onlyWaynesburg player totake more than one gamefrom his opponent, as helost 6-2, 6-1 to Mentzer.

“It felt good gettingsome games off Grove

City,” Khoury said. “Thepast couple years I’ve beenable to get at least two tothree games off of them,and just finishing hasbeen the issue the pastfour years against them.

“I’m hoping to takewhat I picked up fromthat match against who Iplayed and take it to thePACs and hopefully dobetter.”

The reason for the twoforfeits in the Grove Citymatch was a leg injury tosophomore Joe Kromer,who competes at boththird doubles and sixthsingles. With just thosethree league matches leftbefore the conferencechampionships, it doesnot appear Kromer will becleared in time to returnfor the season’s mostimportant event.

So, Christman and hissquad needed to quicklyfind another player to fillin for the stretch run.Enter junior Dave Floyd,who captained the men’ssoccer team in the fall.Floyd joined the team lateTuesday afternoon and atpress time, was set tomake his tennis debut intoday’s home matchagainst Thiel at 3:30 p.m.

“We were kind of in abind,” Christman said.“Normally we wouldhave 10 to 12 players, andwe’d have somebody fillin, but we’re shy playersthis year. That’s just whatwe [had] to do, and it just[worked] out that [he] cando it.”

After today’s match,the Jackets will play bothMonday and Tuesdaybefore traveling to Erie forthe PAC Championships,their final competition ofthe season.

Not only will it be thefinal competition of theseason for Waynesburg,but it will also be the lastmatches in Khoury’s col-legiate career.

“I’ve taken secondplace the past two years,so my ultimate goal is towin a PAC title,” Khourysaid. “I’m just going to goout there and play myhardest like I always do.Winning is obviously agoal, but just having funand enjoying playing ten-nis with my friends iswhat’s going to be mymemory.”

Page C2 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Sports

Photo by Dave Miller, ADM Photography

Senior Emile Khoury hits a backhand at Grove City.Khoury won the most games of any Jacket Saturday.

Jackets shut out by 20-time champGROVE CITY - 9, JACKETS - 0

Three matchesremain before thePAC Championships

Golf competes inthree invitationals

Baseballtakes two

Continued from C1

Conference doublehead-ers have been a differentstory. The Jackets seemedto be on the right trackafter completing threeconference doubleheadersby April 9; however, theyhave not have playedsince that day when theyswept PAC opponentThiel.

“I haven’t heard a wordfrom the [PAC],” he said.“Technically the weekafter next we aren’t sup-posed to play during finalsweek.”

Another problem is notonly that finals areapproaching, but also a lotof major assignments andpresentations occur nextweek.

“We set the schedule

early on, so players knowwhat classes to miss [sothey can communicatethat with their teachers],”Giachetti said. “Now theschedule has made ourstudents miss classes thatthey weren’t originally

suppose to miss.”The past week brought

a few days of favorableconditions, but because ofother scheduled gamesand saturated surfaces,games could not bemoved around to accom-

modate those conditions. The latest postpone-

ments took place Satur-day as heavy rains post-poned the Jackets’ contestat Chatham. This pastTuesday the Jackets werescheduled to travel to

New Wilmington, Pa., totake on Westminster, butthe rain started again lateMonday night and contin-ued into Tuesday after-noon. The set of showerspostponed every sched-uled PAC game for bothbaseball and softball.

Something that therain has done is kept eachteam in the tournamentrace heading into the finalstretch.

“Everybody is in therace right now, and any-thing can happen,” Gia-chetti said. “Our key willbe to sweep Chatham andGrove City.”

Currently ThomasMore (8-0) sits in firstplace with a perfect con-ference record, followedby Bethany (5-1), West-minster (6-2) and Waynes-burg (4-2). The top fourteams qualify for the tour-nament. Chatham, SaintVincent, Grove City,Thiel and Washington

and Jefferson all remain inthe hunt with plenty ofgames to be played andnot a lot of days left toplay them.

Waynesburg will bethrown into the fire todaywhen they play the firstplace Saints.

“We are going to go outthere and give it our bestshot,” Giachetti said. “Wegot to get back on trackand play good ball. I thinkwe were playing real welland peaking, but with thisrain, this is kind of likestarting the season overagain.”

Giachetti admitted heisn’t completely sure howhis team will react.

“Hopefully we can getthe bats going again,” hesaid. “We were doing pret-ty well [statistically] inbatting average, earnedrun average and run differ-ential.

“We just have to pickup where we left off.”

Weather stillan issue

Continued from C1

he stays at an even-keelon the mound.”

Junior pitcher Ben Ovi-att collected the win inFriday’s game for the Jack-ets as he improved his sea-son record to 3-0. Thesouthpaw allowed onlyfive hits over seveninnings of work whilewalking two batters andfanning three.

It was another impres-

sive series for Scioscia asthe junior slugger went 5-for-10 at the plate whilescoring three runs andbringing home another.

“Brendan is real consis-tent at the plate,” saidDeFilippo. “Every timewe need a big hit he stepsup and gets one for us.”

DeFilippo came upwith some big hits him-self, with four runs and

four RBI despite goingonly 3-for-10 at the plate.

“Those guys are bothseeing the ball really well,and that really shows intheir batting averages,”said Humiston. “As ateam we need to get themto share that knowledgeand tell us what they areseeing because our biggestdetriment right now is ourhitting.

“We are the best cagehitting team in America.We just need to carry thatover to the field.”

The Jackets were nextscheduled to battle con-ference opponent GroveCity in a home double-header on Wednesday atWaynesburg Field.Results, however, werenot available at the timethis edition went to press.

Photo by Dave Miller, ADM Photography

Sophomore shortstop Rachael Moon swings at a pitch in Waynesburg’s most recentdoubleheader at Thiel. That twin bill was all the way back on April 9.

By Brandon ReedEditorial Assistant

The men’s andwomen’s golf teams bothtraveled to Latrobe Coun-try Club for the Saint Vin-cent College Invitationalthis past week.

The women’s team wasin competition for theindividual title only,while the men’s team hadenough participants tocompete for the teamtitle.

Junior Colin Wilsonand senior Katie Rihnwere the top competitorsfor the Yellow Jacketsmen’s and women’steams, respectively.

Wilson led the menwith a 10 over par 82,which gave him a 14th-place finish in the 59-manfield. Senior Kevin McIl-wain, Aaron Mansfield,Ryan Hertz and BrentHeckel combined to putthe Jackets at eighth outof the 11 teams in compe-tition.

Wilson’s 82 is a four-stroke improvement fromlast year when he shot an86 and finished second onthe Jackets.

Wilson said playing thecourse previously was abig help, and he knewwhere to hit the ball.

“I knew which holescould get me into a lot oftrouble if I tried to go for itand did not make it,” Wil-son said. “It definitely was

a big help.”Rihn finally got her

clubs going after a slowstart this season.

“This course was moreto my skill level, eventhough I have neverplayed it before,” saidRihn.

She also credited theplaying conditions andwide open course.

Rihn shot a team-best97 on the par-70 course,the highlight of Rihn’s daybeing a 45 on the frontnine. She would haveended a few strokes lowerhad she not finished herday with a 10 on the 18thhole.

The women’s team willconclude their 2011 sea-son at the Presidents’ Ath-letic Conference SpringChampionship April 26and 27.

The men’s team alsoplayed on Monday at theGreens at Greenville inthe Thiel College Invita-tional. Wilson recorded ateam-best 82 on the dayand combined with Heck-el, McIlwain and seniorMike Quinn for a four-man score of 361.

The Jackets placedthird out of four teams atThiel, their last eventbefore the PAC SpringChampionship, whichwill also take place April26 and 27 for the men.PACs will be held at theOak Tree Country Club inWest Middlesex, Pa.

By Aaron ThompsonAssistant Sports Editor

Adam Santoro knowsfootball, and he alsoknows the challenges aregreat for the PittsburghForce women’s profes-sional football team.

Santoro, a graduate ofWaynesburg University,became an assistant coachwith the Force just beforethe start of the 2011 sea-son before being promot-ed to the head coachingposition a few weekslater.

The Force competes inthe National ConferenceMid-Atlantic Division ofthe Women’s FootballAlliance. The team is cur-rently 0-3 and has beenoutscored 105-8 in theirfirst three contests.

Last Tuesday, Santorospoke at a press confer-ence as part of the firstannual Public RelationsWeek held by the Depart-ment of Communication.

Santoro and Force quar-terback Heather Andrewsspoke of the early seasonchallenges that the Forceface in just their third sea-son in team history.

According to Santoro,injuries, changes in offen-sive schemes and two dif-ficult opponents to startthe campaign have ham-pered the team so far thisseason.

“We are continuing towork and build on findingplayers,” Santoro said.“We have to continue torecruit players as the sea-son goes on.”

Things are hard for theForce, who are currentlyplaying their third seasonin franchise history. Ifthere is a model to emu-late, all the team has to dois look at the otherwomen’s football team in

the city.Santoro is familiar with

that model as he coachedwith the Passion for partsof three seasons and sawthat team play at a cham-pionship type level. He isnow trying to bring that tothe Force. The first thingthe Force must do is getbetter depth, according toSantoro.

“When I coached withthe Passion, we had 45players dressed and anoth-er 45 watching,” he said.“If you play [offensive]line, you need to know allof those spots as well. Ifyou play running backyou need to know full-back. Everyone is open toplay any position.”

The lack of depth alsomeans that some playersplay both offense anddefense because Santorowants to put the best play-ers on the field in order togive the team the bestchance to win.

The Force also faceother internal difficulties.With a small franchise ina league trying to estab-lish itself, revenue is lack-

ing. All of the coacheswork on a volunteer basis,and the players play forthe love of athletic com-petition. Some playershave to travel a lengthydistance to practicesthroughout the week, aswell.

“The background ofthe players is from a vari-ety of different sports, andsome of the playershaven’t played sports atall before,” Andrews said.

Andrews has excelledthroughout her athleticcareer and as the quarter-back of the Force, is tryingto help them break-through as a franchise.She began playing softballat the age of six beforestarring at Riverside HighSchool as a catcher onteams that appeared in thePIAA Championship in1999 and 2000. She earneda scholarship to the Uni-versity of Pittsburghwhere she was a four-yearstarter for the Panthers.

Andrews considers her-self as a player who leadsmore by example thananything else.

“I just like to showup,” she said. “I just liketo play the game.”

She said playing isn’tall easy, though. Sheworks full-time as a drugand alcohol therapist. Atypical day for Andrewsincludes waking up at 6a.m. and heading off towork from 8 a.m. to 4:30p.m. She then grabs aquick bite to eat at homebefore practicing from6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Another major obstaclestanding in the Force’sway has been the Passion.

The Passion have beenin existence since 2002and have establishedthemselves as a great suc-cess story in women’s ath-letics. The team had anundefeated 2007 cam-paign en route to a nation-al championship and wontwo more division titlesthe two following sea-sons. The Passion werethe first women’s footballfranchise featured onESPN and in Sports Illus-trated.

“I think it’s good for thesport and the city,” San-toro said of having twoteams in Pittsburgh.“This gives women anopportunity to play foot-ball.

“From the league per-spective, that speaks vol-umes for the city’s passionfor football.”

The Passion defeatedthe Force earlier in theseason 30-0, and the twoteams will battle againlater in the season May 14at Cupples Stadium inPittsburgh. Santoro saidfacing his former teamwas certainly tough.

“It was emotional,” hesaid. “You form relation-ships and friendships. Itwas awkward at times. Itwas kind of what I expect-ed it to be, though.”

But in the meantime,the Force is trying to justtake it one week at a timeand keep building.

By Aaron Thompson andJon LedyardYellow Jacket Staff

Congratulations go outto the latest Yellow JacketAthletes of the Week.This week’s recipientsboth performed well forthe Waynesburg track andfield program at the West-minster Invitational. Jor-dan Wrask and JaimeePost were voted by theSports staff as the finalAthletes of the Week forthe 2010-11 athletic year.

Post, a sophomore fromCuyahoga Falls, Ohio,picked up her first YellowJacket Athlete of theWeek award for her effortsthis past weekend.

Post laid claim to thetriple jump individualchampionship after a topleap of 11.11 meters. Shealso put up a distance of

4.56 meters to finishfourth in the long jump.By winning the triple

jump Post qualified forthe Eastern CollegiateAthletic Conference

Championships to be heldMay 19.

Post won the PAC’s

Women’s Field Athlete ofthe Week award, as well,making it the third time

in four weeks the awardhas gone to a Waynesburgathlete.

Wrask, a Lisbon, Ohio,native, brought his topperformance of the seasonto the Westminster Invi-tational, placing first in afield of 28 in the 100-meter dash with a time of11.53 seconds. The juniorsprinter’s stellar work onthe track continued as headded a fourth-place fin-ish by registering a time of23.48 seconds in the 200-meter dash.

Wrask’s 15 pointshelped Waynesburg grabfifth place out of eleventeams competing at theevent.

For now, both Wraskand Post will focus on thePAC Championships,which are scheduled forApril 30 at Bethany at 10a.m.

Page C3Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Sports

Track and field sweeps Athletes of the Week honors

Photos by Dave Miller, ADM Photography

(Above) Sophomore Jaimee Post competes inSaturday’s Westminster Invitational.(Right) Junior Jordan Wrask runs in the rainy condi-tions at Saturday’s invitational.

Pittsburgh’s 2ndfranchise continuingto build in 3rd year

Force head coach, QB visit campusWOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

Photo courtesy of Kathy Ferrari, owner of the Pittsburgh Force

Pittsburgh Force quarterback Heather Andrews visitedcampus last Tuesday with her head coach.

