The Digest
What’s Happening at KVCC
What’s below in this edition
ü Cover girl (Pages 1/2) ü Great Lakes topics (Pages 3-5)
ü So long, summer (Page 2) ü Tutor-signup deadline (Pages 5/6)
ü Cougar Connection (Page 2) ü Sky shows (Page 6)
ü Scot Beyerstedt (Pages 3) ü ‘Blue Hawaii’ (Pages 6/7)
ü Safety tip (Page 3) ü And finally (Pages 7/8)
☻☻☻☻☻☻
This ‘Kelly Girl’ wins national modeling contest
The daughter of a retired KVCC staff member has won a national modeling contest for women 40 and older.
Theobia Kelly’s daughter, Thea, for the next year will have to share her time with law books as a corporate counsel in Indianapolis with the modeling opportunities that will be coming her way after winning a 10-finalist contest on July 27.
The competition was co-sponsored by the company that publishes online editions of Ladies’ Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens and the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency in New York City.
The sixth annual 2005 MORE.com/Wilhelmina 40+ Model Search attracted nearly 20,000 women from across the country. Thea and her nine co-finalists were flown to New York for three days of photo shoots, interviews, and a fashion show at which the winner was announced.
All 10 finalists will be featured in a photo layout in the December/January issue of MORE, whose target audience is women 40 and older.
The 43-year-old mother of two teens and the two runners-up received Wilhelmina modeling contracts. As the winner, Kelly will also receive a 2005 Ford 500 sedan and a five-day trip for two to Rome. She was also interviewed on the CBS Early Show.
She told interviewers that her children encouraged her to enter the modeling contest. “I had just started a MORE subscription and they saw the cover of last year’s model contest,” she said. “They said, ‘You can do that.’ Also, I love what the magazine actually says about the contest – to show the world how beautiful 40 can be.”
Regarding her role model, she said: “My Mom continues to amaze me as I watch her survive. I think about all of the hard lessons she had to go through while I was young and now, I have the greatest appreciation for it. You don’t realize what you don’t have when you don’t have it, but we really had nothing.”
Adios, summer hours
KVCC’s summer hours are riding off into the sunset on Friday (Aug. 12).
That’s the last Friday on which the work day will come to an end at noon, and, beginning on Monday, Aug. 15, the traditional work schedule will be back in effect – 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that The Digest will be returning to its normal format of once-a-week publication and distribution. Please, no applause.
Because the publisher, editor, reporting staff and circulation manager will all be on vacation the week of Aug. 15-19, the next edition of Digest will be dated Aug. 29 and coming your way on Friday, Aug. 26. Again, please no applause
Cougar Connection, volunteers welcome
Cougar Connection 2005 to welcome back students for the fall semester is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 22, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Commons on the Texas Township Campus.
Horse-and-buggy rides, an obstacle course set up by the Marine Corps, fitness assessments, door prizes and other give-aways including two computers, massages, music, character portraits, a scavenger hunt and other games, food and refreshments, displays by college organizations, and promotions by local financial institutions, restaurants, and businesses are among the attractions.
All will be free at this fourth Cougar Connection, which will also feature live remotes by AM 1560 The Touch and WKFR 103.3.
The fitness orientations will be given by the staff at the KVCC Wellness and Fitness Center. Kalamazoo Center for the Healing Arts will provide massages from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and again from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
Among the food vendors will be Qdoba Mexican Grill, Roly Poly Sandwiches and Little Caesars Pizza. The grand prizes of two computers are being provided by Gateway.
Educational Community Credit Union is co-sponsoring the event with the college.
Among the other vendors scheduled to take part are:
Fairfield Broadcasting Co., the Radisson Plaza Hotel and Suites, Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill, Gull Road Cinema 5;
National City bank, FedEx Kinko’s, League of Women Voters of the Kalamazoo area., Outback Steak House, Oasis Hot Tubs;
Lighthouse Hospice Volunteer Services, State Farm Insurance – Troy Weldon, Elite Tae Kwon Do, Kalamazoo Metro Transit, First Community Federal Credit Union, Abundant Health Chiropractic Center, Harold Zeigler Auto Group, Walt Disney World , Supercuts, and Schafer’s Flowers Inc.
