Fort Hays State University- Student Recognition Program

Fort Hays State University

2015 Student Recognition Program

By Karilea Rilling Jungel

On Sunday February 8, 2015, FHSU met at Lakewood Middle School in the commons area with potential students from around the Saline County area, as well as with their siblings and parents, and Alumnae for an Awards Scholarships and Recognition Program. Not including the various staff and professors from the school, there were well over 150 people present.

Photo by K.R. Jungel

Many of the FHSU staff members spent time before and after the awards to talk with incoming students and their parents, answering any and all questions for those students who had yet to make up their minds, wondering “is this my choice?”

Photo by K.R. Jungel

Most of the students had made up their minds on their decision as to where to continue their education although all students who attended received a T-shirt with the FHSU Tiger emblem.

Photo by K.R. Jungel

Joe Linn, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, indicated that “Salina attendance has skyrocketed” at these programs. Joe queried, “How many universities bring 42 staff and administration personnel to an event, along with the President, to town for such meetings?”

Joe Linn, Associate Vice President

of Student Affairs

DeBra Prideaux, Executive Director, Alumni and Governmental Relations, spoke briefly that “The alumni Association is extremely important,” and requested that those alumni stand and be recognized. She went on to say that FHSU maintains 60,000 living Alumni all over the world. “Anywhere you go, you may be meeting with or speaking to a fellow Tiger.”

DeBra Prideaux,

Exec. Dir. Alumni & Governmental Relations

Alumni guest speaker Josh Mueller, who graduated with an Economics, Finance and Accounting Degree, stated that “the businesses came to the college, they came to me, to see if I would be interested in working for them. I didn’t have to go far from college before I was in the business world.”

Alumni Josh Mueller, with Joe Linn and

DeBra Prideaux in background

Dr. Mirta (pronounced MEER-tah) Martin is the recently appointed President following Dr. Edward Hammond’s retirement. She is the first female president of FHSU and first Hispanic president in the history of Kansas. Moving from her Virginia home as dean of the Reginald F. Lewis School of Business at Virginia State University, she also brings with her to this new venue vast leadership experience in banking and education.

Dr. Mirta M. Martin,

President, FHSU

“Our goal is to touch each and every student’s lives personally.” She went on to explain that while growth continues on FHSU’s horizon, “our passion is to drive you to what you want to do,” and “our largest class is 35 students. Our average class is 25 students. More than that and you lose contact with the teacher. That doesn’t do you any good.” She stated that FHSU prides itself on “courses that are geared for a seamless entry into the field of your choice.” She provided statistics on how FHSU stacks up against colleges all over the country, very often coming in at second place. She gave a memorable overview that having a college be like a “Godiva chocolate,” would maintain that it is a “choice” article that people would strive to obtain.

Following Dr. Martin’s presentation of what FHSU offers for your student, recognition for attendance as well as scholarship awards were presented. Over 66 students came up one by one. Some 60 students received various scholarships that are offered through FHSU, all of which are renewable, based on ACT Exam scores.

Courtesy FHSU Expanded 2015 Brochure

Students came from Salina and Saline County area schools. Several students received more than one scholarship. Only a small handful of students were still undecided as to their majors, but all were pleased to stand with the President and professor of their chosen course study for a photo opportunity.

Following the awards ceremony, pizza was served as staff and professors mixed and mingled to answer questions of parents and students.

Should you have any questions of Fort Hays State University, please contact them at http://www.fhsu.edu/ . After all, China has dedicated Hammond Hall at Sias International University in Xinzheng, after his having blazed a partnership that became the envy of higher education institutions across the United States, in order to celebrate his 27 years as FHSU President.

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Finding Strength in Loss - Prairie Valentine’s Day Part 3 0f 3

 How to Enjoy a Prairie Valentine’s Day

Part 3 - Message of Good and Hope 

By Karilea Rilling Jungel

On memorable days, such as Valentine’s Day or other important holidays, tragedy can strike. How we come to deal with tragedies is one of the gifts that life gives us – and for some people, strength comes from tendering memories so that others may be encouraged, in order to deal with their own setbacks.

Martie Odell-Ingebretsen of California lost a child nearly four decades ago when her young daughter Michelle “got sick with the mumps on Valentine’s Day and was fed aspirin, which led to Reye's syndrome.” Michelle succumbed a few days later. Because of her passing, Martie’s grief is sweetly pungent not only on Michelle’s special days, but also Valentine’s Day. Martie has made a goal of taking the lives, births and losses of every day by making them special with a touch of Michelle in order to pass along the love. Martie worked in a florist shop for several years…and saw moments like this:

The Changing of the Card

Nodding my head, I listen

across the counter

to the catch in her voice.

I don’t know what to say,

she says, when I ask,

my hand poised above the order form

waiting to write her sigh.

A middle aged man jingles his keys

and walks nervously around the shop

looking at the ground

before he orders roses for someone,

someone named Carol or Barbara.

He is stopped cold when I ask,

what would you like to say on the card.

Oh, he was so in love that his cheeks pinked

and eyes glowed.

Photo by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen

Sometimes a flower 

is used as a quick fix 

to get out of the doghouse

back onto the couch

with slippers and dinner tray.

It’s true, flowers say a lot

without a person even writing anything,

but, there is nothing like words,

said out loud,

written,

shouted,

words like, I love you,

or just, love.

Words like, I’m sorry.

What about, you are more beautiful

than this flower?

For quite some time now 

I have had the urge to change

just one word in a message.

No, to be truthful,

I’ve had the urge to change the whole message

just to see

if it would change a life,

but, I haven’t.

Not yet anyway.

