A Year in the Life

Click A Year in the Life to Enter Cloud County Community College Contents About Cumulus 2 Volleyball 3 Cross Country 4 Soccer (Re)Takes the Field 5 International Athletes 7 Campus Renovations 9 Portraits 10 Thunderbolts: Dance 29 T-Bird Cheer 30 Lady Thunderbird Basketball 31 T-Bird Basketball 32 Agriculture at Cloud 34 Winter Play: A Charlie Brown Christmas 35 Choir: Bring on the Music 36 Softball 37 Baseball 39 Track and Field 41 To navigate, click on the page title or use the forward / backward arrows. Click on Thor any time to jump back to the Table of Contents. Cumulus Cumulus Cumulus Mission Statement Faculty Marc Malone, Department Chair and Cumulus is a student-generated, community-focused publi- Instructor for English and Communications cation that seeks to capture a year in the life of the college, its employees, and the community it serves. Students Vision Statement Jacob Drey Marissa Hiers Cumulus aims to be the college’s touchstone publication: a Zoe Merz space of reminiscence for alumni, a record of current events and issues, and a resource for students, staff, and faculty. Austin Montague Jaymes Patterson Tristan Sasse About This Publication Tresta Urban Cumulus is a product of the Journalism and Mass Communi- cations program and is produced by the combined efforts of students in Digital Magazine Production: Design and Style Additional Time and Assistance and Digital Magazine Production: Storytelling. Jenny Acree, Director of Marketing Jessica LeDuc, Assistant Director of Marketing Volume 4 Page 2 Cumulus Cumulus Cumulus Every year, a select group of women come together to serve, volley, and spike for Cloud County. This year, the girls Volleyballfinished with a loss to Seward County during the Region VI Semifinal and ended up with a 22-12 record for the season. Head Coach Molly Skocny said, “overall, I was happy with our season this year. We continue to show strides each year toward the top of the conference, which is where I would like From top to bottom, left to right: Brook Paslay, Cara Flach, Jocelyn to see our program. I feel like our girls were a great example of Marten, Laura Sudbeck, Haley Falk, Kylie McKinney, McKenna White, what confidence can do for a program.” Drew Mann, Gaby da Silva, Jaci Kolm, Mandy Michaelis, Bailey Lewis, Cheyanne Hileman Although they didn’t make it as far as they wanted, the women still had their own highlights, from beating Pratt to taking Hutch to four sets. Sophomore Jaci Kolm said her favorite memory is from tournament play: “[This year] we went to a tournament in Oklahoma and we won all of our games there.” Sophomore McKenna White said the highlight of her season was working so well with her teammates: “We worked really well together which helped make us successful. We never really had a problem within the team so we were like a big family. Also, we all have so much love and passion for the game.” Page 3 Jaymes Patterson Cross Country Rendon, and Camila Faundez. The Cloud County cross country team had an extremely successful season athletically and academically. Many athletes Ultimately, the 2015 cross country team competed well were able to compete at a high level throughout the entire against tough competition throughout all seven meets they season for the Thunderbirds. Coached by Drew Mahin, twelve attended. The Thunderbirds fought through injuries and were males and six females made up the Thunderbird cross country able to represent Cloud satisfactorily. With over half of the team with nearly an equal distribution of freshmen and sopho- team being freshmen, Cloud should be able to compete at a mores. high level from the beginning next season. Cloud had a total of eight national qualifiers, including three In July of 2016, the men’s cross country team was named the on the women’s team and five on the men’s. Nationals took Academic Team of the year by the NJCAA. Galen Allen, Bryce place on Saturday, November 14 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Stephanie Ginther, Jacob Drey, and Jace Coppoc all earned individual Barrett was the highest national qualifying finisher at 15th. Academic Student Athlete Awards. National Qualifier Camila Faundez and Laramie Leakey also qualified. Both went Stephanie Barrett (fr.) on to place in the top 200. On the men’s side, Jamal Namous was expected to be the highest finisher at nationals, but had Tristan Sasse to drop out of the race early due to injury. Nick Roark, Bryce Golightley, Tyler Wallace, and Zane Downing all qualified for nationals on the men’s team. Many athletes noticed what led to the team’s success, including sophomore and national qualifier Bryce Golightley who said “I enjoyed having a full team who was ready to work hard every day.” Freshmen Jace Coppoc added by saying “I enjoyed the team aspect of cross country and long runs with