OK, let's get serious

Workplace food contests are always fun. One of the most lasting -- and disturbing -- memories I have of my time at a former employer is a hot dog eating contest held to raise money for United Way.
The "yuck" factor wasn't nearly as strong earlier this week when the Havasu campus staff held its annual Chili Cook-Off to collect food for the Community Food Bank. As organizer Sandy Webber explained to the panel of judges, "This is a chili tasting contest, not a chili eating contest." Gorging was expressly discouraged.
True to the spirit of the event, the judges approached the task of evaluating each entry for aroma, taste, texture and spiciness with the delicacy and seriousness of fine-wine connoisseurs. The three staff members who won honors for "best red," "best green," "hottest," "best of show" and "people's choice" claim bragging rights for the entire year.
More importantly, about 20 grocery bags of food were collected for the food bank.

Funky town

This is a college with serious educational objectives, and you can hardly turn around without bumping into a Ph.D. But we also aren't afraid to get silly.

That was obvious yesterday when I was asked to stop by outside the campus library to take a photo of the cast of "Staying Alive," a mystery dinner event that's being sponsored by our campus Student Government and Phi Beta Kappa.

Several faculty and staff members have agreed to throw all self-respect away and don outlandish clothing and disreputable looking wigs to portray parodies of iconic figures from the 1970s, including Andy Warthog, Bruce Leap and John Revolting.

They also weren't too shy about getting into character for a publicity shot. It was strange enough seeing English faculty Dan Pund (as Andy Warthog) with hair, but I'm still trying to get my mind around the sight of Student Services Director Tim Keith (in back, smiling) striking the famous pose from "Saturday Night Fever."

How soon can I start?

Sometimes the smallest happenings of the day, the ones that don't show up on my weekly task list, leave the biggest impression.
Today I received a phone call from a young woman who stated bluntly "Do I have to make an appointment or can I just come in and see you today?"
By all means, come in and see me.
She said she was a single mother who had recently moved to Havasu and gotten my card from someone with job services. She'd already applied for financial aid and received an award letter. She dressed up to come see me, and she was really, really, really ready to start college.
"I've never been to college and nobody I know has ever been to college," she told me.
She thinks she wants to become a pediatrician.
I spend a lot of my time talking to people about how they can get the fastest possible retraining so they can be employable again right away. (Unfortunately, it rarely works that way.) So it was a pleasure to discuss what MCC can do for an ambitious and determined young person who's plotting a course for a four-year university degree ... and beyond.

A chill in the air

It may sound silly in a place where the average daytime temperature in October is over 90 degrees, but it's really starting to feel like fall here at the Havasu campus.
It's not just the fact that early morning temps in the mid-70s have us pulling on sweaters. The real feeling of the season comes from preparations for our annual Pumpkin Festival. In fact, as event planner for the campus, I've got Halloween on the brain.
Today found me at WalMart purchasing cobwebs and $178 worth of candy (through the generosity of the MCC Foundation). That's only about 2/3 of what we'll have on hand at the event. When we throw a Halloween party at MCC, we want to be sure the little ones come away with enough sugar to rot every tooth in the Western United States. It's job security for the graduates of our dental programs.
(In fairness, our dental students hand our toothbrushes and toothpaste to the trick-or-treaters to promote responsible candy consumption.)
The greatest thing about Pumpkin Fest is that everyone gets in the act. It's really like a big Halloween party our students, faculty and staff throw for the community. So maybe we can be forgiven if it has a goofy, handmade quality. Self-expression rules!
Pumpkin Fest happens Oct. 30 from 4-6 p.m. (also on the Kingman and Bullhead City campuses). Come get a sugar rush.