W&J at the end of regula-tion. Sophomore kickerJon Storck, though,missed a 39-yard field goalas time expired. In over-time, following a W&Jtouchdown and extrapoint, the Jackets gambledby trying to go for a two-point conversion follow-ing a touchdown of theirown. An option keeperwas stopped short, howev-er, and the Presidents won31-30.

WinterWomen’s basketball –

After winning a combined18 games the previousthree seasons, the squadwon a total of 21 conteststhis past season. Not onlythat, but Waynesburgadvanced to the PACsemifinals and earned thetop seed in the ECACSouth tournament. TheJackets won three straightgames at the Rudy MarisaFieldhouse, including atriumph over Catholic inthe championship game,allowing third-year headcoach Sam Jones and histeam to cut down the netsas ECAC champs.

First-team All-PAC for-ward Elisha Jones will cer-tainly be missed next sea-son, but Waynesburgreturns the rest of theirstarting lineup, includingall-conference playersHannah Hunter and Brit-tany Spencer.

Wrestling – The Jacketsbegan a streak of theirown this past season.Despite an injury to start-ing heavyweight and prob-able champion BrandonFedorka, Waynesburg wonthe PAC Championshipsgoing away, snagging sixof the 10 individualcrowns in the process. It

was the Jackets secondstraight PAC title afterThiel had won the previ-ous 10.

At regionals, seniorNick Garber, sophomoreAlex Crown and Fedorka,a freshman, all won indi-vidual championships andqualified for nationals. Atthe national tournament,Garber came just onematch shy of picking upAll-American status, andCrown placed fourth, giv-ing him All-American sta-tus and the highest finishof any PAC grappler since1993.

Bad news for the rest ofthe PAC: Garber was theonly senior starter on thisyear’s squad.

SpringSoftball – While their

season has been greatlyimpacted by MotherNature, the Jackets havelooked strong so far in2011. They had onlyplayed six league games asof Monday, but they had atwo-game lead in the racefor the fourth and finalplayoff spot.

A deeper pitching staffthan in the past, solid hit-ting and Amanda Baugh-man being her usual selfhave the Jackets lookingto make a run in the PAC.

Track and field – Fiveathletes—Elisha Jones,Kurt Bonnet, Megan Sow-ers, Maria Shepas andJaimee Post—have alreadyqualified for the ECACChampionships to be heldafter the completion ofthe regular season. One ofthose athletes, Jones(whose name you read ear-lier in the women’s bas-ketball section), has alsoalready qualified fornationals. She’ll look toearn All-American honorsfor the third straight sea-son and possibly take thatnext step for herself, theprogram and the athleticdepartment – a nationalchampionship.

WU athleticsimprove

Continued from C1

Force plan to holdtryouts at local campuses

Pittsburgh Force head coach Adam Santoro alsospoke about dipping into the pool of local collegiateathletes to recruit players. He said the team has plansto hold tryouts at nearby institutions, such as Pitt,Slippery Rock and Waynesburg, and he hopes thatwill help spark a greater interest in the sport.

“If it becomes that big, you could have a trickledown affect where colleges [could possibly] start hav-ing women’s football as well because then obviouslythere is another step after college for them to go.”

By Steve HullingsStaff Writer

A total of five differentwomen scored for theWaynesburg lacrosseteam last Wednesdaywhen they played againstDivision II West VirginiaWesleyan. Not only didfive players score for theYellow Jackets, but threewomen picked up assistsin the game, as well.

Despite those perform-ances by the Jackets, Way-nesburg still fell to theBobcats 21-7.

The Jackets seemed tobegin gaining momentumtoward the end of the firsthalf, bringing the scoreback to within seven at10-3. They also scoredearly in the second half,but the Bobcats neverslowed down scoring andput 11 more balls in theback of the net by the endof the game.

“We just need to workhard and continue to getbetter,” said senior MariaShepas.

Scorers for the Jacketsincluded sophomore

Molly Kramer and juniorSamantha Swab, whoeach scored a team-hightwo goals. SophomoreTiffany Stansberry, sopho-more Carly Smithymanand freshman Liz Hollisadded a goal apiece on theday.

Stansberry, Shepas andKramer all had assists.Senior Miranda Thorntonrecorded a game-higheight groundballs. JuniorErin Burry and freshmanMariah Dylina eachrecorded 30 minutes andsix saves in net during theloss.

The Jackets season

comes to a close todaywhen they take on archri-val Washington and Jeffer-son College. The game isset for 6 p.m. at John F.Wiley Stadium.

“I’m going to go intothis next game like everyother, but this one defi-nitely has more meaningsince it’s against W&J,”said Shepas. “We need tocommunicate on D, havegood transitions to get onoffense, and we need toscore.”

When asked about herfavorite moment this sea-son, Shepas answered, “Ijust love being on the field

on game day and beingable to compete.”

Junior defender KatGhion said: “We’ve beenable to have more girlsscore this year that hardlyever did last year. Also,our passing and catchinggot a lot better, which isbasic, but so important tothe game. Next year Ithink we just need to keepworking hard and playtogether. I think the mostimportant thing is to playwith Waynesburg pridejust like we were taughtand to play for each otherand the team, not for our-selves.”

The Jackets hope tocontinue improving asthey have all season intheir last game, as well asinto next season.

“We had a lot of newplayers this year, and Isaw our play improveeach game, and some ofthe girls were able to dogreat things,” said Ghion.“The season was up anddown, but I don’t thinkthere’s one girl on theteam that hasn’timproved since the begin-ning.

Ghion added, “Welearned early on [in theseason] that you can’tmeasure success by win-ning and losing.”

Page C4 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Sports

For the third time in the first fourweeks the award has been given out, aWaynesburg Yellow Jacket was hon-ored as the top female field athlete inthe Presidents’ Athletic Conference.This week’s recipient was sophomoreJaimee Post.

The sophomore was named PACWomen’s Field Athlete of the Week

after winning the triple jump at Saturday’s Westmin-ster Invitational, which featured five schools from thePAC. Not only did Post best the 15 other women inthe field, but she qualified for the Eastern CollegiateAthletic Conference Championships with a top jumpof 11.11 meters (36’ 5.5”). She also placed fourth inthe long jump with a jump of 4.56 meters (14’ 11.5”).

The Jacket track teams returned to action Wednes-day when they took part in a PAC Quad meet atBethany. Results were unavailable at press time.

PAC award

Post

Five different Jackets score in loss

Photo by Gregory Reinhart

Junior Kat Ghion controls the ball as a West VirginiaWesleyan player defends in last Wednesday’s match.

Waynesburg setfor next matchwith rival W&J

WEST VIRGINIA WESLEYAN - 21, JACKETS - 7

“We have a lot ofdynamic coaches here atWaynesburg and a solidathletic department as awhole. Mike Kabay alsodoes a great job as facilityand game day manager,”Shepas said.

“These people andmany others really help

me out by taking the pres-sure off for some of theancillary responsibili-ties.”

Always one to lookahead to the future, Shep-as has many ideas abouthow to improve the ath-letic department as awhole as he moves for-ward in this role.

“We need to do a betterjob at the retention of ourathletes. That meansrecruiting the right ath-letes to begin with andthen keeping them here

for all four years of theireducation,” said Shepas.“Obviously, at a DivisionIII school such as Waynes-burg it is definitely aca-demics first and foremost,and all we want to do asan athletic department isto add to that experience.The best way to do that isto get better athleticallyall the way around.”

As the school yearwinds down, it willremain to be seen howwell Shepas will do in hisfirst year at the helm of

Waynesburg athletics, butthere is no denying thesuccess that teams havehad thus far. Of the eightsports that competed inthe fall and winter (andhad a win-loss record),seven saw an improve-ment in their overallrecord from the 2009-2010 season. Plus, thewrestling team won theirsecond straight PAC title,and the women’s basket-ball team captured theECAC South Champi-onship.

Year No. 1nearing end

Continued from C1

formance. He broughthome the 100-meter dashtitle, beating 27 othercompetitors with a timeof 11.53 seconds. Wraskalso completed the 200-meter dash in 23.48 sec-onds, which was goodenough for a fourth-placefinish.

Freshman Justin Angot-ti brought home an indi-vidual victory, as well.Angotti crossed the finishline in 38.26 seconds inthe 800-meter dash, fasterthan 30 other runners.

Sophomore Kurt Bon-net continued to be domi-nant in the discus throw.Bonnet finished first inthe event with a toss of44.22 meters (145’ 1”). Fel-low sophomore TonyLamosek finished closebehind in fourth place,tossing the discus 38.26meters (125’ 6”).

Both the men and thewomen outperformedPAC opponents Geneva,Thiel, Bethany and Wash-ington and Jefferson thispast weekend.

The Jackets competed

in a PAC quad meet atBethany College Wednes-day, but the results werenot available at presstime.

“We’re hoping to getback-to-back titles there,”said senior hurdler MikeyMacosko.

The next competitionfor both squads will be thePAC ChampionshipsApril 30.

“As far as the seasongoes I think we are goingto win PACs on thewomen’s side,” Macoskosaid. “Weather andinjuries have affected us,but I think we’re going topull it together. This real-ly means a lot to us.”

Waynesburg does haveone meet on the schedulefor everyone after the PACChampionships. Thatevent is the Gator Invita-tional to be held May 13 atAllegheny in Meadville,Pa.

Then, it is champi-onship time for the Yel-low Jacket athletes whohave qualified.

On May 19 and 20, it isthe ECAC Champi-onships at Moravian, andfrom May 25-28, it is the2011 NCAA Division IIIOutdoor Championshipsto be held at Ohio Wes-leyan.

Five Jacketsfinish first

Continued from C1

By Kaitlin EdwardsManaging Editor

Pennsylvania StateTreasurer Rob McCordwill speak to702 graduat-ing seniorsduring theCommence-ment cere-mony onMay 15.

“The mis-sion of theUniversityplays a sig-nificant role ofwho is chosen to speak atcommencement. Thewhole process takes time,but it is worth the effortwe put into it,” saidThyreen.

“Rob McCord is a good

fit to speak to this Univer-sity for commencementbecause of his beliefs andpersonal qualities.”

McCord is involved inmany differ-ent activitiesthat all con-tribute to hisunique expe-rience andunderstand-ing.

“I expectto have funwhen I spendtime with

graduates andtheir families, and I hopeto offer entertaining anduseful remarks. My plan isto focus on shared valuesin these divisive times,”

By Rachel BrownExecutive Editor

Provost Robert Gra-ham remembers his grad-uation well.

“It was a day of excite-ment and uncertainty,”he said. “I wasn’t sureexactly what I was goingto do after graduation. Ididn’t have a job lined upyet, but I was confident Ihad a good education anda lot of opportunities. Iwas excited to find outwhat God had in store formy life.”

And on May 15, he’llwatch many WaynesburgUniversity studentsundergo the same emo-tions he experienced.

During the graduationexercises, 702 studentswill walk across the stageto receive their diploma.

Some already have jobslined up. Others are stillsearching.

Some students willattend graduate school.Others are still hoping toget in.

What binds themtogether is their sense ofaccomplishment in earn-ing a college degree.

Five students will grad-uate with a Doctorate ofNursing, and 273 studentswill graduate with a mas-ter’s in business adminis-tration.

As for undergraduates,440 students are expectedto receive their diploma.

While Graham hasseen a number of studentsgraduate during his tenureat Waynesburg, hebelieves each ceremony isimportant.

“It is an opportunity forall of us to reflect on eachstudent’s accomplish-ments,” Graham said.“It’s a ceremony thatmarks the end of onestage of students’ lives

and the beginning of thenext stage.”

Graduation exercisesbegin at 2 p.m. on May 15.

However, graduatesparticipating in the cere-mony should arrive at 1p.m.

Family, friends and fac-ulty will be present at theceremony.

Graham said the facul-ty members’ participationin the ceremony is impor-tant, as it gives them achance to congratulatethe seniors on theiraccomplishments.

As students receivetheir diploma, Grahamhopes they take time to

remember their time atWaynesburg.

“Hopefully, they’ll takewith them a sense of pridein their accomplishmentsand in their alma mater,”he said. “Each studentwill have had an opportu-nity to get a great educa-tion and make friends forlife. These are things thatwill stay with each stu-dent throughout his or herlife.”

And while the futuremay be unclear for stu-dents, Graham is surethey will succeed.

For Graham, success

By Megan CampbellStaff Writer

The Class of 2011 sen-ior gift Committee willbe presenting a check tothe President at the sen-ior meeting on April 27 at3 p.m.

The money donatedwill be donated to themission trip fund.

The senior class votedthat the gift be donatedtowards that cause.

The senior class gift isa longstanding traditiondating back to some ofthe first graduates ofWaynesburg. In fact, one

of the original stainedglass windows in AlumniHall is still displayed andwas given by some of thefirst senior classes.

The senior gift is anopportunity for the classof 2011 to collectivelygive back to their almamater and future stu-dents by making individ-ual gifts for a commonuniversity purpose.

Heidi Szuminksy,Director of Alumni Rela-tions, commented onwhy the senior gift isimportant to WaynesburgUniversity.

“The Senior Class Gift

is important because itpostures our future alum-ni to begin thinkingabout the importance ofgiving back to their almamater,” said Szuminsky.

“The reason we havemany of the buildings oncampus, lecture series,mission trip opportuni-ties and scholarships andgrants is because of thegenerosity of alumni.Because current studentsbenefit from the dona-tions of current alumni,we hope that when ourstudents become alumni,they will help students,just as they were helped

as students.”The class gift is over-

seen by Courtney Den-nis, assistant director ofAlumni Relations.

The seniors on thecommittee consist of IanLundholm, Kristy Gidley,Adam Swingle, KyleKooyers, Elise Lane,David Call, Lindsay Ben-ish, Stephanie Zeek,Leigh Palmer andChelsey Clark.

