By Christopher Stone
“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”
Og Mandino
Fall is the time for harvest and new beginnings that come with a new school year. It is also the time for the annual Lamplighter Conference, a conference that celebrates excellence in teaching.
Every fall since 1990, Mississippi community colleges have sent to the conference a select group of educators who have demonstrated the ability to plant in the minds of their students seeds of knowledge that gives them the ability to reap a bountiful harvest.
Meridian Community College representatives Dr. Angie Carraway and Olin Thomas participated in the conference, which was held Sept. 30-Oct. 2 at Mississippi Delta Community College’s Greenwood Campus.
Carraway has been guiding young minds at MCC for 12 years. She currently teaches chemistry classes and has been the Space Grant Consortium campus coordinator for 11 years. As the coordinator, she brings professional development activities and speakers to the college for students who are interested in the area of study. She has also coordinated the pre-professional student day for five years.The program brings in professional speakers from universities and colleges from throughout the state so that local area high school students and MCC students who are interested in math and science careers can attend.
When asked why Carraway chose to make science her life, she said at an early age her mother fostered an early interest in science when she would take her to the library and check out books with scientific equations. Her love for science grew more in junior high and high school, where her science teacher, Danny Alexander, made science incredibly interesting and fun. It was Alexander who would eventually steer young Carraway into the field of chemical engineering.
Asked what it meant to be chosen as one of this year’s Lamplighters honorees, Carraway said it is an honor to be selected because it is a reward for a job well done, a vote of confidence and very strong positive reinforcement.
Thomas has taught at Meridian Community College for the last 13 years. His journey to becoming an instructor at MCC began in 1978 when one of his teachers at Hinds Community College gave him his old textbooks and told him he would make a good carpentry teacher.
Thomas kept those words in the back of his mind for the next 20 years, when he returned to Newton County and started working as maintenance supervisor for Meridian Public Schools. He had been taking college classes and teaching still interested him, so he went back to school at night and after completing those classes he applied for his MCC job.
Thomas is program coordinator for Construction Trades and serves as Skills USA adviser. Among the many structures, Construction Trades students have built the MCC Foundation Chapel, the soccer press box and concession stand, a single family home, and most recently the Jimmie Evans Field House. Thomas considers the MCC Foundation Chapel as the most challenging and the most meaningful project for him and his students. Students still bring their friends and family to the chapel to show them their accomplishments.
During this year’s Skills USA Conference and Competition, eight of Thomas’s students placed in the Top 10 in the nation and as well as a first place winner.
When asked what it meant to him to be chosen to be a Lamplighter, Thomas said, “It means a lot to be chosen to represent MCC at this year’s Lamplighters Conference because there are so many other people that are just as deserving as me, if not more.”
• Mississippi State University, Meridian Campus, student Christopher Stone, a Meridian Community College alumnus, wrote this article.
