The Advocate Issue 29

the dvocateA Mt. Hood Community College Gresham, Oregon

May 21, 2010 Volume 45, Issue 29www.advocate-online.net

Index

Jazz vocalist returns to MHCC for a 'Soul Walk'

Music p. 7

A&E p. 6

QSA "Pride Days" offer something

for every student

News p. 8

Current MHCC students can register online now for fall term; open registration begins Monday Opinion

News

Sports

A&E

Music

p. 2

p. 3, 8

p. 4-5

p. 6

p. 7Sports p. 4

Saints at risk of ending 16-year streak of playoff appearances

Broadcasting major 'energized' entering

the studio

Ron J. Rambo Jr.The Advocate

The Mt. Hood Community College District Budget Committee ap-proved the 2010-2011 budget Wednesday night as initially proposed May 5 despite pleas from students to change implementation of a $50 per term parking fee.

A new fee schedule, effective fall term 2010, was also approved.The college’s current proposal would generate $4.28 million in new

revenue, most of which will come from a $5 per credit hour tuition in-crease and the parking fee, but also from an increase in administrative charges on federal and state grants and higher course fees. The cuts made will amount to $1.83 million and include eliminating six depart-ment chairs and associate dean positions, reducing part-time faculty costs and eliminating six full-time employees.

Many students who spoke out during three meetings since May 5 voiced concern over so many changes taking place as soon as summer term, including opposition at a meeting Wednesday morning seven hours prior to the budget committee approval. These changes include delays in financial aid distribution by a week and a half, increased tuition of $5 per credit hour and the parking fee in order to help relieve a $5.8 million budget deficit for 2010-2011.

“If we wanted to go to PCC, we’d go to PCC,” said one student at the Wednesday morning forum after MHCC President John Sygielski sug-gested the proposed fees, tuition and parking fees would make the college “competitive with other colleges in the region.”

At the Wednesday night meeting, three students spoke to the board asking the college to reconsider adding and increasing fees. A handful more held signs that said “Don’t be rash with our cash.”

Heather Nichelle-Peres, Queer-Straight Alliance president, empha-sized the burden the proposed changes might put on students.

“I do what I can to budget my money to become a better person and a better student,” said Nichelle-Peres. “It’s important to focus on stay-ing in school. I understand the budget issues that are concerning the college. But please don’t make rash decisions. Please delay the financial aid changes, the tuition increases and the increased fees. Please take this decision seriously.”

Kate Burns, a political science major, said she was speaking for her-self and other members who could not make it to the meeting.

“I am sympathetic to the budget crisis,” said Burns. “I know about the proposed changes. What I am concerned about are those who don’t know. We must allow students more time to get notice. These decisions affect real students, and they affect real lives. Delay decisions until all students have had adequate time to prepare for these changes, and until all students are made aware.”

None of the students who spoke proposed changes. When time came for committee members to comment, Brian Free-

man said, “What a lot of people don’t understand is that we have a schedule we have to keep to, according to law. We can’t really wait to make these changes.”

Committee member Duke Shepard said these issues should have been raised prior to the meeting.

Jen AshenbernerThe Advocate

The Associated Student Government Senate approved a bill Wednesday to estab-lish a new disciplinary process that could al-low removal of the president or member of executive office,

The measure was approved 9-1, with Richard Ison casting the lone dissenting vote.

The bill requires the signature ASG Pres-ident Bradley Best, who had not signed the measure as of Thursday morning and was unavailable for comment.

Sen. Charles Cookman wrote the bill and said, “There is no formal way to disci-pline an elected official and rather than go-ing through the resolution process, I thought it would be nice if there was a formal way of doing it.”

Cookman said he began reviewing the bylaws when the membership committee was going through the resolution process after ASG President Bradley Best had been accused of harassment.

“The wording was not quite clear enough,” he said. “I also came upon the problem that there is no formal impeach-

ment process, so rather than creating an impeachment process — people don’t nec-essarily and fully understand what impeach-ment means — I decided to tie that into dis-ciplinary procedures and make it a removal process.”

The original bylaws stated that students would have an opportunity to vote in the case a recall election was necessary to war-rant the removal of a president. The new document bypasses the recall election pro-cess and calls for an investigative committee comprised of the membership committee, one member of the executive cabinet and

a member of the Student Activities Board. Cookman said when re-writing the by-

laws, he consulted several people including other senators, Vice President Bethany Pe-terman, Director of Student Life Meadow McWhorter and Student Events and Spe-cial Projects Coordinator Pam Kuretich. “I was told by several people that there are two ways to remove an executive officer from of-fice and to just use the easiest method,” he said.

Disciplinary student senate bill approved, awaiting ASG presidential signature

Senate continued on page 3

Budget continued on page 3

Parking fee remains in 2010-2011 budget proposalStudents ask budget committee to delay approval until all students are given 'adequate' notice of changes

Photo illustration by Ron J. Rambo Jr./The Advocate

"Coming to us at budget time and asking us to make all these changes is not a good time to talk to us about cost-curbing"

Duke ShepardMHCC Budget Committee member

OPINION2 The Advocate may 21, 2010

Sanne Godfrey Editor-in-Chief

Ron J. Rambo Jr. Executive Editor,Design Jake Fray Sports EditorAdvertising Manager

Brett Stanley Photo Editor

Chelsea Van BaalenA&E, Web Editor Jen Ashenberner Music Editor

Jordan Tichenor Opinion Editor

Submissions

Mt. Hood Community College26000 SE Stark Street

Gresham, Oregon 97030

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www.advocate-online.net

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Bob WatkinsAdviser

Dan ErnstAssistant Adviser

The Advocate encourages readers to share their opinion by letters to the editor and guest columns for publication. All submissions must be typed and include the writer’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be printed unless requested. Original copies will not be returned to the author. The Advocate will not print any unsigned submission.

Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and guest columns should not exceed 600. The decision to publish is at the discretion of the editorial board.

The Advocate reserves the right to edit for style, punctuation, grammar and length.

Please bring submissions to The Advocate in Room 1369, or e-mail them to [email protected]. Submissions must be received by 5 p.m. Monday the week of publication to be considered for print.

Opinions expressed in columns, letters to the editor or advertisements are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Advocate or MHCC.

Ollie Barker Reporter

Devin Courtright Reporter

Chealsey Fischer Reporter

Jon Fuccillo Reporter

David Gambill Reporter

Chanel HillReporter

L. John King Reporter

Thelma M. Lucas Reporter

M. Michael RoseReporter

Mario Rubio Reporter

the dvocateA Editorial

If it wasn’t clear enough last week that the 2010-2011 MHCC budget proposal was created foremost with the idea of taking from student pockets, it became clear Wednesday night when the district budget committee made no changes to the original proposal which has students fronting more than 60 percent the cost of a $5.8 million budget deficit.