everyone.” Both athletes believed cross country played a major role in their success in track. National Qualifier The Cloud’s men team also shined academically, finishing Jamal Namous (so.) fourth nationally and highest in Region VI with a 3.775 GPA. Individual All-American academic honors were given to Boone Women, from left: Sydney Owings, Laramie Leakey, Yazmin Rendon, Debbie Ames, Cady, Galen Allen, Bryce Ginther, Jace Coppoc, and Ben Usher. Camila Faundez, and Stephanie Barrett The women’s squad was also successful in the classroom and Men, from left: Bryce Golightley, Jace Coppoc, Zane Downing, Boone Cady, Jamal finished 22nd nationally with a 3.437 GPA. Women to receive Namous, Bryce Ginther, Yego Emmanuel, Nick Roark, Galen Allen, Tyler Wallace, Ben All-American honors academically were Debbie Ames, Yazmin Usher, and Jacob Drey Page 4 Soccer (re)Takes the Field of activiting a wrestling It’s been an eventful and program. sometimes uncertain year for the College’s soccer team. On Tuesday Tristan Sasse, a sophomore and November 17, 2016 the Cloud writer for Thunderhead Media, County Community College Board Cloud’s student-run media group, of Trustees had their regular- was among the students who ly-scheduled meeting. One of the questioned the Board’s rationale. topics of discussion was whether “It didn’t make sense to me to to keep or deactivate the soccer eliminate a winning team.” team. In response to community interest, the Board was consid- The success of the soccer team ering deactivating soccer in order was a persistent theme of the to add a wrestling team. There pro-soccer conversation, and the were two main points of conver- team did have a successful season, sation: Title IX regulations require with eleven total wins (15 games) an equal number of men’s and and 7 conference wins (10 games). women’s teams, and initially, the Board was not prepared to add During guest comments, many another women’s team. The Board students, teachers, and alumni was also considering the fact that spoke in support of the team. wrestling is a popular and growing Beth Whisler, an Instructor, said regional sport. Multiple board that “the soccer program brings members spoke about potential tremendous diversity to the recruitment increases as a result classroom” and that diversity is an important part of the Cloud experience. Kendy Pierre, a tunity away from the foreign kids. sophomore soccer player, Soccer can get them out of the Front row, from left: Diego Garcia, Tre Thomas, Leonardo spoke during the meeting. horrible living situations some of Catarina, Lenoardo Sosa, Dwayne Taylor, Aleksandar Pumpalovic. I asked Kendy what them come from, and I wanted Second row, from left: Marcel Almeida, Elliott Sharp, Gabriel motivated him to speak to help.” Kendy has been on Chaves, Lucas Braga De Oliveira, Bruno Moreira, Victor Silva, at the board meeting. He the soccer team for two years, Mateus Silva said, “The teachers talking and he says his favorite parts of Third row, from left: Ajuma Johnson, Camoy Blash, Zachary made me want to speak.” playing for Cloud are “traveling Kock, Irving Silvestre, Shaquille Folks Losing soccer would have and meeting new kids, learning Back row, from left: Hakeem Smith, Giulliano Cruci, Ruan meant “taking a big oppor- new languages, making friends. Cadari, Kendy Pierre, Saindou Ali, Connor Halpin Kendy Pierre (so.) takes control of the ball while playing Dodge City Community College. Page 5 Pierre continued : “You can learn about new cultures from all of the different players and we learn to be a family. We learn how valuable friendship is. We also learn how to be independent.” Leonardo Sosa, the captain of the soccer team, said, “when I first heard the board members were thinking of cutting the team I was shocked because we never heard anything like that before, especially after a great season when we made 11-2-2 and those 11 victories were straight. How could they want to do that to a sport that won a National champi- onship 5 years ago?” Sosa felt that speaking really changed the board members’ minds. “I think it made a difference once they saw there was a kid who loves soccer speaking to them about the truth. I was also showing them how they are taking a kid’s dream of getting an education away by getting rid of their favorite sport.” Having students and faculty speak obviously made quite the difference because the board members couldn’t make a final decision on November 17. Gregory Askren moved and Larry Henry seconded to table action on the athletic teams until a special meeting on Monday, November 30, 2015. After some brief discussion, Linda Richard moved and Thomas Tuggle seconded to “keep the men’s soccer program as an ongoing vital part of the uniqueness of Cloud County Community College and authorize Dr.

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