Student Success Stories
Brad Adams
Midland College respiratory Care student Brad Adams was honored April 9 at the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society national convention in Seattle, Washington, as one of 25 recipients of the Frank Lanza Memorial Scholarship.
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Celestina Bascus
Celestina Bascus is the definition of success in so many ways. But her childhood was no predictor of that success. She was born "dirt poor" in Big Spring. Her first language was Spanish, and she sometimes struggled in the English-speaking world.
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Jeff Darr
During the past 26 years, Darr has moved up in the ranks of the Midland Police Department from patrol officer to his current position as Deputy Chief of Field Operations, where he supervises 120 employees and is responsible for a $12 million budget.
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Billy Davis
"I've been taking things apart since I was about 4 years old," says Billy Davis. The 22-year-old Berg Motor Company service technician is now getting paid for taking things apart! (Of course, he has to put them back together properly.) He's been on the job for a little over a year, and it all began with dual enrollment automotive technology courses at Lee High School.
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Energy Tech
Chevron has been a partner with MC in the energy technology program from its inception. The company provides internships to MC students, and in May 2011, Chevron hired several students from MC's first energy technology graduating class as field specialist trainees. Timothy Acosta and Leonard Gonzales are two of these graduate who began their careers with Chevron on May 23.
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Andy Hancock
"It is quite fitting that my first solo show would be at Midland College as it was while I was there that I first started exploring what all I could do with photography and began to consider it as a career," said Andrew Hancock, this fall's Midland College Studio 3600 Series artist.
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Barbara Heredia
Translated into English, the Italian word bellisimo means very beautiful, gorgeous, ravishing, stunning. For 26-year-old Barbara Heredia, it also means the beginning of an entrepreneurial career.
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Saul Herrera
"I didn't think college was in my future," said Saul Herrera, "but I loved MC as soon as I got there!" Saul especially enjoyed his job managing the game room in the Scharbauer Student Center in 1979 and 1980. It's where he met the athletes, became their friends, and found his way to one of his greatest passions for the past thirty years: Midland College basketball.
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Richard Hirth
It was almost like a fairy tale. She was an 18-year-old Midland Lee High School graduate; he was a 19-year-old Midland College sophomore and president of the MC Student Government Association. Between 2004 and 2007, they met, fell in love and got married—it all happened on the MC campus!
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Thomas Hudson
When Thomas Hudson graduated from Midland High School in 2004, there was no question as to where this third-generation Aggie would go to college—it was Texas A&M all the way. He did do one thing a little differently: instead of majoring in engineering like his father and older brother, Hudson majored in history, and in 2008 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from A&M.
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Shannon Kennedy
Observation, assessment and care—those are the skills that Shannon Kennedy says one must possess to be a neonatal nurse. The newborns in the nursery at Midland Memorial Hospital's West Campus can't speak for themselves; thankfully, they have Kennedy to be their advocate.
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Christine Krenik and Megan Dutton
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowgirls! They'll earn a whole lot more if you steer them towards science, math, engineering and technical careers. It's time for American girls to give science, math and technology a second look because high paying jobs for women are frequently found in fields where women are scarce.
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Cedie Martin
The mission statement of HospiceMidland reads, "To fulfill the unique needs of patients and their families by providing care from the heart." Caring from the heart is exactly what Cedie Martin, RN, does. Martin is the Clinical Nurse Manager for HospiceMidland's 14-bed inpatient unit located on the third floor of Midland Memorial Hospital.
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Judith Mendoza
In 2001, when Judith Mendoza was 12 years old, she moved to Midland from La Ciudad de Chihuahua, Mexico. "I felt isolated and alone because I didn't know a word of English. So I made an effort to understand English as fast as I could," she states. "Now, I have made it my life's mission to help others who may have feelings of isolation and loneliness."
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Al Mitchell
He was raised on the Llano Estacado in Eddy County, New Mexico. Al Mitchell says if he ever writes a book of his adventures, it will be called The Llano Estacado Law Man because he has spent a good deal of his life putting criminals behind bars on the dry and treeless high plains straddling the Texas-New Mexico border.
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Lynn Rogers
Visiting Midland College feels like being at home - that's what MC graduate Lynn Blakeney Rogers, a first-generation-to-college student, said about her alma mater.
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Connie Sanchez
The education of Connie Sanchez was a family effort. When her kids got out of school during the day, they accompanied her to night classes at UTPB so she could finish her bachelor's degree. Her children witnessed, and were part of, Connie's commitment to getting an education.
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Luis Sanchez
"I can't make promises, but I can find answers." Those are the words of 32-year-old Midland County Precince 3 Commissioner Luis D. Sánchez. One of his major goals as county commissioner is "to empower the citizens of the underprivileged neighborhoods which he serves."
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Sim Lab & Hospice
The highly sophisticated computerized manikins in Midland College's medical simulation lab breathe, blink, speak, bleed, and even sweat! Until recently, the manikins have always survived all types of disease, cardiac arrest, and other trauma inflicted upon them for the purpose of teaching students in MC's health sciences programs.
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Tony Shupp
"God doesn't demand perfection, but He does require excellence." That is the motto that guides Tony Shupp's life. For the past three years, Shupp has served Stonegate Fellowship as the children's pastor. Along with 15 full-time employees, approximately 50 part-time employees and countless volunteers, he is responsible each week for leading 1,000 children—infants through sixth grade—in their walk with God.
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Juanita Valdez
They had no television, no phone and no newspaper. Juanita Valdez does not share this news of her childhood home with regret, as she and her nine siblings were happy growing up on "The Oasis," a ranch in West Texas, between Dryden and Sheffield. The upside to their situation: school was everything.
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Morris Williams
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Carver Street, two blocks east of Lamesa Road, sits the headquarters of one of Midland's most important services—garbage collection, disposal and recycling. Morris Williams, Jr., quietly and unassumingly directs this important operation.
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Melissa Zenger
When Melissa Zenger's infant daughter passed away, she felt as if her life had ended as well, and she sank into a deep depression. Thanks to counseling, her faith and the desire to help her fellow human, she is now working as a case manager for the federally funded Pathways out of Poverty program.
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