Despite input at budget forums hosted by college officials, which now appear to have been a display of good sportsman-ship to allow students to vent rather than take into consid-eration actual changes, the district board, acting as budget committee, came to the decision that they are still smarter than everyone else, and that no changes should be made to their perfect plan. Options offered by a host of students, by economics instructor Ted Scheinman and by The Advocate seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, the college has shown that despite everything MHCC President John Sygiel-ski has said, this institution’s leaders are not ready to take the aggressive steps necessary to become a great college.

At a time when enrollment has increased greatly over the last two years (10 percent in 2008-2009, 15 percent in 2009-2010), and expansion appears optimal, MHCC has instead begun to sink back to a more conservative approach of cut-ting full-time staff positions and eliminating dean positions. This is good in the short-run to help create relief, but the priority must be to reinstate those staff so the college can add sections and thereby boost enrollment. State reimburse-ment comes in a three-year cycle based on full-time enroll-ment numbers, and next year the college should start seeing returns from the ’08-’09 growth.

The conservative approach of only cutting costs rather than trying to expand revenue, brought on primarily by budget consultant Heidi Franklin, a former Portland Public Schools administrator, is not a good long-term approach. College is a business. The product they are trying to sell is education. People with money to spend on that educa-tion are willing to meet halfway and pay the fees, but there must be more sections and classes offered to make their time worthwhile. Franklin comes from a public education process with a fixed budget in the form of state support and taxes. But in MHCC’s situation, much of the revenue is coming directly out of student pockets in the form of increased fees,

tuition and a parking fee.Over and over, Sygielski and other college officials have

said, “It’s not the WHAT, it’s the HOW that we need to dis-cuss.” But it’s the “WHAT” that is the problem. When a budget consultant is needed to do the job that vice presidents and other in-house resources should be able to do, there are problems. Sygielski constantly preaches creativity, and the best college officials could come up with is . . . a parking fee?

In response to a parking fee question at a Wednesday’s town hall forum, Franklin told a student: “We set the budget to where everything is balanced, and we know we needed $2 million in revenue. So if we don’t fill that hole, we have a $2 million shortfall. We have to make that $2 million in revenue somehow.” Previously, Sygielski said the college was spend-ing $100 per day for Franklin’s services to help balance the budget and come up with creative ways to produce revenue. One hundred dollars a day to come up with a stale idea that will only create animosity and disdain for the college, not to mention one that reeks of mediocrity, is not worth the money. It would have been more effective to hire a business consul-tant with some grasp and success in running businesses.

If it’s not Sygielski’s “WHAT” and it truly is his “HOW” that is the issue, here is a solution that is sure to fall on deaf ears once again: Charge students their parking fee based on their credit hour enrollment at MHCC (as does Clark Col-lege). Charge students a “transportation fee” — or whatever spin the administration wants to put on it — of $3.50 per credit hour enrolled. This amounts to $42 for an average 12-credit, or full-time, student. It isn’t fair to price-discrim-inate against so many part-time students who are here two days a week, and there already are enough students taking 15, 16 or more credits to fulfill the administration’s needs. And if there aren’t? Take from the $4 million to be trans-ferred to the emergency reserve fund. The board has desig-nated that amount to be at 5 percent the general fund, not the 7 percent it will soon be.

Students should not suffer for the college’s money mishan-dling over the past five years. However, it is clear that the march of the pigs will continue into June when the budget will be adopted, and the college is quick to turn its back when students are at the mercy of their decisions.

Your opinion doesn't matter, only your pocketbooks, says MHCC

A bill approved Wednesday night by the Associated Student Government Senate included changes that are entire-ly unwarranted.

Why would the Senate decide to ex-clude those people who voted for a presi-dent or vice-president from the decision to remove them from office? The Advo-cate can tell you why and the author of the bill, Charles Cookman, confirmed it: It’s just not as messy when you simply bypass the student body. “I was told by several people that there are two ways to remove an executive officer from office and to just use the easiest method,” said Cookman. “I also came upon the prob-lem that there is no formal impeach-ment process, so rather than creating an impeachment process — people don’t necessarily and fully understand what impeachment means — I decided to tie that into disciplinary procedures and make it a removal process.” Get that? The author of the bill and the Senate have no faith in the student body to un-derstand the word “impeachment,” or it’s process.

The bill, in effect, creates an oligarchy. If current President Bradley Best signs the new by-law into effect, there would potentially be nothing to stop eight peo-ple from tossing out a democratically elected official and ruling by committee. After that, ASMHCC Senate can do pretty much whatever it wants. Also, the new by-laws take effect immediately af-ter Best signs off on them, despite what

Pam Kuretich says about the removal process taking three weeks; the new by-laws only state that the process can take up to three weeks, not that they have to. In essence, the process could take as little as a day if ASMHCC wanted it to.

But let’s look at their motives. Why would a vice president want to remove the president? According to the by-laws passed Wednesday, the vice president (who is in control of the Senate) would then be promoted president.

Why would the ASMHCC Senate want to remove a standing president? Well, it simply makes life easier for them in the long run. Once he or she is out, again, they can do whatever they want. The new by-laws specifically make things easier for the Senate to remove someone from office — and that is all the new bylaws do.

As Vladimir Lenin said, “Look for the person who profits, and you find your culprit.”

If these sorts of shenanigans took place at a state or national level, there would be massive public outcry. And here, too, there should be outcry. At a nation-al level, removal of a standing president, by mere vote, is illegal. A legal trial must also take place.

Essentially, the new by-laws allow eight ASMHCC senators to veto an en-tire election. This removes a check and balance from a democracy that is found-ed, even at a community college level, on checks and balances.

This also motivates the Senate to simply remove from office someone they don’t like. It basically says: “If we don’t like you, we can find some reason to get rid of you,” or “You hurt our feelings, now we make you go bye-bye.”

There is also nowhere in the by-laws that define in any sort of way what con-stitutes an infraction that would legiti-mize the removal of an acting president or vice president, only “formal com-plaints.”

The term “formal complaints” is sub-jective; it could be for anything, includ-ing naughty language or any number of equally subjective infractions, like being “rude” to someone or, well, anything. It would turn the Senate into a group of tin-pot dictators. It gives the ASMHCC senate a power they should be categori-cally denied from having.

It should also be noted that the ef-forts made by the Senate are rendered utterly futile because no president would presumably be stupid enough to sign this bill.

