"Improv Smack Down" at Russell Trip Theater

On May 25, the Russell Trip Theater hosted six high schools for a Friday night of laughter and fun. The two act event lasted roughly two hours and every minute was purely enjoyable.

Among the six high schools who came to visit were South Albany High School, West Albany High School, South Salem High School, Crescent Valley High School, Corvallis High School, and South Eugene High School. South Salem High School even brought an entire bus full of spectators from South Salem to cheer on their improv group.

Each of the six schools volunteers a few people from their school to put on a show and perform a random routine of improvisational acting before 265 people.

When I was spectating the event, I felt utterly scared for each performer. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to absolutely embarrass yourself in front of that many people. High school seems to be a time where some people experience fragility when they’re faced with social issues. If that was the case, then these group of kids were certainly the anomaly of the entire room.

Not a single performer was embarrassed of what they said. They all seemed to say exactly what was on their minds when performing a random act.

One instance during the first act, Corvallis High School played a game called “who's counting?”. In this game, each of the three selected students are limited to a given amount of words to create dialogue with.

Corvallis High School had to perform a scene with dialogue consisting of only two, five and 12 words. While one of the students struggled with coming up with a reply that had 12 words, the others could only respond to the other in two words or five words.

The struggle with sentence structure made a very funny scene about a family who had to catch crabs to feed their baby daughter. When the scene didn't stop soon enough, they opted to kill the daughter with absolutely no time to orate the scene.

“Every school seemed to have a moment where I was over on the side trying not to laugh too much.” Michael Winder, the production coordinator for the Russell Trip says.

Winder says “the nature of this spontaneous form of theater is it happens in the moment and never happens again.”

With that being said, that was the most enjoyable aspect of the event. I saw scenes that I thought I would never see. Also, to see the students just have fun and act together is a really nice experience.

“Seeing them immediately start playing games together and doing warm up exercises together and just acting like they're great friends and known each other for a long time is just really cool to see” says Winder.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I sat down before the first act started, but I had a really fun time!

Benjamin Hauser Acknowledged for Academic Excellence

On April 25, Benjamin Hauser, alongside two other LBCC students, met with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown at the state capitol. The three Roadrunners were honored for their academic excellence by being named to the All-Oregon Academic Team.

On this day, Hauser was recognized for the determination and hard work he's put forth.

But this day felt like any other for Hauser. The West Albany graduate has high expectations for himself.

“It's a long process,” Hauser said. “I'm just in the beginning baby steps for where I want to go. I want to be a neonatologist, I want to work as a doctor for babies. That's going to take, after medical school, more schooling,”

Hauser volunteers at the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. He works in the emergency room, where he describes his job as “stocking supplies in the trauma rooms and everywhere in the ER.”

He also tutors students at LBCC, on top of his own school and volunteer work. He tutors for chemistry, math and anatomy classes.

“Last term I think I had 15 or a little more hours of availability. This term I have cut it way down to approximately 10 hours because this term has been ridiculously crazy for me,” Hauser said. “I'd have to double check my hours to be sure on how many I'm exactly available.”

Sheri McIntyre, tutor coordinator at LBCC, said, “I've supervised Ben for a little over a year. He is an excellent tutor. He is able to encourage his tutees to think about the information and learn the material in a way that works best for them as a learner. He is patient and thoughtful in his approach, ultimately assisting tutees with their understanding of the course, but boosting their confidence as well.”

“Ben is a remarkable and capable student. He possesses the desire, dedication and tools to achieve whatever academic and career goals he sets. I have no doubt he will make an excellent doctor and be an asset to the field and the families he works with.”

At a glance:

Hometown: Albany
High School: West Albany
Class of: 2016
Major: Biology Science
Hopes to be: Neonatologist

Teachers Deserve Appreciation.

I was among the few hundred that stood in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to receive a high school diploma in June 2017. The graduation rehearsal was earlier the same day at 8:30 a.m. and the same few hundred seniors were mingling about the vast open space inside the coliseum in North Portland. It was clearly a juxtaposition to how quickly the coliseum filled up late that night.

