Writing Women into History

Women of Achievement breaks records.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued a proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as the first National Women's History Week.

Thirty years later, the 2010 Women of Achievement celebrated that fact with the theme "Writing Women Into History" at the annual awards luncheon, held Friday, March 19, at the Hilton in Vancouver Wash. And indeed, the day was one for the history books - attendance broke all previous records for the event, reaching more than 650.

The annual awards recognize women in Southwest Washington for their contributions to the region's community. Now in its 26th year, Women of Achievement was the inspiration of Pat Watne, who was serving as Director of Women's Programs at Clark College in 1985.

Today, the event is co-sponsored by Clark College and the YWCA Clark County. Watne created an awards program that would recognize women and commemorate National Women's History Month and International Women's Day in March.

"Because of the combined efforts of YWCA Clark County and Clark College, the Women of Achievement celebration was the largest and most successful ever," said Kathy Murphy who, as a staff member of Clark College's Communications and Marketing Department, was instrumental in putting the event together. "The room was bursting at the seams with family, friends and admirers of these successful women."

One of Clark College's own was honored as a Woman of Achievement: Nancy Simmons, who serves as community partnership program coordinator at Larch Corrections Center, was the last honoree to speak at the luncheon. She credited President Bob Knight (who helped introduce the luncheon with an opening speech) with helping her succeed as a community leader. Prior to joining Larch, Simmons worked for the Clark College Foundation.

"Working at the college and having someone believe in me led me to my current position at Larch," she said. She also noted that, as part of the college's partnership with Larch, Knight decided to come to Larch with some of Clark's basketball players for an informal game. Afterward, he chatted with some of the offenders and told them to call him if they wanted to attend Clark after their release. Two did, and both received scholarships after Simmons and Knight encouraged them to apply.

Those two students - Gary Warden and Randall Henderson - were in the audience, enthusiastically cheering their former teacher. Both are currently earning 4.0 GPAs, one in Automotive Technology and one in Computer Science. "You don't know how the work you do today can impact lives tomorrow," said Simmons.

Young Woman of Achievement Holly Vogel, who attends Ridgefield High School and hopes to be an education lobbyist one day, said she found the event both gratifying and inspiring. She said being a young woman trying to create change in the world can pose challenges, but that the stories of the women being honored showed the power of standing up for what's right.

"I think when you're younger, people think you're a little girl, you're blonde, and they don't always take you seriously," she said. "But I've learned that sometimes I have to put my foot down and speak out for what I believe in, even if I'm not the biggest fish in the pond. After all, if all the little fish get together, we can make one heck of a splash."

2010 Women of Achievement

Rainy Atkins
Bobbi Bindreiff
Donna Bleth
Joyce Carter
Leslie Durst
Marva J. Edwards
Linda Glover
Nancy Simmons

Young Women of Achievement

Nadia Mousleh, Prairie High School
Holly Vogel, Ridgefield High School
Jing Xue, Mountain View High School

Each Young Woman of Achievement received a $1,500 scholarship toward her college education.

Young Women Community Service Awards

Shelley Adao, Hudson's Bay High School
Hannah Jones, Camas High School
Shailah Ricketts, Heritage High School
Michelle Taylor, Vancouver School of Arts and Academics
Madeline Thompson, Vancouver School of Arts and Academics

Random Association

Alumni offer lucky Clark students a chance for help with textbook costs.

"Alumni!" shouted Liz Weiss as she chased after a gray-haired man strolling through a hallway in the Penguin Union Building. "Hey, alumni!"

Clark College Alumni Association President George Welsh (class of '67) turned around and smiled. "Looking for one of these?" he asked, handing her a yellow raffle ticket stapled to a white slip of paper. The tickets were for the Random Assistance drawing, held at the beginning of each fall and spring quarter. Sponsored by the Alumni Association, Random Assistance provides raffle winners with gift cards to the Campus Bookstore, which can be used to help students pay for textbooks and school supplies.

Spring quarter's Random Assistance drawing was held on Monday, April 5 at CTC and Tuesday, April 6 on the Main Campus. In each instance, alumni and staff helped distribute 100 raffle tickets to students passing by; within a half hour, raffle numbers were announced and each winner walked off with a $25 gift certificate. In all, $750 worth of gift cards were given away - $300 at CTC and $450 on the Main Campus.

Welsh said Random Assistance was one of the Alumni Association's favorite events. "Everybody loves it," he said. "It's fun to connect with today's students." Troy Van Dinter (class of '87) agreed, and pointed out that Random Assistance isn't just fun; it's important. "Every little bit helps, especially in these tough economic times," he said.

Liz Weiss certainly could attest to that. When she walked into Gaiser Hall and heard about Random Assistance, she began searching the hallways for anyone who looked like they might be alumni. Her initiative paid off: After chasing down Welsh for a ticket, she wound up being one of the lucky winners at the Main Campus drawing.

Weiss is juggling taking care of her two children along with finishing up her associate's degree and her prerequisites to enter a nursing program, a workload that doesn't allow her time for a paying job. She's been resourceful about her textbooks, borrowing one from a friend and buying another one used. But she still had at least $50 worth of textbooks to purchase, plus school supplies. The $25 gift card, she said, was "huge."

"We're just living on my husband's income since June, so we've had to cut some corners," she said. "This helps a lot."

Study Break with Herb Orange

On horticulture, history, and high-maintenance trees.