There is no real solution here. Noth-ing can make ASMHCC’s newest ef-forts legitimate. Nothing can fix this problem except for the Senate to give it up and move on. They wanted to re-move Best from office for, among other things, not representing MHCC as well as they think he should have. By trying to overrule a democratic process, the ASMHCC Senate is equally guilty of the same infraction.

ASMHCC Senate disregards democratic process

news The Advocate 3may 21, 2010

Saturday, May 22

NW Vocal Jazz Festivalfrom 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Monday, May 24

tuesday, May 25

Café Tuesdayfrom 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.in the Jazz Café

NW Vocal Jazz Festivalfrom 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Men's Forumfrom noon to 1 p.m.in Room 1008

Student Ceramics Salefrom 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.in the College Center

Wednesday, May 26

KMHD2 Launch Partyfrom noon to 2 p.m.in the Main Mall

AA Meetingfrom noon to 12:50 p.m..in Room 1266

WorldView: Spainfrom noon to 1 p.m.in Room 1600

Student Success SeminarImproving Memory & Concentrationfrom 2 to 3 p.m.in Room 2307

Friday, May 21

Rho Theta Inductionsfrom 6 to 9 p.m.in the Town & Gown Room

Student Success SeminarCoping with Stressfrom 2 to 3 p.m.in Room 1152

Calendar

Thursday, May 27

Jordan Tichenor The Advocate

The MHCC administration declined a full-time faculty asso-ciation proposal Wednesday to ne-gotiate five non-economic articles during the second round of con-tract talks.

The faculty proposed Articles 3, 5, 7, 13 and 18 of the current contract be opened for negotia-tion.

Sara Williams, the full-time fac-ulty chief negotiator, said the arti-

cles primarily dealt with language improvement, including faculty rights, the grievance procedure and board prerogatives.

“In hard economic times, you work for language improvement,” she said.

The administration last week proposed that the two sides ne-gotiate portions of five articles (1, 12, 19, 21 and 22) all dealing with economic issues, including salary, fringe benefits and extra-teach. Randy Stedman, an attorney hired

by the board to bargain the con-tract for the administration, modi-fied the earlier proposal, saying they would be willing to open up the entire articles rather than just specific paragraphs.

In a Thursday email, Stedman said, “We respectfully declined the faculty’s offer and counter pro-posed to limit negotiations to all provisions of the five articles we originally proposed. We suggested the faculty take a week to think about our counter proposal.

“The daunting nature of the financial challenges that face MHCC suggest to me that time and energy can be better spent elsewhere than haggling over pro-visions of the contract that have stood the test of time,” said Sted-man.

Williams said Wednesday, “My concern is that they don’t have anything to give in the current ar-ticles (they have proposed). Nego-tiation doesn’t work without give and take.”

Jordan TichenorThe Advocate

Two separate safety inci-dents, a bomb threat and a

fire in the gym, were reported on the MHCC campus Tuesday.

The college received a bomb threat via telephone call at 11:17 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to an e-mail sent by MHCC Presi-dent John Sygielski.

A sweep of the Gresham cam-pus, Maywood Park campus and Bruning Center was conducted

by Public Safety officers and the MHCC staff but no suspicious packages or devices was found, Sygielski said.

According to Sygielski’s Tues-day e-mail, “The Gresham Police and their partners in the Metro-politan Explosive Disposal Unit (commonly known as the Bomb Squad) advise us that they have

not experienced an incident at any MHCC location where a phoned-in bomb threat has resulted in any actual device found.”

The Gresham police do not dispatch a response team unless there is a device found., Sygielski said.

Later Tuesday, a fire was re-ported at 9:15 p.m. in the men’s

locker room in the college gymna-sium.

According to a Thursday email from Sygielski, it appears that a long-nosed lighter was used to set fire to a towel within a locker. The fire was contained to one locker and did not cause damage to the locker room. The gym was evacu-ated and no one was injured.

Wayne Feagle, head public safety officer, confirmed Thursday the two incidents were not related.

MHCC experiences bomb threat and fire in one weekSafety incidents alert campus security

Administration pushes financial reform in faculty contract talks

MHCC parties Hawaiian style

Photo by Devin Courtright/The AdvocateThe RICE club, Student Activity Board, Student Life staff, facilities and others helped put together the Small Island/Big World Luau on Thursday, May 13. Performances included talent from MHCC students as well as off-campus groups.

“If there is animosity toward the new bylaws regarding the exclu-sion of the student body, it can be brought up to Senate next year,” said Cookman.

Second-year accounting major Renee Holland asked why the Sen-ate doesn’t want the student body involved. “Students should have a say because they’re paying for it,” she said.

Megan Fitzsimmons, another second-year student, said, “I totally be-lieve we (the student body) should have a say. Ninety five percent of the school’s population is the students who pay a lot of money to go here.”

Ison said he voted against the change because he felt the wording should have included more active participation on behalf of the stu-dents. “I don’t believe that any single group should ever have the power to override the students input,” Ison said Thursday.

The bill states that after complaints are made, they will be added to the agenda and once the complaint is “deemed worthy of an investiga-tion,” the investigative committee will be created, with selection made by the chair of the membership committee. The investigation will last no longer that three weeks and the chair will report the findings on an ongoing basis during Senate meetings in executive session. At the end of the investigation, the investigative committee will present its findings and recommendations for disciplinary action.

According to the bill, “After the full report of the investigation, Senate shall vote on the actions to be taken based on the findings and recom-mendations of the investigative committee.”

The actions that Senate can vote on include, but are not limited to, probation, job performance training as determined by the nature of the complaint or removing the elected official from office.

In the Wednesday Senate meeting, Cookman was asked whether the issues being brought forward would be discussed in public or in executive

session. “It’s going to be on the agenda so it’s already public,” he said. “The starting of the investigation will be public and then other things said after that will be in executive session. It should be public as to why they are coming under review and why the investigation is happening because otherwise everyone’s in the dark.”

ASG Vice President Bethany Peterman agreed and said, “Yes, and then they get a piece of paper thrown at them with all the allegations.”

Sen. Raul Reyes, supporting the decision to re-write the bylaws, said the process outlined in the document was similar to what the member-ship committee went through this year to implement a resolution for the Best situation except they had no written guidelines to follow. “There was nothing outlined stating what we could do and all we could do was just use the interim process,” he said.

Best said Wednesday before the Senate meeting that he had not been involved in writing the bill but would have a chance to review it once it is approved by Senate. “I don’t know currently where they’re at but chanc-es are pretty high that they’ll vote on it this evening,” he said. “They will need a presidential signature on it to be finalized.”

If Best decides not to sign the bill, it would be sent back to Senate for restructuring and, Best said, “If there is a veto necessary, then there will be a veto necessary.”

In the case of a presidential veto, 200 signatures would be required from the students at MHCC in order to override the veto and pass it through without the president signing off on it.