The event’s coordinator is Mary Johnson.
Volunteers for Cougar Connection are needed for staffing welcome tables in the Commons and all the game tables.
Prospects can e-mail Mary at or call at extension 4182.
Scholarship honors Mattawan officer
A memorial scholarship has been established at Kalamazoo Valley Community College in honor of Scot Beyerstedt, the 21-year-old Mattawan police officer who died in the line of duty on July 25.
Working with the KVCC Foundation, Mattawan Police Chief Don Verhage said the scholarship will be awarded to students who are accepted into the Regional Police Training Academy that is based on the college’s Texas Township Campus. Two academy sessions are held each academic year.
Donations in Beyerstedt’s name are being accepted through the KVCC Foundation. Checks can be made out to the Scot A. Beyerstedt Memorial Scholarship and sent to the KVCC Foundation office.
According to Michigan State Police investigators, Beyerstedt was most likely killed when flying debris struck him in the head as his vehicle spun out of control and crashed during a high-speed chase. He was traveling 90 to 92 mph when his vehicle dropped off the road at a curve and spun 180 degrees. The cruiser was going backward when the back end crashed into a tree.
On the department for just two weeks, Beyerstedt died at Bronson Methodist Hospital the day after the crash. His training officer, 30-year-old Daniel Scott Hutchins, was treated at Bronson and released.
Investigators reported Beyerstedt and Hutchins attempted to stop a blue Ford Escort for reckless driving in the 49000 block of 24th Street about 9:10 p.m. on July 25. The driver of the other vehicle has been arrested, and charged with second-degree homicide and first-degree fleeing and eluding. He had been previously wanted in Kalamazoo County for operating and maintaining a methamphetamine lab.
For more information about the scholarship, contact Steve Doherty, director of the KVCC Foundation, at extension 4442.
Safety tip – check those wall-attached shelves
“Don’t let this happen to you,” advises safety specialist Amy Louallen.
“A couple weeks ago,” she reports, “we had an incident in one of the faculty offices and I feel it is worth bringing to your attention. Two enclosed bookcase-style shelves came off the wall and could have caused a serious injury if anyone had been in the office. I hear a coffee cup was the only fatality.
“In response to this ‘near miss, I encourage you to examine your work spaces and take care to not overload hanging shelves or bookcases,” she says. “There were several very heavy binders on these two shelves. I think we were lucky this time and I hope to prevent the same from happening to someone else.”
Films supplement Great Lakes exhibit
Documentaries and presentations about the Great Lakes will complement the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s latest nationally touring exhibition through the end of the calendar year.
“The Great Lakes Story” is booked for the Havirmill Special Exhibition Gallery on the museum’s third floor through Jan. 15 and chronicles the fresh-water treasures that were forged by geological and glacial forces across eons, how they have been threatened by humanity’s technological advances, and how that same technology is being used to preserve them.
Beginning on Sept. 25, the museum’s Mary Jane Stryker Theater will be hosting the showings of eight documentaries about the Great Lakes. Free and beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Sundays, the lineup showcases the following topics:
● “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on Sept. 25.
● “Great Stories of the Great Lakes” on Oct. 9.
● “Michigan Lighthouses” on Oct. 23.
● “Lighthouses of Lake Superior” on Nov. 6.
● “Great Lakes Shipwreck Disasters” on Nov. 20.
● “Straits of Mackinac Shipwrecks” on Nov. 27.
● “Haunted Lighthouses” on Dec. 11.
● “Edmund Fitzgerald: Past and Present” on Dec. 18.