The committee did afew things to collectmoney towards the sen-ior gift.

“The senior gift com-mittee collected gifts at

the grad fair at the bookstore on March 25,” Szu-minsky said.

“We sent a letter to theparents of seniors, givingthem the opportunity tomake a gift in honor oftheir graduate.”

Students who donated$20 or more got a Way-nesburg UniversityAlumni t-shirt.

Seniors, as well as any-one else, could of donatedonline as well.

Future Waynesburgstudents benefit from thesenior gift.

Specifically, the classof 2011 senior gift will

benefit future students byadding to the funds avail-able for the mission trips.

Marsha Opacic, a grad-uating senior, is enthusedabout the decisions madeabout the senior classgift.

“I am really happy thatit is being donated tosomething with a goodcause. I was encouragedto donate because I knewthat other people wouldbe benefiting from it,”Opacic said.

“I am going to missWaynesburg, but I amglad that I can leavesomething behind.”

Photos courtesy of Mad Anthony

The graduation ceremony for students will be held on May 15, beginning at 2 p.m.

Treasurer to givecommencementspeech at ceremony

Steelers punter namedbaccalaureate speaker

Good cause: Senior class gives back to mission trip funds

‘A day ofexcitement’

By Sierra ShaferOp/Ed Editor

In the four years since his graduation from BaylorUniversity, Daniel Sepulveda has seen great successesin his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers football club.

Amidst being recognized as their top rookie duringhis first year and winning a Super Bowl championship,Sepulveda recovered from two ACL reconstructions torank among the top ten punters in the National Foot-ball league last year.

While his football stats are excellent, the Waynes-burg University community is more interested in thepunter’s character – and his faith.

Sepulveda will be speaking to the graduating class atthe Baccalaureate service at 11 a.m. on Sunday, May 15in the Marisa Field House.

“The past four years have been an incredible faithjourney for me,” said Sepulveda.

“I’m on the cusp of what, for me, was an awesometime of growth. God has changed me and I have grownin the past four years so I am excited to share thoseexperiences.”

Having recently spent time studying the book ofDaniel, Sepulveda’s message “Loving God More thanLife Itself” will focus on how Christians facing a time

See SEPULVEDA on AA5 See PLANNING on AA2

See TREASURER on AA2

Commencement ceremonyto be held on May 15;702 students to graduate

McCord

DANIEL SEPULVEDA

said Rob McCord. “I’vebeen lucky to wear anumber of different hatsin my career – as a Con-gressional staffer, anentrepreneur andinvestor, and a statewide

elected official – and myexperiences there haveturned into a few storiesand ideas about whatunites us. Hopefullythat’ll help motivateemerging graduates asthey work to launch theirown careers during thesechallenging times.”

According to McCord’swebsite, before gettingvoted in as the Pennsylva-nia State Treasurer in

2009, he worked as a ven-ture capitalist.

After graduating withhigh honors from HarvardUniversity, he earned hisMBA from the Universityof Pennsylvania beforebeginning his career as aventure capitalist.

He was the founder forthe Eastern TechnologyFund, which providesfunds to Internet andtechnology companies

located in the EasternUnited States.

He has also served asthe managing director andco-founder of the Pennsyl-vania Early Stage Part-ners. McCord has alsoworked on budget andtechnology issues forCapitol Hill and CEO ofthe Congressional Insti-tute for the Future, whichis a bipartisan think tank.

“He is very passionate

about his work,” saidThyreen. “He will bring alot of good advice to theseniors with his solidunderstanding of busi-ness.”

McCord has becomethe forty-fifth treasurer ofPennsylvania.

“His service to othersseems to have impactedhis career greatly,” saidThyreen. “He has aunique approach to howhe reaches out to theworld through his enter-prise and approach andthe emphasis he put onfinding new ways to solveproblems.”

McCord has notrevealed exactly what hewill be speaking about

during the Commence-ment ceremony as ofpresstime.

“We provided himinformation about theUniversity and what westand for,” said BarbaraDuffield. “We are confi-dent he will do a goodjob.”

Currently McCordlives in MontgomeryCounty, Pa., with his fam-ily. “Mr. McCord is veryactive in the communityand in the businessworld,” said Thyreen.

“He takes very innova-tive approaches to everyproject he works on andhe could provide the stu-dents with a lot of goodinformation.”

Page AA2 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

Treasurerto present

Continued from AA1

Financial systemstable at Universityduring recent years

isn’t defined by theamount of money peoplemake or the title of theirjob.

Instead, it’s about ful-fillment.

“It goes back to thatnotion of making a differ-ence,” he said. “I’ve hadmany different jobs in mylife, but the ones where Ifeel I’m making a differ-ence and not just earninga paycheck are the ones Ifound most fulfilling.”

To find these jobs, stu-dents should be open to“new possibilities andopportunities” that maynot be in their originalfield of study, Grahamsaid.

However, he encour-aged students to ask, “Isthe world a better placefor you doing that job?”

Planning forgraduation

Continued from AA1

Photo courtesy of Mad Anthony

During last year’s ceremony, Eric Wisler embraced Chaplin Tom Ribar after the grad-uation exercises on May 16.

By Sandor MecsStaff Writer

Student financial aid has been an anomaly at Way-nesburg during these turbulent economic times: Every-thing about it has been stable for the past few years.

Around the country, the number of students todefault on their school loans has been expected to jump,due to a stock market slump that butchered many sav-ings and investments and a depressed job market thatplaces great insecurity upon part time, unskilled labor.

According to Matthew Stokan, director of FinancialAid, the rate at which students have defaulted in thepast years at Waynesburg has remained at a stable 3.3percent.

Meanwhile, students who have defaulted haveschools to reach loan default rates of at least 10 percent.

Melissa Crouse, associate director of Financial Aid,has faith that Waynesburg would continue to see a slimnumber of students having to bail out on their debts tothe school.

“I think that our student body is made up of the typeof student who can be expected to pay back money theyowe,” she said. “The students who come to Waynes-burg are ones who go into fields in which they can affordto pay back the large sums that were borrowed. A lot ofschools that have these higher rates are proprietaryschools that, for instance, teach someone how tobecome a massage therapist. Those schools are veryexpensive, and you can’t make that money back in thatfield while affording to pay the loan.”

However, Stokan gave reassurance that most stu-dents who come in dreading that they may need todefault are actually given a few layers of accommoda-tion before such a last resort needs to be taken.

Students can scale back the payments by negotiatingwith the network of banks that are the actual lenders inorder to leave breathing space for a student.

See WU on AA5

Graduate employment in ‘cyclical’ stateBy Alex HintonEditorial Assistant

College seniors thatfear unemployment inthe real world mayhave new hope tolessen their fears.

According to newresearch from the Fed-eral Bank of San Fran-

cisco, unemploymentfor college graduates iscyclical in nature.

Marie Coffman,director of Career Serv-ices, believes the cycleis slowly returning to alower unemploymentrate.

“I can see thattrend,” she said. “It’s

going down, little bylittle.”

Waynesburg Univer-sity’s Class of 2010 isproof that the unem-ployment rate for col-lege graduates isdecreasing. Eighty fivepercent of the universi-ty’s recent graduatesare currently working

or enrolled in graduateschool, Coffman said. AWall Street Journal arti-cle explored the possi-bility that a cause ofthe nation’s unemploy-ment rate could bestructural. Structuralfactors include the dis-

See MORE on AA8

Page AA3Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

By Amanda WishnerEditorial Assistant

With the deadline forcollege applicationsquickly closing in,some prospective stu-dents are asking thequestion:

Is college reallyworth it?

Tuition and fees con-tinue to increase at

both public and privateuniversities.

The number of suc-cessful collegedropouts also contin-ues to grow.

Some of society’shighest-paid execu-tives, such as Facebookfounder Mark Zucker-berg, Twitter founderJack Dorsey and evenBill Gates and Steve

Jobs, are collegedropouts.

However, recent datasupports the impor-tance of postsecondaryeducation.

Whether studentspursue a certificate at acommunity college orbachelor’s degree, sta-tistics say it will bene-fit them.

Graduates are set

apart from other candi-dates in the job field.

“If an employer ishiring for an entrylevel position, com-mon sense says they’llgo with the collegegrad because of theircourse work,” saidMarie Coffman, direc-tor of Career Servicesand Placement.

“Especially with a

school like Waynes-burg University, withour liberal arts back-ground, we’re produc-ing well-rounded stu-dents. We provideemployers with thecomplete package.”

Jobs requiring post-secondary educationhave increased over thepast several years,climbing from 28 per-cent in 1973 to 59 per-cent in 2008.

This number isexpected to reach 63percent over the nextdecade, according toscholars at the George-town University Cen-ter on Education andthe Workforce.

Despite the currentstate of the economy,the unemploymentrate of college gradu-ates has remained low.

The latest figuresprovided by the Bureauof Labor Statisticsreports that only 4.3percent of college grad-uates, aged 25 or older,are unemployed.

In contrast, 9.5 per-cent of high schoolgraduates and 13.9 per-cent of those with lessthan a high school edu-cation are jobless.

According to Coff-man, Waynesburg Uni-versity has seen verylittle impact on jobplacements due to theconstant need forentry-level positions.

Because of the unfa-vorable economy, busi-nesses are laying off

their high-level, high-paid executive posi-tions.

“Ultimately it’s upto the student if theywant to be successfuland if they are going touse all of the avenuesoffered to them, likeCareer Services,” shesaid.

With graduationquickly approaching, itis nearly time for thisyear’s seniors to putthe value of a collegedegree to its true test.Coffman said thatfuture graduatesshould be nervous.

“[Nervousness] willhelp them be success-ful,” she said.

“That’s what we[Career Services] arehere for; to help calmtheir nerves. We offerstudents mock inter-views and can reviewresumes.”

Because pursuing acollege degree hasbecome the norm,some students may feelthat attending graduateschool is a necessity toseparate themselvesfrom their competi-tion.

Coffman disagrees.“I think students are

deciding to go becauseof the economy, andthat’s not a good rea-son,” she said.

“Don’t just go to go.You’re keeping yourselfout of the job marketand doubling your stu-dent loans. Take a stepback first.”

Page AA4 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

Research: Importance placed on higher education

Page AA5Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

By Stephanie LaingEditorial Assistant

This year, graduatingseniors at WaynesburgUniversity are lucky.

Job outlooks are betterin 2011than lastyear, andemployersare nowhiringmoreemployees.

Accord-ing to theU.S.Depart-ment ofLabor,employment rates in 2011have risen as the profes-sional and business servic-es, health care, leisure andhospitality, mining andmanufacturing industrieshave job gains.

“Because the job worldis opening a bit, peoplefeel free to move around,”said Marie Coffman,director of the career serv-ices at Waynesburg Uni-versity. Although theeconomy has better joboutlooks than past years,graduating seniors shouldstill apply for jobs outsideof the area in which theylive or want to live.

“A lot of it is dependenton if a student is open tomoving out of the area,”said Coffman.

A survey sent to thegraduating seniors showsCoffman that many sen-iors have already foundjobs. Coffman encouragesstudents that haven’t yetfound jobs to be willingand open to the idea ofrelocating. Coffmanbelieves students withdegrees that could go inmore than one directionare more likely to findjobs and will have moreoptions for advancement.

“Accounting, business

management and humanservice majors seem tofind jobs pretty quickly,”Coffman said.

According to Coffman,a lot of seniors alreadyhave jobs lined up for after

graduation. “It really

is dependenton the stu-dent andhow activethey are infinding ajob,” shesaid. “Find-ing a full-time job isdifficult butnot impossi-

ble.”Coffman also states

that professionalism iskey, specifically on thecell phone and in conver-sations.

“Look at yourselveslike the employers wouldlook at you,” she said.

Coffman has been con-tacted by prospectiveemployers who did or didnot hire students becauseof their professionalismover the phone or at theinterview.

She also recommendsdressing professionally.

For students that havenot found a job, Coffmanrecommends several safejob-search websites wherea student may find jobs,post resumés and accessemployer contact infor-mation. These websitesinclude the following:www.collegecentral.com/waynesburg,http://careers.pghtech.org/ and others.

Students looking forinternships should accesswww.theregionalintern-shipcenter.org.

Coffman said, “This isthe key to all the majors:be flexible and willing toaccept that that firstentry-level position.”

Graduating seniorsoptimistic for2011 job prospects

of transition and changecan let their faith drivethem forward.

A native of Houston,Texas, Sepulveda is famil-iar with the experience ofleaving the comfort zoneof home.

He said that his experi-ences helped him tobecome his own man andhas continued to shapeand strengthen his faith.

“After college, Godtook me away from whatwas comfortable,” he

said. “When you’re 1,200miles away from familyand friends and every-thing you know it’s a timethat you have to trust Godand really let him dosomething in your life.”

Sepulveda said that hisrookie year with the Pitts-burgh Steelers was chal-lenging until he settledinto his place among histeammates and the NFL.

“Trying to find myplaced in that locker roomenvironment my first yearwas exhausting,” he said.

“I felt that I had to havemy guard up all the time.But once people started tosee who I was and what Istood for, I was under-stood.”

While NFL is oftenpainted in a harsh light,Sepulveda feels that itonly a slice of a brokenworld.

“We live in a worldthat isn’t defined byChristian beliefs,” hesaid.

“People always ask ifit’s hard to be a Christianin the NFL. Well, it’s hardto be a Christian any-where, isn’t it? This is nodifferent.”

Sepulveda said he ishonored that the NFL hasnot only allowed him thechance to continue hisfootball career, but alsoprovided him with oppor-tunities to speak about hisfaith in Christ and how

important it is to him.“I have had these

chances fairly often and ifgives me the platform totake something God isdoing in my life and applyscriptures to it,” he said.“Thankfully, people wantto hear what I have toshare.”