In honor of this month's Fifth Annual Sakura Festival, we thought we'd chat with the guy who helped plant all those Japanese cherry trees whose blossoming the festival celebrates.

Herb Orange, Ph.D., has taught horticulture at Clark College for 32 years. He is currently the program coordinator of the college's Agriculture-Horticulture Program. A graduate of Cornell University, he completed a masters degree in Plant Science as a Longwood Fellow at the University of Delaware before earning his Doctorate in Botanic Garden Management at the International Graduate School in St. Louis, Missouri. On a recent drizzly April afternoon (or, as he put it, "a beautiful day in the Northwest"), Dr. Orange took a visitor on a walking tour around the Main Campus to chat about his work, with many detours to point out the campus's flora.

The students you see these days, are they taking your classes for personal enrichment, or for professional training?
 
I think the big push these days is jobs.

Where are the jobs in this industry right now?

Well, fundamentally, I see a few major directions. One is the private sector - landscaping, construction, building decks, gardens, furniture, arbors, trellises, garden structures, things like that. And then the public sector - like the schools, and even the jails. And then agriculture. Washington State boasts the largest diversity of agricultural crops in the country. Our students get these unique licenses and credentials, like aquatic vegetation - oh, look at this. See that plant there, with the pink flowers? That grew about three feet in the last month. That's a noxious weed; it's outlawed in the state of Washington. But I said, "Before they get rid of it, people need to know what it is."

So that's a weed? It's pretty.

Well, it depends who you talk to. It's flowering currant. In some places, it's outlawed; in others, it's grown in nurseries. The problem is it's an alternate host with wheat. We grow wheat in Washington State, and there's a fungus disease that goes back and forth between the currant and the wheat plant. That's plant pathology, which we teach our students.

Are you originally from this part of the country?

I'm a New Yorker. Lower Manhattan - I grew up in the Village.

I thought I heard an accent. A New Yorker who's into plants, that's...

That's something, right? My mother loved gardens, and she took me by subway to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It was great. I really enjoyed it, and so I took horticulture in high school. They have a hundred high schools in the city of New York, and only one had horticulture. I took two subways and a bus to get out there - now this tree here, the one with the white flowers. We planted this in honor of Khalil Hamide, who taught business here for 30 years.

Were you here when the cherry trees first went in 20 years ago?

Oh yeah, we planted them - some of them, not all of them.

And the trees are from Japan?

Some of them. Well, the [root stock trees] were grown here in America, because it wouldn't make sense to ship trees across all this water. A lot of the Japanese plants do very well in the Northwest; it's the same environment.

Is it hard to figure out a year in advance when you should be scheduling Sakura?

No one knows, really. What we have is the science of phenology. That's the science of what's predictable. When do plants bloom? When do leaves fall in the autumn? When do buds first burst? All these different characteristics, and we do it for thousands of plants. That's science: observing and recording.

How come these trees aren't blossoming yet when a bunch of the other cherry trees around campus already are in full bloom?

Different species, different varieties. This is Shirofugen. Flowering cherry trees are good for about 40 years. People think it's like a fire hydrant, you put it in and paint it every few years. No.

So what happens to these cherry trees in another 20 years?

They start to decline. It's not instant. It will be a gradual thing over maybe 10 years. They'll become less spectacular. Next week, these cherry trees will be in full bloom.  . . . see how the bottom is root stock. The top is the scion. People say, "that's a Toyota car, the Scion." But the scion is the top part of the graft there. When people talk about the  scion of a family, that's what they mean: the top part of the family tree.

How big were these trees when you planted them?

They were much smaller. They've gotten a lot bigger. They were more like sticks. If you have time, I'll show you some trees I planted 30 years ago on campus. When they started, they were this high [gesturing to his waist], now they're up around 30 feet tall. It just takes time.

It must be nice to walk around campus and see things you planted all those years ago.

It's a wonderful feeling. It's like kids, to see them growing older and all that stuff. It's reassuring. Trees can be thousands of years old. They're some of the oldest things we can see around here.

Do these trees take more work than others?

Flowering cherry trees are high-maintenance trees. Cherries have a whole list of insects and diseases, they need constant pruning and care and so on. Other things - oaks, pines - don't need so much. They're like people. Some people are high-maintenance - you know what I'm talking about. But there is a beauty to these things. There's a value to a diamond, there's a value to a flowering cherry tree. Yes, they're high-maintenance, but they're worth it!

What's your favorite plant?

Gee, it's like what's your favorite kid. They're all good. There's such diversity. It's hard to pick out just one.

Well, trees, then. What's your favorite tree?

[Stops to think] I like the Western Red Cedar. It's beautiful. But to be honest with you, botanically it's not a cedar. It's a different genus. But the common name stuck. It's a Thuja, is the Latin name. It's a wonderful tree.

So did you ever think you had to become a horticulturist, just because your name was Herb Orange?

[Laughs] Well, that's kind of embarrassing. Herb Orange is like Pete Moss, you know, it's kind of unbelievable. I guess I could change to Herbert Orange, which is what it was - still is, really - but when I was in grade school, the kids used to say, "You could be ice cream: Orange, Herbert!" Like 'orange sherbet.' My mom and dad named me after Herbert Orange, who was a doctor, and they wanted a doctor. Later they said, "Herb, you're the wrong kind - you don't make any money." [Grins] What was I thinking?