If anyone asked Lauran West 鈥�16 as a child what her favorite animal was, she never hesitated, and her answer was always 鈥減enguins.鈥� So imagine her excitement when she was hired for a two-month internship at the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska to care for and feed [...]
Missouri Western alumni are not only making an impact locally and nationally, but also in foreign countries. Ally Browning 鈥�08 and Gary 鈥�97 and Rachel Chaney have found their calling in serving others 鈥� Browning in Honduras and the Chaneys in Africa. Eyes wide open: Ally Browning 鈥�08 听 As [...]
On any given Thursday evening, you always know where you can find Ralph Alvarez 鈥�71. For the past 38 years, Alvarez has offered free lessons in his home workshop to anyone interested in learning woodworking and wood carving. For the second academic year, the St. Joseph native and alumnus has [...]
When Rick Dierenfeldt 鈥�11 enrolled at Missouri Western, he had a plan. At the time, he was working full-time as a police officer, and he wanted to earn an associate degree so he could get promoted. It was a good plan, but it didn鈥檛 quite work out that way. He [...]
Challenging. Adventurous. Fun. And outdoors. That鈥檚 what Melissa Cairns 鈥�16 was looking for in an internship this past summer. She found all that and more when she was hired as a Class V whitewater rafting guide at Ace Adventure Resort in West Virginia. For those not familiar with whitewater rapids [...]
For those not familiar with the field of teaching English as a second language, it may just seem like a lot of alphabet soup 鈥� ESL, ELL, ESOL, TESOL, MELL 鈥� but to Ryan Rumpf 鈥�02, it鈥檚 a career he wouldn鈥檛 trade for anything. It鈥檚 a career that took him [...]
When Adrienne Collins 鈥�14 saw a notice last fall about an opportunity that included the words 鈥渋nternational travel,鈥� 鈥渂ucket list鈥� and 鈥減erforming,鈥� she knew she had to pursue it. Answering the call led her to being featured on a reality show and performing center stage at the Strasbourg Opera House [...]
For Megean (McCloud) Weldon 鈥�11, it really all started with a walk around the neighborhood on Earth Day in April 2015. Weldon liked to mark Earth Day with an environmentally friendly activity, so that year, she and her husband, Ben, decided to take a walk around their neighborhood and pick [...]
For Dr. Yevgeniy Kondratenko 鈥�03, his experience in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made him realize that he had received a great undergraduate education in the Department of Chemistry at Missouri Western. After graduation, Dr. Kondratenko was accepted into the PhD program in chemical engineering at [...]