Sepulveda has given histestimonial at the JubileeConference in Pittsburghon two different occa-sions, in 2009 and thispast February as well.

Additionally, he hasbeen invited to speak onbehalf of the “I Am Sec-ond” campaign andnumerous other collegiateengagements in thegreater Pittsburgh area.

Sepulvedato speak

Continued from AA1

Photo courtesy of Daniel Sepulveda

Steelers punter Daniel Sepulveda will be delivering the baccalaurette address at 10 a.m. on May 15. Sepulveda,a native of Houston, Texas, has spoken at several events including the Jubilee Conference.

Stokan said too manystudents across the nationsee the option to defaultas an easy way out of their

obligations. “A lot of kids who

default think ‘Yay, I don’thave to pay money any-more,’” he said. “But laterin life, whenever they endup going to a bank to get amortgage on a house orany significant borrowinglike that, it will show upon their records that they

didn’t pay back their loansto the school, and theirchances of getting thatloan sink much, muchlower.

We are even required togive anyone graduatingWaynesburg who hasdefaulted exit counselingthat explains what prob-lems they are going to

come up against and whatthey can do to workaround them.”

An advocate of strictfiscal responsibility,Stokan recommendedthat students not look tofinancial aid as a means toavoid paying as muchmoney as physically pos-sible.

WU in stablecondition

Continued from AA2

“A lot of it isdependent on if astudent is open tomoving out of thearea.”

Marie CoffmanDirector of Career Services

My last column. Ever.Now why does that reekof déjà vu? Oh, right.Because I already wrotemy last column. Ever.My senior year of highschool. I was 17.

I toyed with the ideaof doing a little copyand paste magic thisweek; rerunning thatsame column a secondtime around. It probablycould have worked.

The clichés aboutgrowing up and movingon would still apply.Live, laugh, love is stilltrending. And I reallynailed the use of thesemicolon in places. I’mnot sure what happened,but I can barely spellsemicolon now. Overall,it’s not a bad piece.

But I just killedmyself for four years inhopes of becoming astrong journalist. You’dthink I could at leastcome up with some newmaterial. For the lasttime. Ever.

Plus, I talk aboutsome really embarrass-ing things that hap-pened to me in highschool in that column.

Like the time I scoredon the wrong basketduring a home game. Orwhen I got my wisdomteeth out and I wasunknowingly droolingall over myself for acouple days.

I don’t want peoplehere to know about thatstuff. So embarrassing.I’d rather not bring anyof those things up.

I’ll write somethingnew. Goals: avoid clichéreferences to ends orbeginnings.

Here’s a little mathequation instead. Com-munication major dis-claimer: there may havebeen some rounding andguestimating. And I hadto use a calculator.

If I make it to 80

years old, which Iexpect to, I have onlylived one quarter of mylife. In terms of a load oflaundry, I still need $.75before I can put thisthing on tumble dry.

I am just gettingstarted, but indeed Ihave started.

The roughly 7,800days that I have livedare starting to add up tosomething. I don’t knowwhat it is yet, but I’vedefinitely got some-thing here.

It’s funny, becausewhen I think back to allthat I have experienced,all that I learned, allthat I have lived, I amsurprised it has only be7,800 days. Yet really, Iam so young, so inexpe-rienced.

At this stage in mylife, my greatest posses-sion is my education.Graduating collegespeaks volumes aboutwhat I have learned in16 years of formalizededucation, but like mydad has told me at leasta thousand times, “youcan’t let school interferewith your education.”Preach it, dad. Experi-ence is our greatestteacher.

Maybe that’s whythey let me get intosome crazy things grow-ing up.

Maturity marker:acknowledging yourparents are right.

Still kills me a littleinside, but I’m gettingthere.

But wow, they let meget away with a fewcrazy adventures.

I definitely know that Ican’t be called an experton life quite yet, but Ihave learned a lot about itin 22 years.

I would also have to saythat most of my learningdidn’t begin until I set footon this campus.

Waynesburg Universitymay be small, and it maybe located in a very smalltown, but what I receivedfrom my education at thisinstitution of higherlearning is nothing shortof amazing.

Originally, WaynesburgUniversity was not myfirst choice.

I remember quite dis-tinctly that I had an urgeto live in the city.

That urge still exists,but now I realize I mightnot have the funds rightout of college to fulfillthat dream, not yet any-way.

Point Park University,located on Boulevard ofthe Allies right in theheart of downtown Pitts-burgh, was my firstchoice. The university’s

communication programseemed attractive, and Iloved the fact that I wouldbe in the city.

I grew up in a medium-sized city, but being thefirst daughter, I was a lit-tle sheltered, to say theleast, and had a yearningto break free. So Pitts-burgh seemed like a bigenough leap for me.

But I still had one moreplace to check out.

I fell in love with whatwas then WaynesburgCollege from the momentI set foot in Alumni Hall.

I felt a very good ener-gy, and everyone wasunbelievably nice.

The Department ofCommunication alsoseemed like a better fit forme. Not to mention, thecampus was an actualcampus; not a three-storystructure like Point Park.

Deciding that I couldput my dreams to live inthe city on hold for fouryears, I applied, and here Iam, four years later, talk-ing about my experience.

My editor warned methat I was to avoid anysappiness in my very lastcolumn, so I’ll do my best.

From the start, the Uni-versity and its facultycaused me to look outsidethe little bubble thatenclosed me.

Greene County, if youdidn’t already know, isone of the poorest coun-ties in the state, andthere’s a lot of need rightin our own backyard.

It might sound cliché,but I don’t think I trulyrealized this prior to myexperience here.

I didn’t understand theconcept of servant leader-ship until fairly recently.

Now, I’m very happy toknow that although Imight be looking for a job,and I don’t have one yet(which is frustrating andupsetting), there are mil-lions of people out there

who will never have aneducation and are lucky ifthey can scrape up enoughmoney to put food on thetable.

I now know that I havea responsibility to others,both locally and globally.

I’m so grateful to theuniversity, because with-out teaching me this, Inever would haveinterned with the UnitedWay of WestmorelandCounty, and I neverwould have grown as aperson.

Just last week, I had theopportunity to listen toBob Harris.

He has traveled allaround the globe after arequest by Forbes Travelerto compile a list of thefinest accommodationson earth.

He talked about visit-ing the United Arab Emi-rates and staying in themost expensive buildingon earth while, just acrossthe street, slave labor wasbeing used to construct

I’ve composed severalfarewell columns in myhead during the past fewmonths.

I’ve hated all of them.I’ll compose what I thinkis some spectacularlywitty yet poignant para-graph and then realizehow trite and inconse-quential it is.

Of course, by thattime, I’ll have forgottenwhat I mentally com-posed, so it doesn’t reallymatter.

What matters is thatI’m graduating. Soon. AndI’m terrified.

So many details stillneed to fall into place.

However, I know thateverything will work out(or at least that’s what myfiancé keeps telling me).

I’ll get married. (And

get a new last name.) I’llmove onto graduateschool. (Pitt, here I come!)And I’ll never work onthe Yellow Jacket again.

That’s the hardest partfor me.

The people I work withon this newspaper havetruly become my family.

We spend hours andhours working on the Yel-low Jacket.

Walk by Buhl 400 on aMonday or Tuesdaynight, and you’ll findcomplete and utter chaos.

We might be singingDisney songs, or the

sports guys will be inces-santly quoting “Anchor-man.”

The guys will probablystill be trying to asserttheir section’s domi-nance. (Sorry, guys. Cam-pus is best.)

We might be complain-ing about missing articlesor whining about how lit-tle sleep we’ll get thatnight.

But I guarantee we’ll belaughing.

Those nights havebecome some of my fond-est memories.

Working on the YellowJacket has given me ahome where I can bemyself.

I’ve truly been blessedto find such great friends,both on staff and outsidethe Department of Com-

munication.My dorm room wall is

covered in photos of myfriends and Post-it noteswith silly things we’vesaid this year. (Someexamples: “I’m notangsty! I’m in a leadershipposition!” “Can I babysitJustin Beiber?” “It’s not acurse! It’s a disease of themind!”)

Every time my room-mates and I see thosenotes, we’re reminded ofa good memory.

Laughter has been acommon theme through-out my four years at Way-nesburg.

My fiancé first caughtmy attention with hishumor during a servicelearning class. (I’ll always

Page AA6 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

A word from our seniors...

RACHELBROWN

ColumnistSIERRASHAFER

Columnist

Working to create a better tomorrow

Friends, laughter, and the Yellow Jacket

See LAUGHING on AA7

See MAKING on AA7See I’LL on AA7

Past words of advicestill ring true today

NATALIEBRUZDA

Columnist

Summers in SouthAmerica at 13, withoutthem; spending Y2Kfour miles in the Col-orado backcountry tosleep in a snow cave;transferring to Waynes-burg University on awhim just two weeksbefore classes started.

Oops, it looks likethey let me do what Iwanted.

Except for eat pepper-oni pizza before I was inhigh school.

Darn vegetarians.But there are a lot of

things I still want.

Many of things I willnever get; some for goodreason, some for lack oftrying. But there areothers that I know, inthis lifetime, I willachieve.

They are goals anddesires deeply engrainedin who I am that seeminnately part of me.

They have to happen,and they will, if I cankeep out of my ownway.

I’m older and maybeeven getting wiser – butstill so young; still inneed of words of wis-dom for life and super-vision when using semi-colons.

If only I could chan-nel my old semicolon-proficient ways.

I can however, dig up

some insight from myyounger years, from theglory days, from thefinal words of my lastcolumn.

Ever. “Love each other and

always show yourutmost respect. Decidewhat is really importantto you and hold ontightly to it. In spite ofit all the struggles andthe uncertainties, I amglad to have been here;to have done it. It iswhy I am ready to go. Iam going to leave; weall are. But we can’t for-get where we have beenbecause it has every-thing to do with wherewe are going.”

– Sierra Shafer, 2007Cheers, Waynesburg.

I’ll be seeing you.

another fancy building.And it got him think-

ing. Now, he has foundhis own way to changethe world.

I’d like to say that Way-nesburg University gotme thinking.

It got me thinking a lot.

I’ve been thinking thateven though I might behaving the worst day ofmy life, it is nothing incomparison to whatsomeone else is goingthrough down the street,across the country or onanother continent.

Because at the end ofthe day, I have a roof overmy head, shoes on myfeet and a beautiful mindthat God gave me.

So I need to stop com-plaining. I need to stop

whining and grumblingabout job searching.

Because it sounds real-ly silly when there’s somuch that I should bethankful for.

The United Waybelieves that if we liveunited, we can inspirehope and create opportu-nities for a better tomor-row.

I want to create a bettertomorrow; WaynesburgUniversity started me onmy journey.

Page AA7Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

have a soft spot for servicelearning.)

My professors don’thesitate to use humor tomake classes more inter-esting. (Thank you formaking classes accessibleand enjoyable.)

My friends and I con-tinually tease each othergood-naturedly. We makeeach other laugh.

College would be insuf-ferable without laughter.

Sure, there have beentears. Sure, there are thosesleepless nights in which Idon’t think I’ll ever beable to finish the moun-

tain of work I have intime.

Sure, there have beenfights. But I don’t focus onthose.

For me, college is morethan whatever I’velearned in the classroom.And I’ve learned a lot.

(I can write grants andtape news packages now. Idefinitely couldn’t do thatfour years ago.)

College is about theexperiences, about thepeople, about the laugh-ter. Years from now, whenI look back on my fouryears at Waynesburg, Iwon’t remember the tearsor the fights.

I won’t remember thefailed quizzes or missedhomework assignments.

But I sure hope I’llremember the laughter.

Laughingthrough life

Continued from AA6

‘I’ll beseeing you’

Continued from AA6

File Photo

From left to right, Dylan August, Sierra Shafer and Brian Davis return after a mis-sion trip to Mississippi with the John Perkins Foundation last May.

File Photo

From right to left, Jon Ledyard, Kaitlin Edwards, Rachel Brown, Sierra Shafer and Kyle Edwards pose for a photoin the Publication office. Rachel Brown is the current Executive Editor of the newspaper.

Making achange

Continued from AA6

Page AA8 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Commencement

By Kyle EdwardsRegion Editor

Commencement isapproaching fast, whichmeans that nominationforms have been sent outfor the Lucas-HathawayAward for teaching excel-lence.

“Basically this is anopportunity for us to rec-ognize outstanding teach-ing,” said Dr. Robert Gra-ham, provost for Waynes-burg University.

“The University pridesitself in providing stu-dents with an excellenteducation, and a key com-ponent of that educationis faculty and teaching.”

The Lucas-HathawayAwards were started in1990 and only had twocategories, said Dr. Gra-ham.

“Over the years we’vemodified that to the cur-rent three categories,” hesaid. “We chose these cat-egories to recognize con-tinued excellence in theclassroom.”

According to Dr. Gra-ham, the categories focuson recognizing facultymembers with a history ofteaching excellence, facul-ty who are relatively newand part-time instructorswho have demonstratedexcellence in the class-room.

“We want to recognizethe teachers who haveexcelled at their jobs – wewant to recognize theirachievements,” Dr. Gra-ham said.

The three professorswho are selected for the

awards receive a smallplaque and a cash prize.

Dr. Graham explainedthat nomination formsare sent via e-mail to allstudents and faculty.

“All we ask is that ifthere is a particularteacher who has demon-strated excellence in theclassroom, we ask thatthe student take sometime to fill out a form,nominating that person,”he said.

After all the nomina-tions have been turnedinto his office, Dr. Gra-ham said that a selectioncommittee comes togeth-

er to make decisions onwho should receive theaward.