According to Kuretich, the bill will go into effect immediately after it’s signed by Best and that it is unlikely that it can be used to remove the current president or vice president, whose terms end June 11. “It’s very unlikely because they will have to form an investigative committee and the committee has up to three weeks to investigate,” she said.

Senate continued from page 1:

New bill to allow removal of ASG president approved 9-1

“Coming to us at budget time and asking us to make all these changes is not a good time to talk to us about cost-curbing,” Shepard said.

Despite the student testimony, the committee approved the budget as originally proposed. The students who spoke and car-ried the signs immediately left after the announcement, many shaking their heads.

The new fee schedule, presented by interim Vice President of Instruction Larkin Franks and accompanied by Janie Griffin, the nursing program director, will include increases totaling an esti-mated $221,000. Many of the dental hygiene, funeral services and respiratory therapy fees will double, while half of the nursing course fees increased by 25 percent. There will also be a new clinical cost fee of $350 added to nursing. Previously, the college had not charged a fee for this clinical.

Griffin said the “fees can be justified” because “many other colleges with nursing programs have similar fee costs or are larger than MHCC’s.” Griffin said she’d seen fees as large as $3,200 for the year at some colleges.

Committee member Rod Monroe, who participated via tele-phone because of illness, said, “I think this is a necessary move (in order to) have a balanced budget and keep the programs we need.”

Next step is a budget hearing at 6:30 p.m. July 23 by the Mult-nomah County Tax Supervising and Conservation Committee. Following the hearing, the district board will vote on the final ver-sion of the 2010-2011 budget.

The budget committee and district board are comprised of the same seven members. State law requires budget committee review and approval, and a chance for public input, before the district’s governing body gives final approval. The budget must be approved before the July 1 start of the next fiscal year.

Budget continued from page 1:

Sanne GodfreyThe Advocate

Rho Theta, the MHCC honor society, won several awards May 8 at the regional convention in Corbett for the Rocky Mountain/Cascade region of the Phi Theta Kappa society, which includes 25 chapters in Oregon, Utah and southern Idaho.

The MHCC chapter earned four out of five stars for chapter achievements in the areas of de-velopment, membership, service, leadership and scholarship.

Rho Theta also received a dis-tinguished service award and a ser-vice milestone award.

Rho Theta President Onjalai Flake was recognized as a distin-guished regional chapter president and adviser Beth Sammons was recognized as a distinguished re-gional chapter adviser.

Nichelle-Peres won the region-al literacy award for her opinion essay “Why Tax Season Made Me Cry,” which was published Feb. 5 in The Advocate.

Nichelle-Peres said she is “very excited. I never really thought of myself as a writer, but I find my-self very passionate when writing about politics or queer issues. The idea that my writing was appreci-ated on an honor society level is just inspiring.”

MHCC student Ana Tift, who served as both a chapter official and a regional officer, was recog-nized as part of the regional lead-ership team, which won two in-ternational awards: distinguished regional team and regional mile-stone awards.

Rho Theta honored at regional conference

SPORTS4 The Advocate MAY 21, 2010

Softball gears up to start NWAACC tournament today

Saints backed into must-win situation Track and field wins 9 events in Southern Region

Freshman Kayla Anderson is 10-2 on the mound with a 1.42 ERA and led the team with four saves. Head coach Meadow McWhorter said that Anderson, along with pitchers Chelsea Schriber (11-2) and Myranda Sawyer (9-4), will play a major role in their team’s success during NWAACCs.

Photo by Brett Stanley/ The Advocate

Photo by Jon Fuccillo/ The Advocate

Jake FrayThe Advocate

The Saints softball team may have regained the top ranking in NWAACCs leading up to today’s championship tournament — but were reminded they are not “invincible” after losing a doubleheader to Lower Columbia May 14.

“It was a big reality check for us,” said Saints Head Coach Meadow McWhorter. “It keeps things in perspective for us. It shows us we are not invincible and that teams will be playing us hard no matter what.”

With the loss, the Saints were unable to win the Southern Region championship, losing that honor to Clackamas as they finished with a 14-6 in the South to take second place and earn a trip to the NWAACC tournament to defend their title.

The Saints begin the NWAACC tourna-ment today at 9:30 a.m. against Centralia, which is coming in as the third seed from the West Region after finishing with an 18-12 re-cord.

“Going into the (Lower Columbia) game, we knew they were going to play us hard,” said McWhorter. “It was their Sophomore Day and they wanted to spoil our chances of be-ing co-champions in the South. But with losing these games, the taste of losing is fresh in their mouth and they will use it to fuel the fire.”

In game one, the Red Devils jumped on the Saints with two early home runs off freshman Kayla Anderson, who has been clutch for the Saints all season, the coach said.

“I told Kayla if she was going to have a bad day, at least it is now and not during the tournament,” said McWhorter. “It wasn’t like she was having a bad day. It was just she kept getting down in the count and that is when you know she is struggling.”

Part of the Saints struggle was not scoring runs for Anderson, according to McWhorter.

“We left 10 runners on base that game and we couldn’t execute,” she said. “We couldn’t

make adjustments and when we are swinging at four straight pitches at our eyes and striking out, we can’t win.”

Anderson only gave up the two homeruns before being taken out and being tagged with the loss.

In game two, Anderson started again but only pitched 1 1/3 innings before being pulled after giving up two runs.

“We only wanted our pitchers to face 1-9 in the lineup, then we took them out,” said Mc-Whorter.

The women struggled throughout the game and McWhorter made a change from her usual rotation to bring in freshman Aman-da Livingston who threw four innings for the Saints.

“She threw great for us,” said McWhorter. “There were several times we could have been eight-runned in the fifth or sixth inning. She was effective for us but we just couldn’t execute again, which cost us the loss.”

The Saints lost 7-3 with Anderson picking up her second straight loss for the first time this season.

“In the NWAACC tournament, every one starts with a 0-0 record,” said McWhorter. “It is the NWAACC tournament, every team will be playing to win and we can’t take any game for granted.”

If the Saints win this morning in the double elimination tournament at Portland’s Delta Park, they will play the winner of the Wenatchee Valley–Olympic game at 1:30 p.m. If they lose, they will face the loser of the Wenatchee Valley–Olympic game, also at 1:30 p.m.

“We are the hardest working team in all of NWAACCs,” said McWhorter. “Our pitch-ing rotation is deep, which separates us from most teams. I just have to reassure them that we can’t walk in and win it all.”

For tournament bracket information, go to www.nwaacc.org.

Sanne GodfreyThe Advocate

MHCC athletes won nine events at the South-ern Region Championship last weekend in Coos Bay and raised the bar for the NWAACC Cham-pionships that will be held in Spokane, Wash., Monday and Tuesday.