© Martie Odell-Ingebretsen, 7-2-2001

But it was this message that brings the meaning of true love home in kind and full form:

“I will start Valentine’s Day like I do every day. Thanking my GOD for his blessings. Our youngest daughter was just in a plane crash and she survived thanks to GOD! I am still very shook up but so grateful. Our family is about as close as it can be so Valentine’s Day is really just another day as we express our love for each other as often as possible.”

Chuck Robb – Salina, Kansas.

Valentine’s Day: A day to show your love – a day to give gifts, but isn’t every day just that? Do your best. But you might want to keep it in your heart every day. If we all did just this…it could very well be that butterfly affect we all hear about during storms.

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Memories Past - Prairie Valentine’s Day Part 2 of 3

 How to Enjoy a Prairie Valentine’s Day

Part 2 - Memories Past 

By Karilea Rilling Jungel

When it comes to how we remember Valentine’s Day, we tend to recall the best of memories recollecting the biggest of small acts. A small gift, some shared acts, maybe one or two important words. When it becomes personal.

Chiclet with Heart - photo by Karilea Rilling Jungel

My first Valentine’s Day with my husband was between that first date and discussions that divorced people have with one another when finding that just maybe they might be a good match for one another, knowing that matches burn…and getting married a short six months afterwards. Because I had two children, Valentine’s Day was all about sharing the joy of romanticism of love with them – teaching them how to enjoy the day on a shoe-string budget. Paste and construction paper, cutouts of hearts on home-made cards – that was Valentine’s Day. The way my California by way of my Midwest folks taught me. It was sharing cards with classmates. It was simple, never overdone.

So it was that year, 1980, when my husband proposed with a Chiclet. You remember Chiclets, that little piece of square gum, the kind that sticks to your shoes? Well, that was the proposal; a Chiclet with a heart on it, a promise for more. It was an inexpensive little trinket, and over the years it has lost its chain, but it remains with me still.

Memories mostly abound from our school days. When another friend was asked what she recalled, she had a conversation with herself and her memories from childhood reveal this story:

SELF:  Did you celebrate Valentine's Day when you were small?

CHILD:  Oh yes, especially at school. Valentine's Day was a big, red and pink slash on the class room calendar. On Valentine's Day we'd carefully stuff our school bags with a brown paper sack filled with Valentines enough for our teacher and every student in the class. We spent the night before addressing each one and then carefully signing them in cursive.

SELF: You mean everyone in the class made a Valentine for each and every class member?

CHILD: Why yes, of course. No one was left out. Even the boys made Valentines for everyone. 

SELF:  There was time to do this?

CHILD:  It was wintertime and hard to play a long time outside. You might get frostbite or at least your cheeks turned red and your nose dripped. There was time to make cards by the dozens in front of the warm fire in between the snowstorms.

SELF: You mean handmade?

CHILD: Well, some did come from Woolworth's-mostly the boys just punched out the preprinted ones from stiffened paper, but the girls created cardboard and construction paper greetings.  Each one contained homemade fantasies of friendship and love.

SELF: Did you deliver them in your neighborhood?

CHILD: Some we did; we'd ring the door bell and run away leaving hurried footprints in the snow. But our classmates, that was a different story. Love was not quite so shy there. In the morning, after the Pledge of Allegiance, we'd deposit them in the classroom mailbox. The mailbox was an old cardboard carton rescued from the grocery store for just this purpose. Kind mothers festooned the box with crepe paper ribbons and construction paper hearts, plus hearts made of lace. White doily hearts on red construction paper smelling of paste. In the center was an accordion tissue heart that could fold flat in two and then pop open again in all its glory like a magical winter blooming rose.

SELF: What happened next?

CHILD: First we had to do our lessons. Near the end of the school day we all took turns being mailmen. We each delivered fistfuls of Valentines in turn. Lumpy Valentines promised lollipops. Small bumpy Valentines carried candy hearts with secret messages like "Be Mine".  On other cards the odor of cloves promised tiny, hot red hearts that turned your tongue red and stained fingertips crimson.

SELF: When did it end? When the school bus came or the car pool was called?

CHILD: No. It all ended when the bell rang. Row by row we went to the cloak room and carefully packed our satchels with our carefully counted cards. Next we'd run, laugh, and slide with our friends. Out in the snow we'd go... all the way home.

Diane Bunker Gallagher – South Carolina

Another personal message from a friend of my husband’s shows that at an early age, he was smitten by Cupid’s arrow:

“When I was in the third grade in an elementary school in Wisconsin we celebrated Valentine's Day in a nice way. Our parents would take us to the local drug store where we could buy a box of little Valentine cards. Here were 35 kids in my class, 14 girls so I had to fill out 14 cards and pass them out on Valentine's Day. Every girl got 20 cards and every boy got 14 cards.  Of course, if everyone in the class did the same thing I would return home that afternoon with the same number of cards I started with. There was one girl in my class I liked, Vicki Henderson, but, at that age, one would never dare to express one's feelings. I wouldn't have known how anyway. Just thinking about telling her made me so scared I couldn't talk.

When I got home from school I went through all the cards in hopes of finding a special word or two on Vicki's card. To my amazement, when I read her card it said, "Hi Fred.  Hope you have a nice Valentine's Day." Now I don't doubt that this was her generic way of saying "Happy Valentine's Day" to every boy in the class but I imagined that maybe, just maybe, she didn't remember every boy's name and that this card might have included a small extra thought for me.” As Fred explained, “This wasn't a story of cupid sliding down a ray of sunshine to make two beautiful people fall in love. But for an eight year old kid who was the youngest and shortest in his class, who got his first pair of thick glasses at the age of seven and who stuttered so badly he had to see a speech therapist, the fact that Vicki Henderson even knew my name made it a pretty special day.”

Fred Walker – Florida.

“What Nature Leaves Behind” photo by Karilea Rilling Jungel. CA Beach

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