Dr. Ronda DePriest,associate professor ofinstrumental music anddirector of the music pro-gram, was one of lastyear’s recipients.

“I was given the Lucas-Hathaway Award forteaching excellence – theone for a reasonably newprofessor,” she said.

“Last year was myfourth year teaching here,so I was considered ‘rea-sonably new.’”

Dr. DePriest said thatshe was overjoyed to have

been nominated, let alonereceive the award.

“I was ecstatic when Iwas told I would bereceiving the award. It’sjust such an honor,” shesaid.

“To have your studentssuggest you is the ulti-mate honor. I’m so appre-ciative – it’s just so won-derful to be nominatedand to receive the award. Ihope I can continue to liveup to everyone’s expecta-tions.”

According to Dr. Gra-ham, the recipients of theaward are announced dur-ing the commencementceremony.

“During the ceremony,we have a specific point inthe program where theaward recipients will berecognized,” he said.

Dr. Graham said thatthere is not a rule againstreceiving the award morethan once.

“We just don’t want toreward the same personevery year,” he said.“There are so many of ourfaculty members who areexcellent teachers. Wewant to give them all achance to win the award.”

Students who wish tonominate one of their pro-fessors should fill out theattached forms found intheir email and returnthem to the Office of theProvost no later thanApril 29.

Included with the nom-ination form should be aone page, double-spacedletter of support detailingwhy the professor shouldbe nominated.

Teaching award deadline approaching

Photo courtesy of University Relations

Dr. Ronda DePriest was a recipient of Lucas-Hathawayaward last year. Applications are due April 29.

connection betweenthe kind of workersavailable and what jobsactually exist.

“Similarities in theexperi-ences ofrecentcollegegraduatesin thelabor mar-ket duringthe tworecessionsand recov-eries areevidencethat high unemploy-ment rates in the cur-rent downturn andrecovery are also main-ly cyclical,” bank econ-omists Bart Hobijn,Colin Gardiner andTheodore Wiles wrote.

The Wall Street Jour-nal article said thatrecent graduates work-ing full-time jobs aremaking as much moneyas those who graduatedwhen the recessionbegan in 2007, howev-er, the earnings for theaverage worker grew7.3 percent in the sametime period.

The bank economistsconcluded that it wouldnot have happened thisway if structural factorswere the main cause ofhigh unemploymentrates.

Coffman believesthat in times whenunemployment is high,college graduates must

very actively pursue jobopportunities.

“Finding a job is pret-ty much a full-timejob,” she said.

Coffman said thatthere are four “p’s” thatcollege graduatesshould adhere to duringtheir search for work,which are: patience,persistence, profession-

alism andbeingproactive.

She saidthat profes-sionalism isa hugeaspect forsuccessful-ly findingemploy-ment,which may

include simple thingssuch as phone etiquetteand having a profes-sional voicemail greet-ing.

“It goes from cellphone, to email to theimage of yourselfyou’re portraying onFacebook,” she said.College graduatesshould also be flexible,Coffman said.

“Some may find thatperfect first-time job;90 to 95 percent of thetime that may not bethe case,” she said.“They may have to takea lower paying job firstto get their foot in thedoor.”

According to FederalReserve officials andprivate-sector econo-mists, hiring is expect-ed to continue toincrease over theupcoming months andthe unemployment rateshould continue to fall.

More jobopportunities

Continued from AA2

“Finding a job ispretty much a full-time job.”

Marie CoffmanDirector of Career Services

Chemistry major fell in love with campus, programBy Sandor MecsStaff Writer

Love at first sight. That is what forensic

chemistry major Court-ney George believes shehad when she firstwalked around Waynes-burg the spring before she

entered the university.This beginning proved

to be a harbinger of goodthings to come.

While being involvedin the American Chemi-cal Society and reachingout to local childrenthrough the regular labsconducted by the Way-

nesburg chapter, Georgehas been able to connectwith friends and profes-sors in an extraordinarymanner.

One of her experiencesin an outside-of-class-room lab held simply forfun highlights this.

“We had found this

video on YouTube of peo-ple who were able to holda cup of water upsidedown on a table, andwhen they pulled away,had the water stay therefor a whole minute. Wetried it, and we didn’t getit to work at all,” she said.

“We kept trying and

getting the whole placewet and I just thought tomyself ‘Wow, what a nerdI am. I could be taking anap right now, but I’mhere, trying to get waterto stand up.’”

Her work in the ACStook her to various loca-tions for important con-

ferences. Loving theinternational atmosphereat last year’s PittCon, sheremembered a particularmoment when the lan-guage of science engagedher with someone in away that the language of

Riding into the future

Photo courtesy of Danielle Brush

Senior Danielle Brush had the opportunity to ride a camel while she studied abroad with the Middle East StudiesProgram in the fall. Brush visited several countries while there, including Egypt and Turkey.

Senior visits 10 countries, discoverspassion for experimental psychologyBy Eric BostStaff Writer

Danielle Brush made apromise to herself. Shewould visit 10 countriesbefore she graduated fromcollege. And, as her senior

year ends, she can crossthat goal off her list.

Through variousschool-sponsored trips,Brush has visited Argenti-na, South Africa, Turkey,Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Israeland Palestine. She also

visited Mexico and Cana-da while in high school.

Add in the UnitedStates, and that’s 10. HerMiddle Eastern travelswere made possiblethrough a study abroadprogram.

“I wanted to go some-where where nobody fromour school has gonebefore,” she said.

Brush plans to graduatethis year with a psycholo-

Busy bee: Bonner scholar involved in variety of activitiesBy Chelsea ShafferStaff Writer

To say that StephanieLeisie, senior elementaryand special educationmajor, is involved on cam-pus would be a hugeunderstatement. Leisie isa part of DRUS Women’sSociety, Kappa Delta Pi,Who’s Who Among Stu-dent’s in American Uni-versities and Colleges, XiPsi Epsilon, the Bonner

Scholars Program and thesoftball team. Accordingto Leisie, it was notalways easy.

“I found it challenging,at times to juggle school,Bonner and extracurricu-lar activities,” she said. “Ihad to learn how to man-age my time efficiently.”

Although she isinvolved in manyextracurricular activities,student teaching and aca-demics are still very

important to Leisie. “I always knew that I

wanted to go into a profes-sion that involved work-ing with children,” saidLeisie. “Becoming ateacher lets me do justthat and more. Not onlydo I teach students...butmy students teach meevery day.”

According to SarahBrandstetter, Bonner coor-dinator, Leisie is verydriven toward elementary

and special education.“[Leisie] is a leader. She

is very engaged in herstudies,” said Brandstet-ter. “She goes above andbeyond in everything shedoes. She is just a naturalin the classroom.”

During her collegecareer, Leisie has been onfour mission trips. She hasserved others in Washing-ton D.C., Patzun,Guatemala, and on twotrips to Montego Bay,

Jamaica. According toLeisie, these mission tripshave had the most impacton her time at Waynes-burg.

Leisie served as the sitecoordinator at Kid’s Caféin west Waynesburg. Forthis job, she would recruitand oversee volunteers aswell as provide children inthe local community witha place to eat, play and dohomework.

According to Brandstet-

ter, Leisie connected serv-ice and faith with whatshe learned.

“[Leisie] has beenabsolutely outstandingboth academically and inregards to Bonner,” Brand-stetter said. “She hasalways been a joy to bearound. She is veryknowledgeable. She is thetype of person who is will-ing to give of herself tomake everyone else feelwelcomed.”

Life in the fast lane:Student athlete excelson track, in classroomBy Aaron ThompsonAssistant Sports Editor

Senior track and fieldathlete Mikey Macoskorealizes that everythingshe has known for thepast four years is going tochange in just a few shortweeks.

She has served asfriend, athlete, captain,leader and student at theuniversity.

The senior hurdlerfrom Jefferson Hills, Pa.,has spent the past four

years balancing athleticswith a very demandingacademic schedule.

Macosko, a nursingmajor, said that Waynes-burg has taught her a lotabout herself and hashelped her realize theimportance of valuing hertime.

“[The last four years]have taught me to digdeep,” she said. “You real-ly have to love what youdo. There are days where

Enthusiasm, work ethicmakes education majorshine, professor says

See BRUSH on BB6

By Amanda SilayStaff Writer

After graduationmany students will betaking trips, whether ittakes them back homeor to their future career.

Not many of thosetrips will involve a wed-ding followed by a two-day mad dash across thecountry, but that willsoon be the life of com-puter science and sec-ondary education majorIan Lundholm.

Lundholm has beengreatly involved withhis education as well asthe community and thechildren.

“I have been involved

with the WWJD Centerand their Youth inAction program,” Lund-holm said. “I also havea Bible Study with agroup of friends everyweek.”

Most people wouldassume graduating fromcollege and planning awedding would be verydifficult, but he is mak-ing it work.

“It is tempting to letschool stuff slide, but Iwouldn’t let that hap-pen,” Lundholm said.

His fiancée KristyGidley also agreesthings are working outas well as they can.

See WORK on BB7

See WU on BB2

See MACOSKO on BB4

Page BB2 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

English could not.“I was standing at the

booth, and this professorfrom Russia comes upand starts talking to me,”she said.

“I didn’t understandwhat he was saying. Andhe even came back thenext day and started talk-ing to me again and I waslike ‘OK, I don’t know

what you’re saying, butI’ll just smile and nod.’”

But it wasn’t only fel-low classmates and for-eign professors that shemet. Her professorsopened her up to memo-

rable experiences.“I remember one of my

classes this year—therewere only seven of us—and we all got to knoweach other very well,”she said. “Somebody said

that we should all havedinner together, and myprofessor said that wecould do it at his vine-yard. I just yelled ‘Party atthe vineyard!’ and it has-n’t come true yet, but weneed to get on that.”

George and her class-mates have a bonfire atthe end of every spring atDr. John William’s houseand will be gettingtogether for the annualevent very soon.

“We just sit up on hishill and roast marshmal-lows,” she said. “It’s justa good time altogether.”

“...I just thought to myself, ‘Wow,what a nerd I am. I could be taking anap right now, but I’m here, trying toget water to stand up.”

Courtney GeorgeSenior chemistry major

WU holds fond memories

Continued from BB1

Faith crucial to senior’s successBy Jason LoganStaff Writer

“I’d like to clone Kyleso I could keep himaround here a few moreyears,” said RondaDePriest, director of theMusic Program.

Kyle Kooyers, seniorbiblical and ministrystudies major, is one stu-dent who plans on usinghis love for God, passionof community develop-ment and creativity totranspose his works fromthis school into his futureand career.

Following his gradua-tion, Kooyers will estab-lish a community houseprogram in Waynesburg,where recent graduatescan serve and do researchwithin the community.

After this first project,Kooyers hopes to attendseminary.

“Faith has been a hugepart of my family’s walkand why we are all soclose,” said Kooyers. “If Ido go to seminary andbecome ordained, I thinkI’ll be the first in myentire family to ever gothat route, so it’s kind ofcool.”

The list goes on and onfor the activities, min-istries and organizationsKooyers was active in dur-ing his time spent at Way-nesburg. Kooyers washeavily involved in the

Campus Ministries team,Youth Day, Chapel plan-ning team, CrossroadsYouth Ministry, Waynes-burg’s music program andYouth in Action, as wellas many others.

During Youth Day ofthis year, Kooyers wasgiven the opportunity todisplay his creative sidethrough his ministry in abig way.

“I am a very creativeperson to the extent that Ilove to build things,” saidKooyers.

“I don’t always get the

opportunity with every-thing that I do to take thetime and really createsomething. This was theperfect opportunity tobuild my Optimus Primerobot suit, which becameto be about 8 ft tall and 4ft wide.”

Kooyers said his partic-ipation with Youth inAction at the WWJD Cen-ter in west Waynesburghad a major influence onhim.

During his freshmanyear, Kooyers and somefriends realized there was

a need to focus on teenoutreach at the WWJDCenter. Kooyers managedto jump-start the program.

The outreach, as wellas many other WWJD pro-grams, flourishes andtouches many lives to thisday.

“[Ministry] is thisnever-ending process ofrethinking things andhow we can do this morecreatively,” said Kooyers.“It is in it of itself thislarge-scale project thatjust really doesn’t have anend.”

Senior KyleKooyers (right)used his creativityto create a work-ing Optimus Primesuit for Youth Day.In addition, hewas involved inmany communityoutreach and min-istry programs.

Photo courtesy of Kyle Kooyers

Education major finds escape in theaterBy Amanda SilayStaff Writer

Whether in front of alarge group of youngchildren or in an audi-torium full of people,Senior Elementary Edu-cation Major MelissaGrom is used to it all.

What brought her tothe university has kepther here for the pastfour years of her educa-tion.

“I was decidingbetween Waynesburgand St. Francis Univer-sity,” Grom said.

“Believe it or not,there was actually moreto do here and the peo-ple were also more per-sonable.”

She has been a veryactive member of theuniversity and hasmany interests that shehas expressed in herfour years.

“My favorite part ofmy experience has beenmy involvement in allof the musicals since

my freshman year,”Grom said. “Getting tocreate friendships withall the cast membershas been the best partabout it.”

All of her musicaltalents have been onshowcase throughout

her career at the univer-sity.

“I have been a mem-ber of the Beauty ShopQuartet for the past twoyears, and I really enjoythat,” Grom said.

All of these experi-ences are what her

adviser, DianeWoodrum, said makeGrom the teacher sheis.

“The singing, theaterand her knowledge ofkids help to make her a

Photo courtesy of Melissa Grom

Melissa Grom works with a student on reading comprehension. Grom earned a 4.0GPA through seven completed semesters of study at Waynesburg.

See GROM on BB5

Shocking experience:CJ major gets tasedBy Jessica SchinkovecStaff Writer

Only a true criminaljustice major sees gettingtased as a good experience.