Anaiah Rhodes came in first place in both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, with times of 12.44 and 25.54, respectively. She also competed in the 400 meters where she finished second with a time of 1:01.05.

Rhodes said it’s hard to run the 100 meters right after the 400 meters because there is no time to recover and she felt like she could’ve ran faster.

She said there is an athlete from the Commu-nity Colleges of Spokane who is ahead of her in the rankings and who beat her at an April meet at MHCC, but “I’m going to do my best and hope-fully come out on top,” said Rhodes.

Sophomore Kelsey Strot also competed in three events and won both the discus, with a dis-tance of 118’09”, and shot put, with a distance of 42’6.75”. She placed seventh in the hammer throw event with a distance of 71’8”.

MHCC also had the only female athlete, Katy Echauri, competing in the 3000-meter steeple-chase.

Micah Strong came in second place in both the 100 meters and 200 meters with times of 10.83 and 22.04, respectively. Chris Zeller won the 400-meter dash in a time of 50.00, in his sec-ond meet after returning from an ankle injury.

The men’s relay teams won the 4x100 with a time of 42.67 and finished second in the 4x400 with a time of 3:26.89.

Jr. Velasquez came in first place in the shot put, throwing a distance of 52’5.5” and came in fourth in the discus with a distance of 132’3”. The discus was won by teammate Adrian Weber, who threw a distance of 142’4.”

Velasquez and Weber also competed in the hammer throw event, placing fifth and seventh with distances of 96’2” and 87’6”, respectively.

Jon FuccilloThe Advocate

When a team has made the playoffs for the last 16 years, it’s easy to look at a playoff berth and all that comes with it as a foregone conclusion.

The Saints baseball team this week found itself staring directly at the end of a long run that began in 1994, and real-ized its fate was not entirely in its own hands.

Saints skipper Bryan Donohue hoped the dice would roll his team’s way in a must-win doubleheader Thursday against the Clackamas Community Col-lege Cougars. But Mt. Hood also needed either Lane or Chemeketa to lose their doubleheader Thursday for the Saints to have a chance at the post-season.

The Saints were scheduled to play two against Clackamas Thursday in Gresham at Oslund Field in their final two games of the regular season. Results were unavailable at press time.

Although the Saints have dropped three out of four games this season against the Cougars, Donohue was opti-mistic. “I always like our chances against anyone,” the coach said Wednesday night.

Freshman Nate Dolman (2-1) was scheduled to pitch in game one and freshman Matt Pechmann (3-3) was to take the mound for game two.

In their last meeting May 1 against the Cougars, Pechmann had a perfect game going into the fifth inning before losing 1-0. He struck out seven batters in six innings and only allowed four hits in the loss.

Either the Chemeketa Community College Storm or the Lane Commu-nity College Titans needed to stumble Thursday for Mt. Hood to have another chance to make it to Longview, Wash. for this year’s NWAACC champion-ships. Those two teams are tied for first place in the South with 19-9 records in league play. The Saints need to sweep its doubleheader and one of those teams needed to lose both their games to force

a playoff game.Lane played last-place Linn-Benton

Roadrunners (5-23) Thursday in Eu-gene. On the season the Titans have won all four contests, outscoring Linn-Benton 16-6.

The Storm (Chemeketa) faced the second-to-last place Southwestern Or-egon Lakers (9-19) Thursday at their home field in Salem. They have taken three out of four games from the Lakers this season.

Sophomore Derrick Hough hasn’t given up hope and thinks that their team is still in a good position for advancing, despite all of the adversity the team has been through this year.

“Yeah we’re definitely thinking that SWOCC has a chance (against the Storm),” said Hough Wednesday night. Hough, who is third on the team with a .354 batting average, said, “We are just hoping for the baseball gods to be on our side tomorrow (Thursday).”

Donohue wanted his team to handle their business and to finish out the season on a high note with two victories against the Cougars. He didn’t want his team worrying about anything else.

“We have to stick with what we can

control,” said Donohue. “We can’t create a miracle. We can only play our game.”

Freshman closer Michael Seifert agreed with his coach’s philosophy: Take it one game at a time and hope Lane or Chemeketa lose their doubleheaders.

“We need to play both games like were going on to the tournament,” said the 3-0 pitcher with seven saves on Tues-day night. “There can’t be a let-down. Forget the things we can’t control and take care of our business. Baseball is a funny game and crazy things can hap-pen. The chances are slim.”

Donohue said he is proud of how his team came together and stayed confident in a time where their backs were against the wall.

“There isn’t much you can say at this point,” said Donohue. “Everyone knows what they have to do. We took care of the first four games (against Southwest-ern Oregon on Thursday and Saturday). We are in the best position we can be in at this point.”

The battle in the South has come down to the final day and it is the only region that didn’t have at least one team that had clinched their division coming into Thursday’s action.

Freshman Nate Dolman delivers to the plate during the Saints final home doubleheader Thursday against Clackamas Community College.

Sports The Advocate 5may 21, 2010

Lauren Hadenfeld (pitcher), Central Washington University — 24-6 and 2.26 ERA with 207 strikeouts in 198 innings. She is a part of the most successful softball season in the school’s history. She earned co-pitcher of the year honors in the West Region and also won GNAC pitcher of the year. The 24 wins is a school record in victories.

Grant Glover (second baseman), Western Or-egon University — .342 batting average, 4 homeruns and 29 RBIs. Made first team all Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

DJ Johnson (first baseman), Western Or-egon University — .158 batting average in limited action.

Terra Schumacher (heptathlon, hurdles and pole vault), Seattle Pacific University — Is part of the GNAC Outdoor Champion women’s team.

Catherine Sims (sprints), Concordia University- She played a major role in helping her team win the Cascade Collegiate Conference championship May 13-15. She set a meet record in the 200-meter dash. Her time was 24.50. She was named the CCC Fe-male Athlete of the Meet.

Crystal Sims(heptathlon and sprints), Seattle Pacific Univer-sity — Is part of the GNAC Outdoor Cham-pion women’s team. She placed second place in the 100-meter hurdles

Dylan Jones (utility), Oregon State Univer-sity — .354 batting average (17 for 48) and 1-0 with 2.03 ERA in 15 appearances out of the bullpen.

Nick Opitz (pitcher), Indiana Univer-sity- Purdue University at Fort Wayne — 5-3 with a 6.29 ERA, led the team in wins.

Kurt Snowley (infield), New Mexico State University — Red-shirt junior.

Nick Struck (pitcher), Peoria Chiefs (Single A in the Chicago Cubs organization) — 2-4 with a 4.94 ERA. Re-corded a five-inning no-hitter April 30 against the Clinton Lumber Kings.