One of the unsung recreational aspects of the Great Lakes will be in the spotlight in the free showings of “Unsalted: A Great Lakes Experience” on Friday, Oct. 7, in the Stryker Theater. Shot by Grand Haven filmmaker Vince Deur, the documentary explores the sport of surfing on the Great Lakes. The showings are set for 6, 7 and 8 p.m.
Also planned for the fall and early winter is the museum’s ‘Sunday Series” in which some of the topics will focus on the Great Lakes. The programs begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Stryker Theater.
The Sept. 18 attraction is a showing of a documentary, “To Have and to Hold: A Call to Preserve the Lighthouses of Michigan.” Great Lakes artist Fritz Seegers on Oct. 16 will discuss his works that constitute “Maritime Odysseys in the Largest Lake in the World.” “Fish for All” is the topic on Nov. 13 by Dr. Kristin Szylvian of the Western Michigan University Great Lakes Center for Maritime Studies.”
Created by the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, “The Great Lakes Story” is packaged into several themes that are illustrated by 25 exhibits about the largest body of fresh water in the world.
Mankind’s pervasive influence has come in a variety of forms – the pollution of water quality by toxic contaminants stemming primarily from industrial practices, the destruction of the ecosystem by such invasive species as the zebra mussel and the spiny water flea, and the destruction of dunes and coastal wetlands.
Among the exhibit’s features are four sections, each with activities that illustrate the lakes’ physical characteristics, natural beauty, geography, geology, and delicately balanced ecosystem:
▼ “Why the Great Lakes Are Great.”
▼ “Great Lakes Natural Processes.”
▼ “Changes and Threats to the Great Lakes.”
▼ “Restoring the Great Lakes.”
The exhibition tells the story of how the Great Lakes were formed, how they have changed over the years, and how science and technology are being used to understand and remedy environmental problems that threaten to destroy these irreplaceable resources.
One of the interactives probes the origins, distributions, effects and controls of aquatic species – from the lamprey eel to the zebra mussel -- that have invaded the Great Lakes since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway brought ocean-going vessels into these fresh-water ports.
Another illustrates how temperature may impact the Great Lakes region based on climate-change models that track the effects of global warming.
Through computer connections, visitors can tap into Internet sites that feed the latest information about environmental threats, their remediation, and the attempts at the restoration of fragile ecosystems. These updates pick up the story since the debut of the exhibition last October at the science center in Cleveland.
They can cast votes about contemporary ecological questions. Aided by data collected via remote-sensing satellites, visitors are introduced to a “Top 10” list of environmental concerns. They are able to compare their votes to previous exhibit visitors.
The exhibit details some of the body blows the Great Lakes have received because of human contact and technology, but it also covers the strides being taken to rectify the situation.
For example, “When Bloom Is Doom” features an interactive computer program that examines how changing variables, such as phosphate levels from detergents, can damage a lake’s ecosystem.
The Great Lakes continue to be subject to a range of environmental pollutants and ecosystem stresses. However, relatively low is the awareness of the general public of their unique value, the threats to the ecological balance, the implications of these threats, and the remediation and conservation under way. This exhibition seeks to fill that information gap and enhance public learning about the Great Lakes.
Students-as-tutors deadline is Aug. 24
By acting as peer tutors, students receive valuable lessons in volunteerism and provide support service for faculty members.
Natalie Patchell is asking full- and part-time faculty members to spread the word to students about the chance to be trained as a peer tutor for the fall 2005 semester.
The volunteer peer tutors will be enrolled in TRS 110 (Peer Tutor Training) for the fall and the college will pay for the credits. The tutors will receive a grade after they have completed the training and tutored a minimum of 25 hours.
The training course will be conducted by Patchell. The dates and times of the Friday sessions are: Sept. 4, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and from noon to 2 p.m. on Oct. 7, Nov. 4 and Dec. 2.
The prime prospect for tutor training is the student who has demonstrated solid learning techniques in completing a class and has a firm understanding of course materials or subject matter.
Other likely prospects are students who are pursuing careers as teachers and those who enjoy volunteer work.