Brian Wehrle is a gradu-ating senior in the Depart-ment of Criminal Justice.

His years at Waynes-burg University have beenbusy with experiencessuch as spending a year asan Resident Assistant,having a part time job atTarget, being a part of peereducation and having sur-gery.

Getting tased during an

internship that isn’t evenneeded for graduation hasto be one of the mostinteresting experiences,though.

Criminal justice majorsare suggested to do aninternship, but it is notrequired for graduation.

Wehrle decided that aninternship would be agood opportunity anyway.

“It was at WashingtonCounty Department ofProbation for adults; afriend and I did it together,and I was tased,” said

See WEHRLE on BB4

December graduatedreams of workingwith U.S. MarshallsBy Jessica SchinkovecStaff Writer

Knowing exactly whatyou want to do when yougrow up before graduatinghigh school is hard formost students.

Imagine knowing andthen watching as yourdream almost falls apart.

Graduating senior Vir-ginia Clasby is working onpursuing her dream to be apart of the U.S. MarshallsWitness Program, and hashad some interesting upsand downs in her timehere.

“I was interested incriminal justice since high

school,” said Clasby. “I knew how corrupt

society as a whole was,and I wanted to changethat. Frankly, being asuperhero was out of thequestion.”

In college, a student isbound to struggle in someway, but some have aharder time than others.

“My toughest year wasprobably my sophomoreyear, but for more person-al reasons than academ-ic,” said Clasby.

“I had knee surgery onboth of my knees andfound out I have the same

See CLASBY on BB4

Counseling studentinterns at SCI GreeneBy Alex HintonEditorial Assistant

“Have you ever beenchained to a tree, left therefor three days and beatenlike a dog?”

It’s a horrifying scene toimagine, but it is whatRandi Chambers, a gradu-ate mental health coun-seling student, heard froman inmate. She completedher internship at SCIGreene, the county jail.

“[The inmates] havebeen through horribletrauma,” she said. “It’sfascinating but reallyscary what people gothrough.”

Her first counselingpatient was a prisoner anda father.

“Most people, whenyou ask who they are, saytheir name and whatthey’re in [prison] for. Isaid, ‘no, act like we’re sit-ting at a coffee shop talk-ing,’” Chambers said.“He really wanted to be adad but couldn’t be withhis kids. Everyone has athing they desire,but theywant to live up to every-one else’s expectations.You lose sight of who youare.”

A mom of three, Cham-bers worked three jobsthroughout graduateschool. Somehow after somuch work with her day-

time job in court, twonights of classes, and theother nights and week-ends filled with waitress-ing, she manages to bebubbly and full of energy.

Her children Sydni, 20,a special needs child,Sebastian, 17, a highschool senior and Peyton,12, know what it’s like tohave a busy mother.

“They’re pretty great atnot seeing me,” Cham-bers said. “For a year theywent through a lot.”

Dr. Elizabeth Ventura,assistant professor ofcounseling, is someoneChambers looks up to.

“She’s such a hoot.She’s sort of a peer men-tor,” Chambers said.“There’s not just somemagical cure to problems;it’s about figuring out whoyou are, and she’s donethat.”

Ventura, too, isimpressed by Chambers’shard work and compas-sionate personality.

“She’s very genuine,kind, humorous andalways willing to helpother students,” Venturasaid.

Chambers plans tocounsel kids and troubledyouth up to adults.

“I think maybe [coun-seling] has always beenwhat I was supposed todo.”

By Cori SchipaniStaff Writer

Brittany Kitzmillersecretly wishes she hadan Australian accent.

Unfortunately, shecould not pick one upwhen she studied abroadin Australia in the fall ofher junior year.

Kitzmiller, an adver-tising and marketingmajor, has gained atten-tion in the Departmentof Business throughouther four years at the uni-versity through herengagement in interna-tional travel and adynamic internship, andher ability to takeadvantage of experi-ences.

“I love traveling, so Itry to go to as manyplaces as possible,” said

Kitzmiller, who alsowent to Europe this pastsummer.

Gordon McClung,chair of the Department

of Business Administra-tion, said Kitzmiller isone of his favorite stu-dents to work with.

“She has a level of

maturity and willing-ness to do internationaltravel, which a lot ofstudents don’t takeadvantage of,” McClung

said. “I’m not surethere’s anything thatwould really intimidateher in terms of taking ashot at it.”

Kitzmiller’s inspira-tion has been her father,who passed away whenshe was 13.

“I used to go to workwith him thinking itwas the coolest thingever and feeling soimportant, and eversince then, I knew Iwanted to be a business-woman to be just likehim,” said Kitzmiller.

Kitzmiller spent thispast summer research-ing strategies and trendsas an intern at one of thetop 100 advertisingagencies in the country,

“If I go to a restaurantnow, I’m just analyzingthe way I did in my

internship and noticingtheir different advertis-ing techniques,” saidKitzmiller.

Being in both theDepartment of Commu-nication and Depart-ment of BusinessAdministration,Kitzmiller does getstuck in between.

“I have to be the mid-dleman,” saidKitzmiller, who has hadto stay efficient in bothdepartments’ activities.

“Dual majors was herdecision, and she hasdone extremely well inbalancing those thingsout,” McClung said.

After graduation,Kitzmiller will be livingin Morgantown, W. Va.,taking a job as a regionalsales associate for MylanPharmaceuticals.

Page BB3Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

Graduate sets sights on career in EuropeBy Marisa van der EijkStaff Writer

Brandi Ullom, a seniorInternational Culturemajor, loves to travel. Herlove for traveling hastaken her to many placesincluding Ireland, Eng-land, Jamaica and Argenti-na. One reason Ullombecame interested instudying internationalculture is because of herpassion for traveling. Inaddition to traveling,Ullom decided to pursue amajor in internationalculture because sheenjoys learning about newcultures.

“I’ve always been inter-ested in different culturesand policies, so this was aperfect match,” saidUllom.

Ullom takes everyopportunity she can totravel abroad. She went onthe very first sponsoredmission trip to Argentina.

“I just picked theArgentina trip and itended up being amazing,”said Ullom.

For Ullom, deciding toattend Waynesburg Uni-versity was easy.

“I’m from Waynesburgso it was an obviouschoice,” she said. “I onlylive six miles away.”

Even with the universi-ty being so close to home,Ullom has gained somuch over her collegecareer.

“I’ve gained many

opportunities to travel,”said Ullom.

In addition to being aworld-class traveler,Ullom is the co-presidentof WORLD.

This organization hashelped her educate stu-dents about different cul-tures all throughout theworld. WORLD hasorganized many eventssuch as the several sushi

nights and OperationChristmas Child.

As a senior, Ullom isnow taking her hardestclass, the Israel-PalestineConflict.

“I went into the classnot knowing anything,”said Ullom. “It’s reallycomplicated and hard toremember everything.”

Even with her busyschedule, Ullom still

makes the Dean’s listevery semester.

After graduation,Ullom plans to attendgraduate school in Scot-land. Staying in Waynes-burg is not an option forUllom. In the future,Ullom plans to travel tomany more countries.

“I really would like towork in Eastern Europe,”said Ullom.

Brandi Ullomtraveled tocountries suchas Argentina,Ireland,England andJamaica.

Photo courtesy of Brandi Ullom

December graduatealways set high goals By Rachel DavisStaff Writer

It’s not every day that acollege student is able toland the internship oftheir dreams, but recentgraduate, public relationsmajor Rachell Storm, wasable to.

This past summer,Storm worked withMcNeely Pigott & FoxPublic Relations inNashville.

The firm works for toporganizations like theTennessee Titans.

It was a great learningexperience for Storm.

“I worked on all kindsof projects and gainedexperience in every singleaspect of the field. Any-thing from planning apress conference, to writ-ing a news release, to tak-ing photos and planningevents,” said Storm. “Iworked on at least 10client accounts, whichallowed me to do some-thing different every dayand to constantly improvemy writing, speaking andediting skills.”

Storm knows that if itwasn’t for the teachingand assistance from Pro-fessor Richard Krause,Department of Commu-nication chair, she would-n’t have had the right

material for the intern-ship.

“He expected a lot andmade us work hard, butalways made sure we werelearning and gaining theexperience we needed,”said Storm.

Perhaps her successwas also due to the goalsStorm has set for herself,which include “accom-plishing more than thebare minimum of what isexpected and workinghard, no matter how longor uncomfortable it mightbe.”

Working hard is exactlywhat Storm did in hertime at Waynesburg Uni-versity.

She was president ofthe Department of Com-munication’s professionalhonors society Lambda PiEta as well as the vicepresident of the Waynes-burg University chapter ofPRSSA.

Storm recently marriedher long-term boyfriendKeith Baker and is plan-ning on attending KentUniversity’s graduateschool program beginningin the fall, again focusingon public relations.

She hopes that some-day she will be able to finda job that contains allareas of the public rela-tions field.

COMMUNICATION

Advertising major to begin work at Mylan Pharmaceuticals

Photo courtesy of Brittany Kitzmiller

Brittany Kitzmiller oversees the advertising staff of the Yellow Jacket. She recentlyreceived a job offer from Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

Page BB4 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

you’re completelyexhausted but you justhave to keep going.”

Macosko said that thenursing program is whatbrought her to the univer-sity when she was lookingat schools as a high schoolsenior.

“I didn’t know muchabout Waynesburg but Iapplied and got accepted,”Macosko said.

“My parents told me tocome to check it out. Icame down for a visit andchecked out the [nursing]program and I felt really athome here. I think if Iwould have gone to a big-ger school, I wouldn’thave done as well.”

Macosko originallythought she wanted to goto a large school but thevisit to Waynesburg andseeing the program first-hand immediately wonher over.

“I think our nursingprogram here is awesome.The program has had a

100 percent pass rate [onthe National CouncilLicensure Examinationfor Registered Nurses]three years in a row,”Macosko said. “Our pro-fessors have been a realgood support system.They teach us great com-munication and nursingskills. The simulation labhas helped us put real lifesituations in to practice.”

On the athletic side,Macosko has evolved intoone of the top performerson the women’s Track andField team.

Macosko has competedin the following individ-

ual events: 400-meterdash, 100-meter hurdlesand the 400-meter hur-dles. She has also compet-ed on the 4 by100-meterrelay and the 4 by 400-meter relay teams. Sheholds the modern outdoorrecord for school historyin each of those events.

In the 100-meter hur-dles Macosko holds all ofthe top 10 spots historical-ly and the top nine spotsin the 400-meter hurdles.

Macosko said that thismarks the 10th year thatshe has participated inTrack and Field. She start-ed back in middle school

and has enjoyed it eversince. Macosko listedHead Track and FieldCoach Jason Falvo andposition coach DaveMajewski as her athleticmentors and Professor ofNursing Stacy Huber as akey during her education.

“In this nursing pro-gram you really start themajor classes during soph-omore year,” Macoskosaid. “Stacy was unbeliev-able to reach out to. She’sa great service.”

Macosko said of herexperiences at Waynes-burg that she “wouldn’tchange it for anything.”

Senior MikeyMacosko had tobalance practicesand meets forTrack and Field aswell as her nursingschool work duringher time atWaynesburg.

File Photo

Macosko playsbalancing act

Continued from BB1

Wehrle. “We had anMMA training one day,and before we went tolunch one of the guys

asked if we wanted to gettased, and if we said no,we would be the laughingstock of the office, so wegot tased.”

Wehrle is also execu-tive vice president of Stu-dent Senate.

“My main focus thisyear is Student Senate. Inthe past I have done many

other things, but this yearI have been pretty relaxedon my involvement,” saidWehrle. “Getting ready tograduate and applying tojobs keeps me busy.”

Wehrle said he has nodream job, but he hasapplied to the secret serv-ice and executive posi-tions at Target, and he has

a civil test for state policecoming up.

Preparing to graduate ishard work, as it is thetime to step into the realworld.

“I love the professors;even the associate profes-sors are all great,” saidWehrle. “I’m going tomiss it.”

poor knee cartilage thatmy mom’s side of thefamily has. I struggled per-sonally, emotionally andspiritually that year.”

With great supportfrom professors and class-mates she was able to getthrough her toughest year.

“The girl who ended up

being my roommate forthe rest of college helpedme through the emotionaland spiritual issues I washaving more than any-thing else,” said Clasby.“She dragged me to UpperRoom so I could get myspiritual and emotionalissues ironed out.”

Clasby is now workinga temporary job doing pri-vate security but hasapplied to many other jobshoping to work her wayup to her dream job.

Clasby works at security firm

Continued from BB2

Wehrle holdsSenate post

Continued from BB2

Two-sport star to study physical therapy in graduate schoolBy Matthew SnyderStaff Writer

The question is simplynot what she did, but howshe did it all.

Elisha Jones is a seniorathletic training major, amember of the women’sbasketball team, and amember of track andfield.

She is a member of theAthletic Training StudentAssociation and Leader-

ship Scholars Program.She also has a list ofaccomplishments andawards from her time atWaynesburg.

Ask Jones what wasthe hardest part of hertime at Waynesburg, andher response would betime management.

“At times I look back,and I don’t know how I fitall that in,” said Jones.

“Really I always kept aplanner, and time man-

agement is definitely astrength of mine nowthat I made it throughthese four years because Ihad to be so precise witheverything I planned outfor the week.”

Jones said she pickedWaynesburg Universitybecause she would beable to study athletictraining and still partici-pate in two sports.

“Sports are a big part ofmy life,” said Jones. “I

was not willing to givethat up, and at Waynes-burg, I didn’t have to.”

During her time at theuniversity, Jones acquireda number of awards forboth basketball and trackand field.