Ashley Lockey (utility), Academy of Art University in San Francisco — .466 batting average, 6 homeruns and 30 RBIs. Started all 53 games. Made first team all-Pacific West Confer-ence.

Former Saints move on in athletic careersLast year’s top athletes from MHCC have stepped upto continue their careers at four-year colleges

Information gathered by Jon Fuccillo

Former Saints who took their game to a new level

Jon FuccilloThe Advocate

Western Oregon University baseball player Grant Glover, a former Saint third baseman, was named May 12 to all-con-ference first team in the GNAC (Great Northwest Athletic Conference).

Glover, a junior at WOU, was one of nine players on the Wolves to receive a spot out of the 16 first-team selections for the Division II conference.

He finished the season with .342 bat-ting average, four homeruns and 29 RBIs in his first year with the Wolves.

The Wolves finished the season 34-15 and 28-4 in conference action.

As a Saint, Glover was a two-time Southern Region All-Star as a third base-man. He also was awarded All-NWAACC first team and a Southern Region Gold Glove as a sophomore.

Glover said his biggest accomplishment throughout the season was setting a new GNAC hit streak of 30 games, despite

tough going early in the year.“It was a brutal start to my season,” said

Glover. “I was around the .250 mark (bat-ting average) at tops. And I got benched for a series (against Northwest Nazarene on May 5 and 6). Then I came back and just started hitting the ball really well against Montana State-Billings ( May 14). It’s an amazing honor and it really helped me raise my average.”

Asked about the biggest difference be-tween community college and Division II baseball, Glover said it was the pitching.

“The pitching was a lot a different at this level,” he said, “especially the guys from the number one-ranked UC-San Di-ego and also the pitchers at Chico State. But you learn to adjust.”

Coming out of Mt. Hood, Glover was being recruited by two Division I colleges, something he says every player dreams about who plays baseball growing up. The two schools were Coastal Carolina (ranked fourth in the nation) in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and the University of Texas-Arlington.

“I didn’t have enough credits towards my major to attend a Division I college for baseball,” Glover said as one of the reasons he chose to attend Western Oregon. “I am very happy I decided to come to Western Oregon and be a part of a great baseball program. I always had them in mind. Just like Mt. Hood, we’re known for our base-ball team.”

Glover is one of five former Saints to play on the WOU baseball team this year. The others are third baseman Bill Clontz, first baseman/outfielder Brett Davis, first baseman DJ Johnson and pitcher Jerad Thompson.

Glover this year switched from third base to second base for the first time since playing there as a 10-year-old in Little League. He said as long as he got on the field, he wasn’t going to complain.

“I didn’t care where I played,” he said, “as long as we win and I got on the field. At first it was quite a difficult switch for me since I’m much better at reacting to the ball like I got used to at third base. But it was fun playing up the middle again.”

Former Saint Grant Glover in action with Western Oregon University baseball team. Glover started at second base for the Wolfpack.

Contributed photo by Grant Glover

Former Saint earns GNAC first-team honorsas part of Wolfpack at Western Oregon

Kathy Cox led MHCC in hittingand is doing the same at Boise StateJake Fray & Chelsea Van BaalenThe Advocate

Even though Kathy Cox graduated two years ago, her success lives on at MHCC.

“She is the most powerful hitter in the history of MHCC softball,” said her former coach Meadow McWhorter. “She was a leader who led by example. You never heard her say one negative thing.”

Now a senior at Boise State, Cox was named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association's All-Region team for her second straight season as a Bronco. Cox was the only third baseman selected to the second team in the Pacific region and the only one to earn the postseason award out of the Western Athletic Conference.

For Cox, her honors have been more of a sur-prise than anything else.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “I’m shocked that I have even made it this far. This whole experience has been great. I play against all these girls who are great players. But when I see that I am hitting better than them and have more homeruns

than them, it is weird. I just think it’s that I have high expectations for myself that makes me think I am not doing as well as I am.”

When Cox left MHCC, the Broncos’ program just began and now, Cox holds many records that would best at schools all

over the country. Cox is leaving Boise

State with the following school records: a .352 ca-reer batting average, 32 home runs, 16 doubles, 91 RBIs, 91 runs scored, 240 total bases and 128 hits. Cox also holds the WAC tournament record with four homers in the 2010 tournament and tied an-other record with eight RBIs.

The thing Cox misses the most is the feeling of a family she had while at MHCC.

“The game is pretty much the same,” said Cox,

“but it’s the feeling of family that I miss the most. At Mt. Hood it was more about us being a family. Up here, we are still friends but it’s not the feeling of family I got at Mt. Hood.”

McWhorter says what makes Cox so special is the fact she has so much passion for the game.

“It’s her love of the game,” said Mc-Whorter. “She truly loves this sport and ev-erything about it. Her teammates respected her because of her work ethic and for her getting the job done. She was our go-to.”

Cox said, “Softball is my life. It has helped me out a lot in my life and has al-lowed me to do things I never thought pos-sible.”

Cox’s future plans is to continue to stay on the Bronco’s team but in the fall, join on a student coach.

“I want to stay around the game,” she said. “I want to help them do whatever they need so if that means in the office that is where I will help. I just want to stay a part of the game.”

Kathy Cox

Contributed photo by Kathy CoxBoise State senior Kathy Cox is considered MHCC’s best hitter, according to Saints Coach Meadow McWhorter.

A&E6 The Advocate MAY 21, 2010

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Jen AshenbernerThe Advocate

There’s a little secret that second-year broadcasting ma-jor Mara Becker wants to share with the world: She’s a rap-per.

Asked what people didn’t know about her, Becker said rapping is probably the biggest thing she has kept to herself.

“I like to collaborate (with other artists),” said Becker. “I mostly just freestyle at home or in my car.”

Becker said her goal is to work toward creating a name in the rap industry.

Growing up in a “hard” part of Chicago, Becker said she never had the opportunity to express herself. “People think, ‘Wow, you’re into hip-hop and you grew up in Chicago.’ Yeah I was surrounded by it but do you think a little white girl is going to get up and try to do something in a male-dominated genre? So that never even crossed my mind,” said Becker.

After struggling through a rambunctious childhood and fighting through teen angst, Becker said she realized she was exhausted from the battle of inner city life. “It’s a constant battle in a big city,” she said. “ You’re fighting for everything and anything. It’s exhausting. It’s easy to get into a negative routine.”

Two weeks after visiting her cousin in the Seattle area, she returned to Chicago, quit her job and moved to Olym-pia, Wash. “I started a whole new life,” Becker said. “Then I realized I was into poetry, spoken word, rapping, arts and crafts.”

