Pink Day

Jefferson State & SIFE Students Go Pink to Fight Breast Cancer

 

Jefferson State Community College and its Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team announced collaboration today to help tackle breast cancer with their third annual “Pink Day” on October 24, 2012. 

SIFE members on Jefferson State’s Jefferson and Shelby-Hoover campuses encourage college administrators, staff and students to wear pink t-shirts on this day in honor of breast cancer awareness month. T-shirts may be purchased from SIFE in advance of Pink Day.

In addition to wearing pink, students, staff and the local community are encouraged to support Pink Day by visiting the SIFE booth, which will be located on both campuses. In addition to free breast cancer literature, other merchandise – caps, t-shirts, ribbons, backpacks, wristbands, etc. – will be available for purchase.  SIFE will donate a portion of its profits to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest nonprofit funder of breast cancer research and community outreach programs.

To support Susan G. Komen’s mission, SIFE will utilize all its assets, including local media broadcasts, live event, digital and social media to generate awareness and encourage students and the local community to get involved by signing up for “Race for the Cure” events in their local communities. 

The SIFE team is a diverse network of university students mobilized to make a difference in their communities while developing their skills to become socially responsible business leaders. The Jefferson State SIFE Team is a part of SIFE Worldwide with nearly 600 active universities and more than 20,000 student participants. The local chapter is committed to making a difference in the community through its annual Pink Day program. Their dedication to serve the community will reach hundreds of students, women and families with breast cancer education and awareness messages, while raising funds for Komen research and health outreach programs in the communities they serve. Breast cancer is a devastating disease, and SIFE is committed to using its resources to support Komen’s fight to end breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among women in the United States. There are 2.9 million breast cancer survivors in the United States today. For more information about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, breast health or breast cancer, visit komen.org or call 1-877 GO KOMEN.

A Jefferson State Student's Story...

Like movie '50 First Dates,' every day is Feb. 14 for Shelby County man after concussion

 

Published: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 10:50 AM

By Jeff Hansen -- The Birmingham News

 

Clark and Brittney Flowers are a Shelby County couple living a 50 First Dates experience are shown with their dog Wendell.(The Birmingham News, Hal Yeager)

Each day for Clark and Brittney Flowers is like the movie "50 First Dates." 

When Clark wakes up in their Shelby County apartment complex on Double Oak Mountain, he thinks it is Feb. 14. But when he gets to the bathroom, his toothbrush has changed. When he dresses, his old shoes are gone, replaced by a new pair. And when he steps outside expecting cold and brown, he sees summer's last green. 

He remembers all of his life before he fell off a ladder and injured his head on Feb. 13, the young couple say. So he knows Brittney and their first two years of marriage. But every morning, his wife says she has to calmly tell him the same things -- do you remember that you had an accident and a concussion? Now you can only remember about four hours back in time. Today's date is so-and-so, and that noise you hear in the rest of the apartment is your parents, who came to live with us in May. 

"It's weird," said Clark, 28. "It's like a really bad, weird dream. 

"I wake up and I think it's February. ... I remember the grass -- it's cold, it's dead. But when I walk out it's all green." 

The accident
Clark and Brittney say Clark was at work on a ladder in a freezer room when he fell. He was found unconscious about an hour later by another worker. At the emergency room he was conscious but could not move his neck. After about six hours he was sent home with a neck brace that he would wear full time for the next month. 

Clark says he remembers what he had for dinner that night -- ramen noodles and a grilled cheese sandwich. He went back to work about a week later. 

But Brittney says she soon found he was forgetting what she told him, and sometimes he would walk away in the middle of washing dishes and not come back. 

"One day he said, 'I don't remember my afternoon. I don't remember a four-hour span,'" said Brittney. 

Brittney told her mom, Kim Mims, about the forgetfulness. 

"As we were talking on the phone," said Mims, "I said, 'Brittney, what's that noise?' She said, 'He's honking his horn with his key, to try to find his car.'" 

Alan Flowers, Clark's father, came in from Oklahoma for a week in March and stayed with Clark and Brittney. 

"I had not realized how bad it was," Flowers said. "Every morning it was, 'Dad, I'm glad to see you. I missed you.'"

Coping
Clark's parents -- both retired military with a home in Colorado -- graduated from Bible college in Broken Arrow, Okla., in May. 

"They came to the graduation," Arrie Flowers said of her son and daughter-in-law, "but he doesn't remember it." 

Clark's parents immediately moved into Clark and Brittney's apartment to help the family keep going as Brittney continues her job at the Jefferson County Domestic Relations Court as assistant to Judge Julie Palmer. 