Those awards includebeing named team cap-tain three years, MVP ofthe ECAC Women’s Bas-ketball Tournament andFirst Team All-PAC fromthe 2010-2011 basketball

season.Jones also managed to

fit in working as an exer-cise specialist at SouthWest Regional Hospitalfor three and a half yearsalong with completingclinical rotations throughthe Athletic Trainingdepartment.

With a schedule thatwas sometimes over-whelming, Jones said shehad to learn to change herway of thinking.

“Organization is key;you got to learn when tosay no,” Jones said.

“Prioritize things thatare more important thanothers. There are going tobe conflicts, and you haveto be able to tell peopleno.”

Jones looks to continueher education.

She will be attendingthe University of Pitts-burgh for physical thera-py beginning in June.

Senior switches tracks,will attend grad schoolto be physician assistantBy Brandon ReedEditorial Assistant

When most studentsgraduate, they do notexpect to make great start-ing salaries, but forensicscience major Brett Gageplans to make $80,000annually as a physicianassistant. Gage plans toattend Marietta College inOhio to complete a 26-month graduate program.

Gage, who began as abiology major, said that hebecame interested in CSIone summer and afterlooking more into forensicscience. He soon realizedthat it combined his twofavorite subjects: biologyand chemistry.

“I have always been fas-cinated by crime scenesand how deaths occur,”said Gage. “After thatsummer, I changed over tothe forensic sciencemajor.”

Gage said that he origi-

nally wanted to do autop-sies as a forensic patholo-gist, but after realizing hecould make more moneyand take less schoolingbeing a physician assis-tant, he decided to choosethat career path. Gagesaid that his biggest chal-lenge was physics. Oncehe got through that, heenjoyed being a forensicscience major a lot.

“I loved it the entiretime I was here,” saidGage. “It is always some-thing that I have loved.”

Michael Cipoletti,assistant professor offorensic science, said hewas impressed with hisgreat grades and workethic.

“It amazes me howinvolved he is in thedepartment,” said Cipo-letti. “And how he canstill maintain a great gradepoint average in one of thehardest majors on cam-pus.”

Fast track: Athlete graduates in three yearsBy Kyle OlandStaff Writer

Not many people wantto run five miles.

Even fewer peoplewant to run five milesafter working in the hotand dry Arizona dessertfor 10 hours.

Maria Shepas is theexception. Shepas, a sen-ior biology and exercisescience student, went on aservice trip to Arizona tocreate a trail in thedessert.

Dr. Chad Sethman,assistant professor of biol-ogy, went on this trip withShepas. He said each daythe group would drive fivemiles from their campand work on creating thetrail.

The group would workfor as long as 10 hours,which would involve hardmanual labor in theintense dessert heat.

Instead of driving withthe group back and forth

from the camp to the trail,Shepas would run thosefive miles, said Sethman.

“I had to get a work outin,” said Shepas. “Therewasn’t a gym down there Icould work out in.”

Along with her toughacademic schedule, Shep-as pours her heart into theschool’s football team, of

which her father is thehead coach.

“Being able to be withmy dad everyday is one ofthe reasons I came here,”said Shepas. “I have beenaround football since Iwas five.”

Shepas works dailywith the football team,helping with their

strength and condition-ing.

“I want to see people dowell. The football team ismy extended family,” saidShepas. “I want to seethem do things they did-n’t think were possible. Idon’t want to only makethem better physically,but make them great peo-ple.”

Shepas lives a verybusy schedule. She workswith the football team,plays lacrosse, runs trackand manages her academ-ics.

“Each day I have a planfor the day, but it neverseems to happen because Iend up helping someone,”said Shepas. “If anyoneever needs anything, I willhelp them, even if itmeans dropping what Iam doing.”

Shepas said she is stilltrying to figure out if shewants to come back toschool for graduate schoolor go into the workforce.

File Photo

Maria Shepas plays two sports and helps with herdad’s football team. She will graduate in three years.

Page BB5Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

great teacher,”Woodrum said.

“She is a pretty spec-tacular human being,one of the brightest stu-dents I have evertaught.”

Woodrum used onlygood words to describeGrom.

“She has wonderfulcritical thinking skillsand is unbelievablyinvolved,” Woodrumsaid.

“The remarks of herco-op teachers havebeen very typical ofMelissa.”

Her involvementspreads further than theclassroom and the the-ater.

“I am also a WritingCenter tutor,” Grom

said. “Most people like to

do creative writing, butI have always liked aca-demic essays and beingable to express my ideaswhile having the oppor-tunity to supportthem.”

If there are evertimes that she needs toget away, she turns toher true passion of the-ater.

“Theater is an escapefrom reality,” Gromsaid.

“To play a differentperson on stage givesyou the opportunity tolet go of reality and bethat character.”

With all of the activi-ties it would seem likethere is not even timefor class and studying,but that is not the case.

“I have maintained a4.0 grade point averageand hope to keep it upthrough the rest of theyear,” Grom said.

Grom enjoysacting

Continued from BB2

Senior learns ‘most meaningful lesson’thousand of miles away from campusBy Matthew SnyderStaff Writer

Attending college maybe about learning andpreparing yourself for acareer, but it may just giveyou the opportunity tolearn a lesson about yourlife.

“[Mission trips] are adifferent style of learn-ing,” said L’lee Zimmer-man, athletic trainingmajor. “Going on thosetrips teach about the kindof person you should be.”

Zimmerman minors inbiology and exercise sci-ence.

She is a member of theAthletic Training Stu-dents Association andDrus Women’s HonorarySociety.

Zimmerman plans onattending Marietta Col-lege in the fall in hopes ofbecoming a physician’sassistant once she gradu-ates. She says that theknowledge from the class-room is not all she learnedduring her time at the uni-versity.

Zimmerman said that

she learned some of themost meaningful lessonsthousands of miles fromcampus.

Zimmerman was giventhe chance to learn howmuch mission trips couldmean when she traveledto Jamaica over fall breakin 2009 to work in theMustard Seed Communi-ty helping physically andmentally disabled chil-dren.

The great experienceled her to take a second

trip in May 2010 to Ari-zona where she volun-teered at a Navajo Indianreservation. Here shehelped children in theclassroom and put on atwo-day carnival for thekids to enjoy.

“It was like not beingin your own country; itwas such a different cul-ture,” said Zimmerman.“It was like being in a dif-ferent world.”

Zimmerman said ath-letic training was a hard

major because of the needto put in over 20 hours oftime a week into a clinicalrotation, along with doinghomework and findingtime for herself.

“Time management ishard to balance. Momentsof sanity are extremelyimportant,” she said.“The mission trips defi-nitely helped me getthrough school. Theygave me time away fromcampus and somethingelse to focus on.”

Photo courtesy of L’Lee Zimmerman

L’lee Zimmerman traveled to Jamaica and Arizona on two mission trips.

Theater minor leaves legacy on stageBy Rob GriffithStaff Writer

Harry in “State Fair.”Jimmy Smith in “Thor-oughly Modern Millie.”Senator Jack S. Phog-bound in “Li’l Abner.”

These are just a few ofthe roles played in Way-nesburg University the-atre productions by seniorArts AdministrationMajor Jamie Cardenas.

Students and the com-munity are likely to rec-ognize him for his manyperformances on theGoodwin Performing ArtsCenter stage. Cardenassaid his fondest theatreexperience was his turn in“Thoroughly ModernMillie.”

“I would have to saymy favorite role wasJimmy [Smith],” said Car-denas. “It was the firsttime I really took a leadrole.”

Other roles includedMr. Antrobus in “TheSkin of Our Teeth,” Rev-erend Chasuble in “The

Importance of BeingEarnest” and General H.Howell in “Kiss MeKate.”

“Just being able to be soinvolved in the produc-tions, and watching thetheatre program grow andchange” said Cardenas.“The whole experiencehas been incredible.”

Eddie Powers, associateprofessor of theatre anddirector of the university’stheatre productions,spoke highly of Cardenas’onstage talent.

“He has a great energy,a great presence onstage,”said Powers. “I can counton him to rise to the levelof a role.”

Cardenas said heintends to keep theatre inhis life after college,whether as a hobby or aspart of a career incorporat-ing his arts administra-tion major.

“I still have to do aninternship,” said Carde-nas. “So I’m looking atkeeping theatre in my lifethat way.”

File Photo

Jamie Cardenas said his favorite role was Jimmy Smithin “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

Science major wants to find laboratory jobor to do field workBy Brandon ReedEditorial Assistant

The first dead body thatDanielle Celesnik sawwas a drug overdose vic-tim, but that is just a dayin the life of an intern atthe Westmoreland Coro-ner’s office.

According to Celesnik,a forensic science major,the person died from anoverdose of morphinepills.

She most definitelywill not forget that imageas long as she lives.

“I wanted a universitywith an established foren-sic science major,” saidCelesnik. “Waynesburgwas the only one close tome that had a definite cur-riculum at the time.”

Michael Cipoletti,assistant professor offorensic science, said thatCelesnik has one of thehighest grade point aver-ages out of anyone in themajor.

“Every time I walkthrough Stewart Hall sheis always in there workingharder,” said Cipoletti.“She doesn’t just get workdone; she does it to thebest of her ability.”

Celesnik said that shedoes not want to go tograduate school and islooking for jobs.

“She is going a differentroute from the other stu-dents,” said Cipoletti.“She is just going to gostraight into the jobhunt.”

Celesnik said that shehopes to use her degree towork in laboratory or dosome field work.

“I have had two inter-views thus far one for apharmaceutical companyin Pittsburgh calledNovum and one for achemical company calledMagnablend,” saidCelesnik.

“But as of right now Ido not have a job pickedout yet.”

Work with youth inspires counseling graduateBy Alex HintonEditorial Assistant

Tom Schlosser proba-bly never thought thegraduate addictionscounseling programwould involve becominga vegetarian for 30 days,but for him, it did.

“We had to give upsomething we love, asdrug addicts give up thedrug they love,” he said.

“I made it through all30 days. It was a tough30 days; it was tough tak-ing out something sointegrated in your life,you don’t even realizeit.”

More fascinating,however, is his intern-ship at Gateway Rehabthat developed his pas-sion for drug and alcoholcounseling.

Through his work

with teenage boys at theresidential drug and alco-hol treatment center,Schlosser realized hewanted to pursue a mas-ter’s degree.

“I was a youth workerthere; I saw a furtherneed of knowledge to fur-ther help that popula-tion,” he said.

“I prayed a lot about itand was led in that direc-tion.”

“A standout” is howDr. Elizabeth Ventura,assistant professor ofcounseling, describedSchlosser.

“He has a tremendousamount of integrity,”Ventura said.

“He’s genuine, spiritu-al and empathic.”

Schlosser said his bestexperience in the coun-seling program has beena combination of his pro-

fessors and his experi-ence at the internshipworking with clients.

“It’s been amazing.It’s been a full experienceas far as all aspects ofdrug and alcohol coun-seling,” he said.

“My supervisor andother therapists havebeen great.”

Schlosser has enjoyedbeing one of six in hiscohort.

“I’ve had a journeywith five other class-mates,” he said. “We’vebeen through a lottogether. That journeyhas been one of the high-lights of the program.”

As a master’s student,it hasn’t all been a breezefor Schlosser.

“It’s been one of thehardest things I’vedone,” he said. “Livinglife, working full time

and [attending] schoolfull time is a challengingexperience.”

Schlosser will beinducted into Waynes-burg’s chapter of theCounseling Honor Socie-ty, Chi Nu Sigma, inMay.

“It’s been a full bio-psychosocial-spiritualexperience,” he said. “It’sbeen one of the mostchallenging but fulfillingtimes of my life.”

Schlosser is in theprocess of becoming aPRN with GatewayRehab and is looking fora full-time position withdrug and alcohol.

“Above everything Ireally feel like God hascalled me to this area,and it’s been quite thejourney,” he said. “Godhas shown a lot of graceand mercy to me.”

Graduate nursekeeps others safeBy Sarah BellEditorial Assistant

Donna Carl wants tomake sure others aresafe. That is why she isgraduating from the Mas-ter’s of Science in nurs-ing program at Waynes-burg University.

“My hope is to createan environment any-where that I work that issafe for patients andemployees,” Carl said.

“I think nurses needto be more proactive fortheir own practice andutilize evidence basedpractice for safety andquality.”

She said that herbiggest accomplish-ments were expandingher knowledge onresearch and functional

team building.“We were able to

explore other avenues;they made us think out-side the box and outsideof the areas that we werecomfortable in,” shesaid.

Her project wasimportant for her depart-ment because there wasnot a program like it inthe hospital originally.

“My capstone projectwas something I did forthe nursing departmentwhere I work and I hopeit will last the hospital along time, longer than Iwill,” she said.

“The project involvedevidence based nursingbecause I want the bedside nurses who will useit to be research con-sumers, not developers.”

gy degree and go to get herMaster’s degree. But fouryears ago, there wasalmost no WaynesburgUniversity in her future.

“Choosing Waynes-burg was sort of a fluke,”Brush said. “I receivedstuff in the mail and hadgood visits, but the finaldecision was made basedoff of the scholarships Ireceived.”

The same goes for hermajor selection as well.

“When I came to Way-nesburg University, I list-ed psychology as mymajor, even though I was-n’t 100 percent sure of it,”she said. “Over time, itgrew on me; everythingwe talked about interest-ed me more and more. Irealized I would neverchange my area of interestbecause it was so reward-ing to study.”

Brush is a triplet whoworked hard in school notfor the sake of competi-tion, but because of herparents.

“Being part of a triplet,there was really no com-petitiveness between us,”said Brush. “We all push

ourselves to do well inschool because that ishow we were raised. Edu-cation has always been amajor priority.”