Becker said that while rapping and music are her pas-sions, she is energized when she steps into a production stu-dio. “There is something about the energy that starts flow-ing through me,” she said. “It gets me really excited.”

She is working as a camera operator/floor director at KOIN 6 in addition to broadcasting live for KMHD2 Mon-days through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We showcase student musicians, sports features, arts and entertainment events, and we try to touch on stuff that students want to know about like the current budget crisis,” said Becker.

Heather Hollingsworth, a radio broadcasting/integrated media student and co-worker at KMHD2, said Becker is a hard worker but easy to work with. “She works really hard getting interviews for the show and that takes a lot of extra outside work,” Hollingsworth said. “She goes above and be-yond.”

When she started in the radio broadcasting program, Becker said she was really in-terested in radio but when the opportunity arose for her to test the waters in visual

production, Becker said she convinced herself to try it out and now is leaning in that career direction.

In five years Becker said she can see a future in studio production as a photographer/editor. “I can definitely see myself moving up in studio production,” she said.

Becker hopes her future includes time to give back to the community by being a mentor for young girls.

“I would really like to work or volunteer working with younger girls in a musical aspect where I can help them come out of their shells or I can help them tell their story through their lyrics or through their music,” she said.

Inspiration for Becker has been churned from the com-mitment of her instructors to help her and other students be successful.

“They’re always there to help,” she said.“If there was one thing I could say to potential students,

it would be that it’s easy to coast through the program but try to find some inspiration,” she said.

For more information about the Integrated Media or Radio Broadcasting program, contact JD Kiggins at 503-491-7632.

Devin CourtrightThe Advocate

“Perceptions,” Mt. Hood Community College’s literary magazine, will debut Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at McMenamins-Edgefield Ballroom at its annual ceremonial dinner party.

Perception adviser Jonathan Morrow said this year’s maga-zine may be “smaller” (about 140 pages long) and “a lot more selective” than last year, but “the quality is very good.”

“The quality of the litera-ture is strong, the art work is good, and the music is really good,” said Morrow. “We have some great films as well.”

Morrow said each partici-pant in Perceptions will be able to sign up for a five-minute reading of their submis-sions. “They’ll read their poems or part of a short story,” he said.

Morrow said the dinner will have about an hour of reading, then a break to show short films, and then “we’ll carry on with more reading” for about a half an hour.

“I imagine between 80 and 100 people, that’s typi-cally the number of attendees each year,” said Mor-row. “It’s a nice event for the college to get out there in the community and have some visibility in the com-munity.”

Morrow said acoustic mu-sic is acceptable but for the most part no music perfor-mances will be allowed at the event because “people stay at the hotel as well (and) if the music is too loud, it will dis-turb them.”

“We’ll have the CD play-ing in the background at the beginning (of the event),” said Morrow. “You will get it all: You’ll see the artwork in the magazine, you’ll see the

films, you’ll hear the readings, and you’ll hear the mu-sic on the way in (the ballroom on the second floor).”

Morrow said the CD, DVD, and magazine pack-age will available for purchase at the event for $15.

“It’s exciting as usual,” said Morrow. “It’s a really good combination of all the work that everyone has done over the year.”

"The quality of the literature is strong, the

art work is good, and the music is really good."

Jonathan Morrow,Perceptions adviser

PerceptionsMagazine to make its debut Wednesday

KMHD2 will hold its launch party Wednesday from noon until 2 p.m. in

the Main Mall.

"There is something about the energy that starts

flowing through me. It gets me really excited."

Mara Becker,broadcasting student

Editor's Note

Broadcasting student Mara Becker works on breaking into the rap industry and maintaining a show on the campus radio station KMHD2

Photo by Devin Courtright/The AdvocateBroadasting student Mara Becker works in the KMHD2 studio Tuesday. Becker has a show Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

MUSIC The Advocate 7 MAY 21, 2010

Before entering the jazz scene in New York City, Emily Braden polished her vocal chords with MHCC’s vocal jazz group Genesis.

Tonight, she returns to her roots and will highlight the bill with Genesis in the MHCC theater at 7:30 p.m.

Braden has a new album out, “Soul Walk,” which is available at ITunes and CD Baby.

Braden grew up in Idaho but found her way to Mt. Hood as a student from 2000-2002 after Genesis director Dave Barduhn re-cruited her from Capitol High School in Boise, Idaho. She said she didn’t have a major, but her primary focus was music.

Other institutions tried to recruit Braden but she said she fell in love with the freedom offered in Genesis and the sound they were making. “What I loved about Genesis is that they really put on a show. That made the decision easy,” she said.

She credits Dave Barduhn as being a career mentor. “Anyone with a career in music needs mentors. It’s hard to get into without someone who has been through it. Dave is that for all of us,” she said.

As someone experiencing life for the first time away from home, Braden said Genesis was the first of many great experiences. It was her “first life experience, first major experience for my ears,” she said. For someone who wants to be a performer or vocalist, Braden recommends Genesis as the “perfect stepping stone for be-ing a performer.” She said she doesn’t think she would be a vocalist without the training she received from Genesis in musicianship and professionalism.

“Those years with Genesis were two of the best years of my life,” she said.

After Genesis, Braden studied Spanish and received a masters in Spanish from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Cana-da. During her time at the university she said she continued to study music independently. She said she felt like the best way to continue learning was to “perform, perform, perform.”

Braden lives in New York City. She said moving to West Harlem last September was a new experience she found inspiring. Braden describes New York as a “beautiful, hard city. You feel alone with your challenges and it makes you ask yourself if you can take it and the ones who can’t get weeded out. You have to make a decision,” she said. Braden put her first six months in New York into this per-spective: “You come to New York City and it feels like you are at the bottom of the barrel looking up.”

Things are looking up for Braden. After her first solo gig at the Shrine in Harlem, she has been double billed with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and is working on projects with other New York musicians. “New York is a lot about communities. You have to get into the com-munity. You don’t do that overnight,” she said.

‘Soul Walk,’ Braden’s first album, is another example of her suc-cess. The album is a mix of original composition and what Braden calls “flipped-out jazz standards.” Braden describes the flipped-out version of “Them There Eyes,” by Doris Taube and William Tracey, as the same instrumentation as jazz trio but spun with high energy. It should “make you sit up and pay attention,” she said.

“Most people think of jazz as laid back, dinner jazz,” Braden said. She said her style is more like Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan. “I think this album stands out,” she said.

Tonight’s show is scheduled from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Gen-eral admission is $10, student admission $5. Braden said she will perform original and standard songs. She said there are plans for a special guest trumpeter.