As time approached, my parents drove me to the commencement ceremony. There was absolutely nowhere to park, but that's expected. I had rehearsed earlier the process of receiving the diploma and getting your picture taken shaking hands with the principal and everything went relatively routine. I just hadn't expected every single teacher to be lined up aside the rows of chairs to shake hands with the graduating students.

Let it be known for the record that I left the commencement ceremony immediately after getting my diploma as I had better things to do on my graduation night than listen to each valedictorian speech. Sorry Franklin High School.

I got my name called, walked up the steps, and shook the hands that needed to be shook, being photographed several times throughout this entire process. As I walked down the steps with my diploma, I looked for exits to leave without being seen by thousands of people. I was immediately accosted to mingle with the rest of the teachers before returning to my seat (in my case, leaving the building with my parents).

I saw my history teacher, sophomore art teacher, geometry teacher and I shook their hands only happy I wouldn't see them ever again. I then thought of the teachers I would miss and became a little bit sad. I shook hands with every single teacher there that night but I hugged only two.

My journalism teacher and my English teacher. I knew that those two ladies have taught me the most valuable skills I’ve learned all throughout high school and that was undebatable. A feeling of utmost gratefulness passed through me as my last encounter with Elizabeth Kirsch and Ellie Wilder was over.

What these teachers taught me in high school meant more to me than the time I spent in any classroom in high school. Ellie Wilder taught me advanced placement literature writing and composition, a class that you couldn't take until you took all of the other English classes. That didn't stop her from teaching the only underclassmen in the room, myself.

Wilder never excluded me or make me feel like I was incompetent when I was in her classroom even though everybody else had a year on me. She taught me rhyme, prose and literary elements at a pace that I could handle every day I could go to her class was an absolute joy to the rest of my day. Knowing well that I was a sixteen year old kid in a college class, I loved Ellie Wilder because she never made me feel stupid ever.

The graceful selflessness they had shown me for two years was finally put into perspective and I finally had come to realize that I never appreciated it enough.

So that made me pose the question, what does it take to be a teacher and what exactly does it mean to have that position? The answer just might surprise you.

“To be a teacher means to to aggressively and persistently work against systems that disadvantage certain people. It means to show compassion, to remember that everyone has a story. It means to encourage rigor and engagement. It means to hold people to a high standard, intellectually, socially, behaviorally. It means never getting any sleep and being constantly undervalued by society” says Elizabeth Kirsch, the first person to teach me what journalism is.

In today's society, most students of from elementary to high school develop a belief that they're not performing well in a class because the teacher is rude, boring or just simply ineffective.

You know, when you thought you were just going to fail your freshman algebra class because your teacher is a grouch, only to find out that you have a 40 percent just because you don't like waking up at 7:30 in the morning to do quadratics. Do you think anybody else did either?

Sure, you can just write the teacher off as a “bad teacher”, but in the end, you still fail the class and you hate your math teacher.

Kirsch offers an insightful perspective on how we should get past this vicarious cycle.

“I think there are ‘bad teachers’ in the sense that there are ‘bad’ anything, but I also believe that rather than assigning a ‘bad’ label to people, we should instead work to provide the systems and supports that will allow them to grow and be good at their jobs.”

School can be a rough time for many individuals. While some are worried about not being liked or talented, they also have to balance school work on top of that. At the end of the day, teachers are there to support students. Teachers reject no student and accept everyone they're assigned. I think that any person that possess these admirable qualities deserve to be appreciated every time they walk through the classroom doors.

Dispatches from 1320, by Tom Hallman Jr. Wows

At a glance:

What: “Dispatches from 1320”

A collection of newspaper stories compiled during the career of former Oregonian reporter Tom Hallman Jr.

About the author: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.

Publisher: Hallman Publishing

Rating: 4 stars

Cost: $7.99 for the Kindle version on Amazon, $25 for a printed copy

Where available: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Pages: 501

Chess with Friends

Walk into the Commons cafeteria at noon and people are eating and having conversations. At the same time, chess matches are being played, as well as other card games in adjacent tables.