Brush has certainlybeen involved in otherclubs on campus, but she

also finds time to main-tain her first objective.

“I have been involvedin a lot of different thingson campus such as Resi-dence Life, Student Activ-ities Board, WORLD andStudent Senate,” Brush

said. “I usually prioritize my

schoolwork first, and thenit becomes a jugglingmatch between friends,activities and working.”

But things havebecome a little different

for Brush this semester.“A lot of my time this

year has been dedicated tohanging out with myfriends because I missedthem a lot when I was inEgypt this fall,” she said.

Although she does plan

to go to graduate school,Brush says she wants toreturn to that area.

“Egypt opened thatdoor for me to do my ownthing and not follow inthe footsteps of someonebefore me,” she said.

Page BB6 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

Brush travelsextensively

Continued from BB1

Senior to study library science in fallBy Rachel DavisStaff Writer

On any Tuesday night,you’ll find second-yearExecutive Editor RachelBrown, senior communi-cation major, making thefinal corrections to theweek’s edition of the Yel-low Jacket or using cop-ing methods in order torelease any stress.

“My favorite memoryis Tuesday nights. Work-ing on the Jacket,extremely stressed andpanicked, hopped up oncookies and sugar highs,and through this all wemanaged to get the paperdone and not kill eachother,” Brown said.

“We would have Dis-ney sing-a-longs, skip-ping around the floor allas coping methods tokeep from going insane,but we don’t care howcrazy we may seem.”

The stress relievers area big help to Brown as shecan spend up to 45 hoursa week in the officeworking on the YellowJacket.

But her favorite way torelax is also why she’sattending graduate schoolat the University of Pitts-burgh. Brown, beginningin the fall, will study to

be a children’s librarian. Brown said that it was-

n’t until a conversationwith her aunt and a sum-mer internship at herlocal library that she real-ized that this is what shewanted to do.

“My aunt looked at meand said, ‘You’re going tobe a librarian,’” saidBrown.

Brown, has volun-teered at her local librarysince she was young,even reading over 10,000

pages in one summerwhile participating thesummer reading club.

“I read 5,000 then8,000 and I decided Iwanted 10,000 so I justkept going,” she said.

This high standardBrown sets for herself isalso why she wanted tobecome the Yellow Jacketeditor two years ago.

“I knew the quality ofwhat the paper could be,and I wanted to leave mymark on the paper,” said

Brown.And indeed she has,

according to her professorBrandon Szuminsky.

“Rachel’s tenure at theJacket has been markedwith high quality workand positive changes thatI think will be her lega-cy,” he said.

“There are many kindsof editors, and I thinkRachel is one of the trans-formative ones. She leftthe paper better off thanshe got it.”

Photo courtesy of Rachel Brown

Communication major Rachel Brown also participated in a mission trip to SanAntonio, Texas, in addition to being the Executive Editor of the Yellow Jacket.

English major to turnlove of language intofuture career in lawBy Carrie MaierStaff Writer

Bennette Sharpe has alot of planning to do. He’sgetting married in twomonths and plans ongoing to law school thefollowing year.

“I was going to jumpright into law school, butin order to make the billswork, [fiancée] Rachel[Brown] is going to go gether Master’s now,” saidSharpe, an English major.“One of us has to work forthe other one to go toschool.”

While Brown workstoward her Master’s,Sharpe will spend timeresearching law schools.

“You’d be surprised;most people think ifyou’re going to lawschool, you have to go pre-law first,” he said. “But alot of schools like to seemore varied degrees, moreholistic and well-roundedstudents.”

Joonna Trapp, chair ofthe Department of Eng-lish, agrees that Sharpe isjust that, calling him a

very accomplished stu-dent with an unmatchedenthusiasm for learning.

“He’s just a cheerfulguy with a positive out-look on life,” said Trapp.“He’s just got that kind ofmind where if you throwthings at him, he justsoaks them up.”

Sharpe also served aspresident of Sigma TauDelta, the national honorssociety for English majors.

“He’s a really good nerd- an English nerd,” saidTrapp. “When he’s aroundhe gets excited and he getsengaged in conversation.”

Sharpe said he consid-ered becoming a musicteacher at some point.

“I almost pulled off amusic minor, too, but Iwas one or two classesshort,” he said.

He will, however, grad-uate with a minor inSpanish.

Sharpe said he looksforward to his future.

“I loved my years here,but it’s good to have thissection of my life com-pleted and move on to thenext stage.”

Nursing acts as ‘perfect mix’ of her skills, senior saysBy Matt GiardinaStaff Writer

Lindsay Benish, agraduating nursingmajor, started her jour-ney at Waynesburg Uni-versity four years ago,but she did not start hereducation here.

“I actually transferredhere from St. Vincent,”she said.

“I always knew Iwanted to do somethinghealth oriented, like pre-med. But I fell intonursing here and lovedit.”

Benish had her rea-sons for transferring toWaynesburg Universityas she showed interestin a major not offered atSt. Vincent.

“St. Vincent did not

have a nursing major.During my time there Iwas a biology major; Ihave always liked thesciences,” Benish said.

“I enjoy the chal-lenges of science as wellas caring for others andloving them, thereforenursing is the perfectmix.

“Waynesburg has asimilar atmosphere as

St. Vincent with a smallcampus and classroomsize. The professors arealways available forboth one on one atten-tion and seekingadvice.”

Throughout her timeat the university, Benishhas participated inextracurricular activi-ties and organizations.

“I was a member of

the Resident Life staff. Ihad the chance to be aResident Assistant fortwo years. It was a won-derful experience withmany challenges andrewards,” she said.

“For the past twoyears, I have been amember of the StudentNursing Association ofPennsylvania and for thepast three, I have

tutored student in nurs-ing science classes.”

In addition, Benishhas taken part in eventsoutside of the campus.

“I had the opportuni-ty to go on a medicaltrip to Mexico. It wasan eye-opening experi-ence towards the differ-ent health care systems

See NURSE on BB7

Page BB7Thursday, April 21, 2011 YELLOW JACKET

Spotlight

‘Seoul’ for serviceElementary education major blends love of travel, serviceBy Chelsea ShafferStaff Writer

Senior elementary edu-cation major BethanyDanaher devotes herselfto both mission and serv-ice.

Danaher participates inthe Bonner ScholarshipProgram, which requiresher to commit to 140hours of community serv-ice per semester and 280hours of community serv-ice during a time span oftwo summers.

To complete thesetasks; Danaher works attwo youth groups in thearea, as well as the CrisisPregnancy Center in Way-nesburg.

Although time man-agement between theBonner program and aca-demics was difficult attimes, Danaher treasuresthe opportunities she wasgiven to get involved.

“Instead of just being acollege student, I was ableto become a part of thecommunity,” she said.

During her academiccareer, Danaher went onfour mission trips. InGuatemala, she painted

classrooms. In Philadel-phia, she worked with thehomeless. In Camden,N.J., she worked with theschool system. In SouthAfrica, she worked withthe townships.

If there is one thing

that any of these tripshave in common, it isDanaher’s devotion toserving others.

Sarah Brandstetter,Bonner coordinator, saidshe will always rememberthe effect the mission

trips had on Danaher.“Her outlook on life

has changed,” said Brand-stetter. “It’s like she’slooking at life throughmany lenses instead ofone.”

Missions are not theonly focus in Danaher’slife. She is dedicated toher studies and studentteaching. Of all of thecourses she has taken atthe university, Danahernamed the latter as herfavorite.

“I learned a lot morefrom practical experi-ence,” she said.

“I learned what workedand what didn’t work inthe classroom.”

According to Brandstet-ter, Danaher is very driv-en academically.

“She is very dedicat-ed,” said Brandstetter.“She knows what shewants to do, and she’llstrive until she gets

there.”Danaher studied

abroad at Ewha Women’sUniversity in SouthKorea. She enjoyed theopportunity to learn anew language and culture.

In the future, Danaherplans to teach English as asecond language abroad.She would like to beinvolved in foreign mis-sions and teach in SouthEast Asia.

Danaher will be able totake all of the experi-ences, knowledge andmemories that she hasacquired over the last fouryears and apply them toher future endeavors.

Although her locationmay drastically change,her devotion to missionwill not.

“Bethany is just an all-around wonderful per-son,” said Brandstetter.“She truly has a heart ofservice.”

Photo courtesy of Bethany Danaher

Bethany Danaher plans to travel to South Korea after graduation to teach Englishand witness. Her work in the classroom and as a Bonner prepared her for this job.

that are out there,” Ben-ish said. “It also mademe realize that regis-tered nurses in Americahave more autonomyand opportunities thanthose in Mexico.”

Although she believesthat the university hasprepared her well forpost-graduation, she isstill apprehensive.

“I am nervous aboutgraduating,” Benishsaid. “I feel that thenursing professors andthe curriculum herehave really done a greatjob in preparing me.Regardless of how wellprepared you feel goingout and providing carefor a patient on yourown without the help ofyour instructor is intim-idating.”

Nurse findshome at WU

Continued from BB6

Photo courtesy of Lindsay Benish

Lindsay Benish traveled to Mexico for a medical mission trip while at WaynesburgUniversity. She will graduate with the highest GPA in the Department of Nursing.

“We have about thesame work load andmost importantly wehave each other to worktogether and get every-thing done,” she said.

This balancing actcan be difficult at times,but Lundholm’s workethic is what Professorof Education Robert Kef-ferstan believes sets himapart from other stu-dents.

“He is always lookingfor what is the nextthing to do, the nextthing in the sequence,”Kefferstan said.

“His excitement isinfectious; his eyes justpop with an enthusiasm,which is the key to hissuccess.”

Lundholm will have abusy few months ahead

with graduation justbeing the beginning.

“After graduation Ihave my wedding onJune 4, then less than aweek later we have twodays to drive across thewhole country to Wash-ington,” Lundholm said.

“I will be going tograd school at Washing-ton State University.”

The couple’s futureplans are still unknown.

“The logistics are ter-rifying; finding Kristy ajob and getting out therewith all our stuff seemsimpossible,” Lundholmsaid.

A positive attitudeabout life is still whatcomes from this coura-geous senior.

“My mother, myfather and my brotherhave always been sup-portive of me througheverything,” Lundholmsaid. “I believe God hashis hand on everythingand directed me towardWaynesburg.”

Work ethicsets him apart

Continued from BB1

History major to joincommunity houseBy Stephanie LaingEditorial Assistant

Ellen Louttit, a historyand social science doublemajor, will carry Waynes-burg University’s missionof service after her upcom-ing graduation. She willlive in a house dedicatedto serving the communityof Waynesburg with sixother individuals.

“I am looking moreinto social work and care-giving,” Louttit said.

The house will be aministry as the individualtenants dedicate hours ofunpaid service to the com-munity.

Louttit considers herfriends’ and professorsexamples of why she hasthese passions.

“The [friends] I havebecome close with latelyare the ones I have learnedthe most from,” she said.

As Louttit overcame

various challenges and dif-ficulties in her years at theuniversity, her motherwas there for her, acting asan “emotional cheer-leader.”

On campus, Louttit’sprofessors have greatlyinfluenced her desires andfuture goals.

“I would consider mybiggest influences to beDr. Coffman and Dr. Wad-del,” she said. “They areboth my advisors, butboth I would say arefriends. They’ve helpedme a lot, and I look up tothem a lot.”

She believes their goalsand lives are examples ofwhat she would one daylike to become.

“If I could ever afford togo to a grad school andmaybe become a profes-sor, that would be what I’dlike to do long term,” shesaid. “But who knowswhat will happen.”

Senior to enter pharmacology schoolBy Kyle OlandStaff Writer

Senior biology studentBrittany Spitznogle’s fas-cination with drugsbegan in high school.

Once in college, sheknew she wanted drugsto become part of herlife.

She never was a druguser, but wanted to usedrugs to help other peo-ple.

After graduation,Spitznogle will enroll inpharmaceutical school.

Spitznogle said earlyon in her life she wantedto be a physical thera-pist, but found her highschool science classes tobe very enjoyable andinteresting, which leadher to want to become apharmacist.

Every year sinceenrolling at WaynesburgUniversity, Spitznoglehas been on the Dean’slist and has received aca-

demic excellenceawards.

Dr. Chad Sethman,assistant professor ofbiology, said, “Brittany isone of the most self-motivated, hard-workingand reliable studentsthat I have workedwith.”

Spitznogle not onlymajored in biology, butalso minored in chem-istry, requiring her totake extra classesbecause the scienceclasses are so demand-ing.

“It’s amazed me howmuch she has taken on,”

said Sethman. “I thinkshe enjoys the extraclasses.”

During her years atthe university,Spitznogle was heavilyinvolved in a number ofother activities. She alsoplayed soccer where shewas on the PAC honorroll, took an internshipat West Virginia Univer-sity and did multipleresearch projects.

Spitznogle said a typi-cal day for her involvedgoing to her classes;working in the labs,which often times meantshe wouldn’t have time

to eat; going to soccerpractice and staying uplate working on home-work.

“I don’t know how shebalances it all out,” saidSethman. “Her academ-ics have always takenprecedent over every-thing else.

At West Virginia Uni-versity, Spitznogle wasable to work on develop-ing new medicines thatfight drug addictions.

“While at West Vir-ginia University, it wasnice to work in aresearch environmentand help develop a drugthat could potentiallyhelp change lives,” saidSpitznogle.

After graduation,Spitznogle will leaveWaynesburg and head topharmaceutical schoolat Lake Erie College ofOsteopathic Medicineand School of Pharmacy,where she will continueher passion for drugs.

“Brittany is one of the most self-motivated, hard-working and reliablestudents that I have ever workedwith.”

Chad SethmanAssistant Professor of Biology

Page BB8 Thursday, April 21, 2011YELLOW JACKET