What Centre people are up to this summer: Part 1

RELEASED: July 24, 2008

DANVILLE, KY—While the warm days fly by, Centre College students are spending their summer in a variety of places, engaging in innumerable activities—stretching their legs and minds, enhancing their experience and their bank accounts. Here are just a few ways in which the students are spending their summers:

Gregory Chery, sophomore, Boston, Mass.:
Vanessa Valdez '11 and I are interning at Goodwin and Procter, which is one of the big law firms in Boston. I'm in the Knowledge Management Department, and she is in the Marketing Department. We're having an amazing time learning and experiencing some great things.

Hannah Reinke, sophomore, Florence, Ala.:
I organized, ran and taught two sessions of pony camp at my house. I had a set of 10 children come for a week and taught them horse management, horsemanship and riding. They came at 8 a.m. and stayed until 4 p.m. The kids did chores, tacked up the horses, rode, swam in our pool, played "horsey" games, and did "horsey" crafts. At the end of the week, the kids spent the night, and we had a cookout complete with hot dogs and smores. The next day, they got their ponies ready, and we had a show for their parents! After all the meticulous planning and sweaty setup, the camps turned out to be very successful, and everyone had a fabulous time.

Erica Arave, senior, Pewee Valley, Ky.:
This summer I volunteered at the Presbyterian Church (USA) Center in Louisville. I worked specifically with the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to help staff members organize old policies and prepare for the General Assembly. I was privileged to be invited to attend the 218th General Assembly in San Jose, Calif., with the committee and was able to watch Presbyterians from around the world gather and democratically discuss controversial issues facing the entire denomination. It was especially interesting to recognize how similar the national denomination was to the U.S. government. The most surprising simularity that I observed between the two institutions was the presence of lobbyists and interest groups at the meeting as they tried to persuade commissioners to vote in line with their doctrines. It was a great experience. I learned a lot about my denomination and how the democratic process works within the context of religious organizations.

Salome Masudi, sophomore, Chelsea, Mass.:
I'm interning at Crossroads for Kids, in Duxbury, Mass., and so far I'm loving every minute of it! It's a summer camp for kids with troubled backgrounds, but they're incredible and amazing. I have met so many different people, campers and counselors, and as of now, I'm already thinking of coming back next summer!

Taylor Thistlethwaite, senior, Glasgow, Ky.:
My summer has been especially crazy this year. About two weeks after I left Centre, I was on a plane heading to Germany to play all the major European rock and roll festivals with my cousin's band, Black Stone Cherry. They needed an extra crewmember on the road to help meet and greet, manage merchandise, as well as help on stage, and I filled the position. Some of the festivals we played included the MTV Rock Am Ring / Rock In Park in Germany, the Sweden Rock Festival, and Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium. Then in England we had the opportunity to play at the historic Isle of Wright Festival and the Download Festival. We played with bands like the Metallica, The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The Verve and several other major acts.

Following the festival tour, Black Stone Cherry had the opportunity to play with White Snake and Def Leppard for two weeks throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. This was an arena tour that honestly was an absolute blast. The guys from both bands were as nice as they could be, and I learned a lot about music and the music industry. The highlight of the complete tour was having the opportunity to meet Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.

Now that I have returned to the states, my summer is taking a bit of a different path than that of the rock and roll world. I am actually in the beginning stages of writing an academic paper on the history of Kentucky Clocks. My plan for this project is to hopefully have it published. Early Kentucky furniture is a passion of mine and clocks are an aspect of Kentucky furniture that has not been extensively studied. My goal is to be able to turn this paper into an independent study...but that is still in the works. Outside of that, I am about to go work on the fences on my farm and enjoy my hometown of Glasgow.

Helena Josic, junior, Dallas, Texas:
This summer I'm interning at Southwest Airlines at their headquarters in Dallas, which conveniently happens to be my home. I'm in the material-planning department on the maintenance side, which strictly deals with aircrafts. My department specifically is responsible for forecasting the need for airplane parts in the 10 maintenance lines across the country. Simply put, we make sure that every nut and bolt a plane might need is available to each line that does mechanical work on the plane.

During my time here, I have worked on monthly planner effectiveness, changing Philadelphia's line, changing the allocation at various stations, creating numerous visuals for things like number of hours each station has to work on a plane, and currently updating comments in one of our main systems.

While I have been here I have also met several other Kappa's, the former president (as of last Wednesday) Colleen Barrett, participated in Colleen's farewell celebration, attended a "Lunch 'n Learn" with Colleen Barrett and Herb Kelleher (founder and former chairman and CEO), attended and volunteered at the Boeing Burgers and Beer Birthday Bash on our 38th birthday, participated in the Intern Amazing Race, and have had many, many other memorable experiences.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Consumers Digest ranks Centre No. 1 in educational value among all U.S. liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

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