Two games of chess are being played next to each other. Shoulder to shoulder, each player offers smiles and conversation to their opponents. A seemingly competitive game of chess on the surface turns out to be a bunch of friends laughing together and playing games.

 One of the two games plays with traditional black-and-white pieces and the other plays with bright blue and yellow pieces, for school spirit of course.

Each move on these chess matches are completely defining; they’re all very careful with their moves. They have a common pursuit in defeating each other, but they’re all here to have fun.

Travis Peterson, the club president, is among the pair of games and he is absolutely having his way with his opponent.

 Peterson has been the student rep for the chess club since February 2018, but the club itself has been in existence since the fall term in 2015.

 He looks up, laughs and smiles with his counterpart.

“It’s okay,” Peterson said with a sincere smile.

Playing chess with your friends is what the club is all about. In fact, at the end of the term the club intends to give away a free chess set for any person who drops by the chess club meeting and plays a game of chess and signs a raffle ticket. Not just any chess set though, but a four-player one!

A four-player chess set is like a traditional one but with an additional three rows of eight cells on all four sides of the chess set. Players can play free-for-all matches or have teams of two and each side of the board has different color pieces.

For more about how to get involved with the chess club at Linn-Benton, contact Travis Peterson via e-mail. The chess club meets Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Commons cafeteria from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. “The idea was that we were going to give away a regular one, but we thought why give away a regular chess set when you can give away a four-player chess set, so you can play with your friends,” Peterson said.

Why you should consider taking Communication

Have you ever had a hard time arguing your case or effectively getting your point across? Of course you have. Frankly, one time or another, you’ll encounter a struggle to make yourself better spoken. How about a difficulty relating to others or building empathy for somebody? Of course! Relating to somebody that doesn’t have anything in common with you and offering your empathy can be a seemingly impossible task. If you ever wanted to better your skills at things like these, communication is the line of courses you want to consider taking in college. You’re taught exactly how to offer empathy and perceive things without bias, as well as other things when you chose to take communication.

Absolutely anybody can benefit from taking communication courses. More often than not, the instructors that teach communication are a reliable source of support for hardships in your life. In addition, the instructor helps you establish a sense of belonging in their classroom. This isn’t to say that your favorite math teacher won’t listen to your problems, but your communication professor will offer a fruitful method to express your feelings in an appropriate environment.

Communication can go a long way in your romantic relationships. Dr. John Gottman who is a professor emeritus in Psychology is known for his effective relationship analysis through observations. Many of these are published in peer-reviewed pieces of literature for anybody to read.

Gottman’s four horsemen theory underlines four traits that are likely to destroy 90% of romantic relationships; criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness are the four traits that likely end any relationship. This simple concept of relationship protection is taught in communication 218, here at LBCC. During the “emotions” unit, students in this class are taught how to effectively express their emotions constructively.

After taking communication in college, you’ll be enchanted with the very skills that employers look for. You will be able to conduct yourself professionally in a job interview. After studying communication, you’ll be able to facilitate healthy relationships with people that are important in your life. These are all gainful reasons to take a communication course in college.

Linn Benton CC's, Phi Theta Kappa holds donation drive for sexual assault awareness month

April is sexual assault awareness month and what better way to show remembrance and support than donate to the victims of these crimes. LBCC provides students and faculty the opportunity to donate goods to victims of rape and domestic violence.

Linn Benton CC honor society Phi Theta Kappa will be holding a donation drive to raise awareness for sexual assault all throughout April. The donations will go to CARDV (Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence) and Center for Hope and Safety.

Alena Santos, head of events for Phi Theta Kappa, says that “PTK will hand these donations to CARDV and Center for Hope and Safety at the beginning of May after the donation is over. The items donated to these two organizations go to either to the victims of domestic violence/abuse/sexual assault or the organizations themselves.”

You can donate by going to the Diversity Achievement Center, or the SLC office where there will be the donation box. Accepted items include toiletries, towels, school and office supplies, used cell phones, bus passes and children and baby items (toys, games, sippy cups and diapers).