Stites Named Top Student

Blake Stites, a Cowley sophomore from Prescott, was selected as the Outstanding Student of Arkansas City. The award, sponsored by the city of Arkansas City and chosen by a group of city officials and business leaders, was presented at a banquet April 15 in the Earle N. Wright Community Room inside the Brown Center on the main campus.

Three students from Cowley, Arkansas City High School, and Arkansas City Middle School are chosen as finalists from a larger pool of students. Stites, Jennifer Fahrbach, and Maggie Campbell were Cowley’s students nominated. Each student nominated was interviewed by the committee, which is comprised of 8-10 people. The students are asked a variety of questions designed to give the committee an insight into their personality and their life.

Stites, the son of Sue and Owen Stites of Prescott, is a machine and tool technology major. He has had a busy two years at Cowley. He has played major roles in Cowley’s fall musicals and spring plays. He was a member of Act One drama club, served as reporter for Industrial Technology’s Vocational Industrial Clubs of America chapter, competed in forensics, was inducted last fall into Mu Alpha Theta, and was president of Phi Theta Kappa. He also participated in the college’s annual lip-sync contest Puttin’ on the Hits, and was the reigning Mr. CinderFella. Stites also was named January Student of the Month.

Boeing Internship to Cowley Student
With the number of summer internships drastically cut at Boeing Wichita, the competition for the 10-week job suddenly got stiffer for Cowley students. But Bailey Seymore, a freshman pre-engineering and drafting technology major from Mulvane, was selected for the one open summer internship in Boeing’s drafting area. It runs through Aug. 1.

She was chosen from a pool of applicants from seven colleges and universities. Two other Cowley students also applied. “I’m really excited,” said Seymore, who earned a 4.0 grade-point average her first semester at Cowley. “Randy Perry told me that only one student would be chosen, and that this summer, only the best of the best would be working.” Perry works in engineering human resource analysis and allocation department in the Wichita division. He also conducted the student interviews. “Bailey will be doing CAD drafting as directed by a mentor,” Perry said.

Student Newspaper Second Overall
The Cowley Press, the student newspaper, earned a Gold Medal and second place overall during the Kansas Associated Collegiate Press spring conference April 19-20 in Wichita. The Press scored 973 of a possible 1,000 points to earn the distinction as a Gold Medalist, 75 more points than it scored last year. Barton County Community College’s paper, The Interrobang, won the top honor, the All-Kansas Award. Gold medals go to publications that score between 925 and 1,000 points. While judges gave Barton’s paper the Best of Show award, Barton and Cowley were the only two publications out of the 12 competing to receive gold medals.

Summer 2002