Sunday's Internet Edition, July 20, 2008.
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- Dr. Steve Jenkins is this year’s graduation speaker. Dr. Jenkins is currrently the Director of Educational Leadership in the School of Education at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Dr. Jenkins has more than thirty-five years of experience and expertise as a teacher and administrator. He has served as a classroom teacher, an assistant principal and principal, and central office assistant to the superintendent in a variety of public school settings (i.e., urban, suburban, and moderate sized communities). He is known as a leader in school law and juvenile delinquency prevention, and has served as Director of the Resource Center for Law-Related Education for the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis and as Executive Director of the national Center for Research and Development in Law-Related Education (CRADLE) at Wake Forest University.
While serving as Executive Director of CRADLE, Dr. Jenkins organized and directed summer professional development programs for school teams of administrators and teachers representing all fifty states in the United States focusing on citizenship education and school law. He has been recognized by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Supreme Court and Oklahoma Bar Association for his contributions to law-related education.
Dr. Jenkins has published several law-related textbooks for West Publishing Company, including Excel in Civics: Lessons in Citizenship; The Bill of Rights and You; Juvenile Responsibility and Law; and recently authored two chapters on Education and First Amendment Rights in Civil Rights in America. He has published and presented in the areas of school law and professional, public policy and educational leadership, administration of special programs and special populations, civil rights and education, cultural proficiency and conflict resolution. He holds a number of professional certifications, including certification as a mediator and conflict resolution specialist.
In more than twelve years teaching experience as an adjunct and assistant professor, Dr. Jenkins has developed and taught a variety of courses in educational leadership and school administration, with a strong emphasis on Ethics and Legal Issues in Schools. Recently, while serving as program coordinator for the Educational Leadership program at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, he developed new online courses in ‘District School Finance’ and ‘Education and Sociocultural Change’ for candidates seeking school superintendent certification. Two new courses for Principal and Higher Education candidates focus on Conflict Resolution Skills for Leaders and Cultural Proficiency Skills for School Leaders.
Among his greatest honor is the opportunity to speak to graduates at all levels of schooling!
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
Congratulations to the Senior Class of 2007! Enjoy this special time in your life as you celebrate with family and friends. And as you walk across the stage Friday night to receive your diploma, just remember that the diploma itself isn’t worth much really. In itself it is just a piece of paper. It’s the person behind it that makes it count for something.
Graduation has opened your book of life to a fresh new page – to the beginning of a new chapter. Each member of the Class of 2007 will determine what will be recorded thereon. Our Best Wishes to each of you as you write that new chapter. Make it one of joy, continued learning, honor and integrity, fulfillment, and success in whatever venture you undertake.
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Our thanks and appreciation to the local merchants, organizations and individuals who year after year make it possible for us to do this Graduation Issue. Because of the extra pages it takes, we wouldn’t be able to devote the kind of space that it takes were it not for your support in the form of congratulation ads that makes it possible to pay the extra printing cost. I know that the Seniors and their families each year appreciate having this momento of this special occasion.
Thanks also to Lois Flanagan and others at the high school who go to a lot of work to get us the pictures and Senior sketches on memory Cruzer, which takes a lot of the work off of us. I understand that one of the Seniors, Daniel Baeza, did a lot of the work this year. Thanks so much to him as well.
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Looking back through some of the graduation issues of the Advocate I discovered that we have some Valedictorians of past graduating classes who are now teachers in our schools. At least three that I came across were Janelle (Morriss) North, Ellen Lipsey, and Michael McBirnie. There may be others. I’m glad that these top students are now back at their alma mater passing along their own high standards to their students. We have a great group of teachers. Thanks for your hard work this school year. Have a wonderfully fun and restful summer. You deserve it!
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For the upcoming Memorial Day, I thought this email we received from a friend in Missouri was appropriate. If you agree, say a prayer for our outstanding service men and women – and a prayer of thanksgiving for those who gave the ultimate price – for the freedoms that are ours in this wonderful country we a so fortunate to live in.
Love This Comeback!
One of my sons serves in the military. He is still stateside, here in California. He called me yesterday to let me know how warm and welcoming people were to him, and his troops, everywhere he goes, telling me how people shake their hands, and thank them for being willing to serve, and fight, for not only our own freedoms but so that others may have them also. But he also told me about an incident in the grocery store he stopped at yesterday, on his way home from the base.
He said that ahead of several people in front of him stood a woman dressed in a burkha. He said when she got to the cashier she loudly remarked about the U.S. flag lapel pin the cashier wore on her smock. The cashier reached up and touched the pin, and said proudly, “Yes, I always wear it and probably always will.” The woman in the burkha then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi. A gentleman standing behind my son stepped forward, putting his arm around my son’s shoulders, and nodding towards my son, said in a calm and gently voice to the Iraqi woman: “Lady, hundreds of thousands of men and women like this young man have fought and died so that YOU could stand here, in MY country and accuse a check-out cashier of bombing YOUR countrymen. It is my belief that had you been this outspoken in YOUR own country, we wouldn’t need to be there today. But, hey, if you have now learned how to speak out so loudly and clearly, I’ll gladly buy you a ticket and pay your way back to Iraq so you can straighten out the mess in YOUR country that you are obviously here in MY country to avoid.” Everyone within his hearing distance cheered!
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A Thought for the Week for the Graduates…. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future….” Jeremiah 29:11
Go with God – it’s the only way to go!
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
May 24th - Members of the Van Horn Volunteer Fire Department are slated to meet this evening at 7 p.m. at the firehouse.
May 25th - Van Horn High School graduation ceremony for the senior Class of 2007 at 7 p.m. in the Karen Young Memorial Auditorium.
May 26th - Nothing scheduled at press time.
May 27th - Attend the church of your choice.
May 28th - Memorial Day Holiday. The Lions Club of Van Horn is slated to meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the Sands Restaurant.
May 29th - Members of the Van Horn Rotary Club are scheduled to meet today at noon at Chuy’s.
May 30th - Nothing scheduled at press time.