Mario Rubio The Advocate

Now in its 43rd year of delivering great Jazz performances, MHCC’s vocal jazz ensemble Genesis proves to be a success to students.

Known for their eclectic blend of jazz, gospel, blues and Latin Genesis performs about 20 to 30 shows a year and is committed to creating Grade-A students. Past alumni have gone on to work along-side well know musicians such as Mariah Carey, Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra.

Students have also become regular performers in show rooms, cruise ships and over 25 of the world’s major symphony orchestras. The ensemble regularly performs at home as well as numerous conven-tions and festivals across the coun-try.

The group has garnered a num-ber of awards in the past including the prestigious ‘db’ awards from Downbeat Magazine and the Col-lege Sweepstakes at the Lionel Hampton and Gene Harris Jazz Festival. The ensemble recently re-corded, mixed, edited and released a 16-track CD titled “We’ll be lov-ing you always” this last week and will be available at any of their per-formances and at www. DJ- records.com for $10 each.

Students interested in joining Genesis can download an applica-tion at www. mhcc.edu/ music or contact Genesis director Dave Bar-duhn at 503-491- 6970 or [email protected]

The NW Vocal Jazz Festival featuring junior high and high schools from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California will be held all day today and Saturday in the Vi-sual Arts Theater and College Theater.

The free event is hosted by MHCC vo-cal jazz ensemble Genesis and, according to director Dave Barduhn, which will be perform some of the tracks from its CD that was released Tuesday titled “We’ll be loving you always,” to close out the compe-tition Saturday at 5 p.m.

The music department will per-form June 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the College Theater. Susie Jones, director of Jazz Band, said the concert serves as a final for the students in the program so that instructors can evaluate their progress in a performance capacity. The event is free.

Campus Music BriefsGenesis to perform new tracks

Music department to offerEnd of Term concert

Emily Braden:

A 'soul walk'

MHCC

back

to

Contributed photo by Emily Braden

A Closer look: MHCC's Genesis

Are you an MHCC student?

The Advocate wants to hear from you!

If you answered yesto all of these questions

your name in headlines?Do you want to see

Are you in a band?

Send an email Attn: Music Editor

[email protected]

Story by David Gambilll

News 8 The Advocate may 21, 2010

Call Academic AdvisorRyan Madden

503-413-7166 or [email protected]

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kmhd2.org

Want to be in ASG or SAB?

Apply now

Applications are available for:

All Positions

Go to the College Center for an application or apply online at http://www.mhcc.edu/asg

For more information, contact Meadow McWhorter

at [email protected] or 503-491-7269.

Apply by May 26

Chelsea Van BaalenThe Advocate

The Queer Straight Alliance will kick off its third annual “Pride Days Celebration” Monday and QSA President Heather Nichelle-Peres said the events are “definitely for everybody.”

“There’s nothing there that’s so extreme that a straight person or ally couldn’t feel perfectly welcome,” Nichelle-Peres said.

Nichelle-Peres said that in planning the event, “We wanted to put together a wide variety of events to educate and entertain.”

The first event runs on both Monday and Tuesday, and includes live music by Serious Business and free food. There will also be several tables hosted by local non-profit organizations, businesses, colleges and church-es that are gay-friendly. Nichelle-Peres said both Marylhurst University and Pacific University will be at the event and some prizes will be given out.

The play “American Sueno” will be performed Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the College Theater by Milagro Theater. The show is free for students and $3 for staff, faculty and community members.

“They’re a professional company out of Portland,” Nichelle-Peres said of Milagro Theater. “I’ve never seen them perform, but the Hu-manities Department brings them every year and says they’re amazing.”

Nichelle-Peres said the play mixes gay issues, immigration and His-panic culture.”

There will be a workshop on “Queer Issues in Politics” Wednesday from 11 a.m. to noon in the College Center.

“We brought some political activists from the area who are going to speak on why (equality) is important,” Nichelle-Peres said. “It’ll be like a Q&A.

“I just think it’s important to share stories so that it shows we’re all one community,” she said, adding that “I think it’s important for our community to hear our story.”

In the Visual Arts Theater Wednesday from 3-5 p.m. there will be a viewing of the 2008 film “Milk.” The film tells the story of politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in San Francisco.

On Thursday there will be a Musical Theater Cabaret Sing Along with a piano player in the College Center from noon to 1 p.m.

The film “Rent” will be shown from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Visual Arts Theater. The film is based on the musical and follows the story of eight individuals living in New York as they deal with issues including sexuality, drugs and AIDS.

Nichelle-Peres said audience members will be encouraged to sing along with the film. Snacks and drinks will also be provided.

Nichelle-Peres said the goals for the week are to have “visibility that Mt. Hood is a gay-friendly college, education on issues that are impor-tant to us, and fun.” “There’s been so much support from faculty and staff and students. I definitely feel supported here, but I do think people should learn more.”

QSA kicks off Pride Dayswith live music, free food

Above: High school students from Sweet Home admire a replica Ford Cobra at the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills competition that took place at MHCC May 13-14.Right: Many vehicles were at the show, including this Chevy two-door 1939 sedan with a V-8 engine among other classics like a Ford Cobra, Ford Roadster, Ford Fairlane and many others.High school seniors Steven Tolman and Nathan Maupin from Vale High School won the competition and each won scholarships, totaling $30,000. Tolman and Maupin will travel to Dearborn, Mich., to compete in the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skill National finals that will be held June 13-15.

Photos by Devin Courtright/The Advocate

Car show brings out the classics

MHCC board member moves to November run-off electionBrett StanleyThe Advocate

MHCC District board member Duke Shepard will face Gresham City Councilor Shirley Craddick in a November run-off election for the District 1 seat on the Metro Council.

Chris Gorsek, an MHCC instructor of geology and criminal justice, finished fourth.

Craddick finished first with 10,058 votes, or 49.6 percent of the total. She would have won the election outright had she won 50 percent plus one vote.

Shepard finished second by collecting 4,256 votes, or 20.9 percent of the total.

Jeffery Reynolds won 3,402 votes (16.78 percent) while Gorsek attracted 2,431 (11.99 percent)

In a Wednesday e-mail to The Advocate, Gorsek

said he plans to support Craddick in the upcoming election in November.

“I am going to ask my supporters to vote for Shir-ley in the November election,” he said. “I believe that she has the qualifications and capabilities to be an ex-cellent voice for position 1 on the Metro Council. She has many of the same concerns I have and I hope she will work to make Metro more accessible and under-standable to the voters and truly work to bring their concerns to the regional body.”

Shepard did not respond to requests for interview as of press time.

Metro oversees everything from land use planning to recycling and garbage services for the greater Port-land Metro area, including parks and public spaces like the Oregon Zoo.