It keeps me thin

I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon observing the exertions of the hardest-working woman in Havasu. I can't prove that designation, but watching this woman push queues of shopping carts into one of our local grocery stores - one after another - that was the title that naturally came to mind.
I had set up my little table outside the store to hawk MCC's wares (education) to the people bustling in to pick up a few items on the way home from work or school. It was the first time I'd targeted a grocery store for my outreach efforts, and it was gratifying to reach a new set of prospects - people I hadn't encountered before.
I talked to one young woman about MCC's culinary arts program. She wasn't discouraged by the fact the program classes are conducted at our Bullhead City campus, about an hour's drive away. She wanted to open a restaurant some day.
"I love to cook, so I figure that's what I should do," she said.
Others, like the woman pushing the shopping carts from the parking lot, weren't sure exactly what direction they should go in, they just knew they needed to find a new career. She said she'd worked for several years in a business tied to real estate and was laid off about a year ago. She was "starting over," she said.
I think one thing is certain: When she finally moves into that new career with better pay and less physically demanding work, she can expect to put on a few pounds.

I love this club!

Whatever controversies may surround Columbus Day, I can say that it inconvenienced me some by forcing me to postpone my weekly visit to our local employment services office. (Undeterred, I will be there tomorrow.)
On the other hand, the unexpected extra hours in my office today did allow me to clean up the place - which periodically gets downright cluttered with program fliers, party supplies and to-do lists - before a visit from a prospect this afternoon.
I met Richard on a visit last week to a new job club hosted by Mohave County Library. The organizer was kind enough to put me on the agenda with a employment counselor from the county's "One-Stop" center.
It turned out to be one of the most rewarding recruiting junkets I've undertaken. The people I met there were on a mission to find a job, a new career, more education, all of the above.
Usually I'm the one calling prospects trying to get them to come in a see me. The folks in this group have been calling me for appointments, hungry to know where they can go from here.
Yeah, they make my job easy - and they make me want to work all the harder for them.

Thanks for coming

More than 40 Lake Havasu City community members and MCC students filled out self-assessments and spoke with licensed mental health professionals last night during MCC's first National Depression Screening Day event.
That may not sound like a lot of people, but given the misunderstanding of mental illness still prevalent in our society and the resultant stigma associated with it, the turnout felt like a great success. At one point there were eight or 10 people, both young and old, intently filling out assessment forms, elbow to elbow around the large table in our main lobby.
My primary job was to keep the coffee pot full and the cookie tray neat, but it felt good being associated with an event that clearly made people feel comfortable enough to come forward for help - and it felt good that the place they could do that was MCC.
Now it's on to Pumpkin Fest, sort of from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Fired up

I think I've probably mentioned before that my role coordinating the exhibits in the campus art gallery is one of the best parts of my job. The Gallery adds a dimension to our campus, and our lives, that is rare and beautiful, and I really enjoy being a part of that.

Right now, The Gallery is home to a show of student-created ceramics and pottery. Some of the pieces were crafted by students in Ceramics I and II and reflect the students' imaginative solutions to the artistic "problems" posed in class (see photo). Others are the very skilled creations of members of the campus' Student Art League, and they're as good as anything you'd see at a professional craft show.

What's really great is that all these pieces will be available to purchase Oct. 23 from 1-5 p.m. during our annual Student Art League Pottery Sale. The majority of these beautiful pieces - including gorgeous mugs, cups, bowls and bud vases - are real bargains. So, of course, I'm obliged to point out it's a great opportunity to shop for Christmas gifts.

The most fun you can have while sterile

I've just returned from the Surgical Technology lab, where some first-year students were practicing a few of the procedures that will one day become second nature to them: scrubbing, gowning, gloving, covering their instrument trays.
There's so much to learn and so much to remember - and this is before they ever learn when to pass what instrument in a real-life operating room.
But the students were engaged, constantly asking questions and calling out answers; they were using their newly acquired terminology and getting a lot of the answers right. It made me feel like, if I ever find myself in an operating room with one of them, I'll be in good hands.
I was there to shoot some video, which I'll turn into a mini-documentary. I'll also link to it here, so check for it in a week or two.