"While she's at work, we can take him to appointments," said Alan Flowers.
Clark's parents are both working part-time jobs to help with the bills -- Arrie Flowers at Walmart and Alan Flowers at Outback Steakhouse. Brittney's parents, who live just over the mountain in Chelsea, are also on hand to help. 

Brittney says she has turned her early-morning explanation to her husband about the accident and its effects into a ritual that begins when she wakes at 5:30. To help, Clark writes emails to himself to read the next day, or makes journal entries, as a way of trying to remember backward. 

"I will send an email tonight that my sister had a baby," Clark said in August. The infant is now a month old, but Clark remembers his sister as being in her first trimester of pregnancy. 

He doesn't like looking at family pictures taken after the accident. "I feel I wasn't there," Clark said. "It's like a parallel world -- that's not me." 

Clark wants to work again. 

"It's just that I'm a man," Clark said. "I want to know that I can provide for my wife. I want to know I can put food on the table. It's a very humbling experience to go through something catastrophic in your life and not know how to get out." 

Yet Clark looks fine. 

"I guess the average person would find it hard to believe he's having problems," said Clark's father-in-law, Roger Mims. 

"We can't see the amnesia," said Brittney. "It's like the wind -- you can't see the wind, but it's there." 

Moving on
Still the days continue, one following another. 

Friends have held fundraisers for Clark and Brittney. Three times Clark has passed out and had to be taken to the emergency room. He has continuous headaches. Brittney keeps a heavy tote bag filled with 19 neatly kept files of Clark's medical tests, all the dates of medical events, his medications and so on. 

In some ways Clark has not changed. 

"He's fun and happy; he jokes and cooks," said his mother. "Still he's Clark, the loving Clark. If you met him, you'd never know." 

Clark seeks a purpose for his injury. 

"I want God to use me for people who are going through a hard time," he said. "People with memory loss or teens with disabilities. Right now I'm asking God to heal me, but while I'm in the healing process, I want Him to tell me how He wants to use me." 

He has had a "Walk in Faith" T-shirt made that says, "He may not be able to remember yesterday, but he knows who holds tomorrow." 

Brittney has taken on a new challenge, one she had put off because of the accident. She has started nursing school at the Hoover campus of Jefferson State Community College, believing that she will need a stronger income. Her three classes -- health assessment, intro to pharmacology, and microbiology -- meet four nights a week. 

"It's hard," she said. "I go straight to school from work. When I get home, I get a bite to eat. I stay up to 12 or 1 at night studying, and then the alarm goes off at 5:30."
That worries Clark. 

"I know how stressed she is," he said. "She's got so much on her plate right now. If I could work, I could help." 

One night as the entire extended family -- Clark and Brittney, and all four of their parents -- sat at the dinner table, Clark said of his wife, "She's my hero. She's my absolute hero." 

"She's my hero too," echoed Arrie Flowers. 

"Mine too," said Alan Flowers. 


Love
Brittney and Clark say they were best friends before getting married in 2009. They are something more now. 

"It changed our relationship," said Brittney. "We don't argue over the small things. Yes, he's not going to remember tomorrow, but it's really not important. ... When we wake up, we try to focus on the positives. Or I can sit in bed all day and sob. 

"When you get married, you don't think you could love this person more than you do," said Brittney. "But the love is indescribable now. I'm his advocate. It's a scary situation for him to be in a different month and not know it. I try to reassure him it's going to be OK. It takes a lot out of you." 

Clark feels a deeper bond. 

"When you get married they say, 'in sickness and in health,'" he said. "She's proven to me there's nothing I will ever go through that she will not be there for me." 

They have an uncertain future, balanced by deep dependence on faith and daily support from family and friends. 

"There are a lot worse things in life," Brittney said of the amnesia. "You learn to stop griping and be thankful. You learn to let go of things that are not important." 

"We don't know how long this will last," said Clark. "It could end next week. It could end next year. It could end in five years." 

"Or," he said, "it could never end."

Spirit of Alabama

Spirit of Alabama - Jefferson State Student Jason Wilder

 

This week's Spirit of Alabama is about determination and hard work, goal setting, family and leadership. It's a lot to cover in one story, but when you meet Jason Wilder and the people who support him, you'll see how all of those are connected. 

Wilder decided seven years ago that he wanted to go to college and get a degree in mechanical engineering. He didn't have the money -- there was no scholarship or grant -- but he got his education the old fashioned way: He worked for it.

Jason Wilder works at Metal Supermarkets in Fairfield, Ala. The company specializes in special-order steel products -- you call with specs for what you need, and they'll cut and deliver it to you. 

After seven years with the company, Wilder still enjoys coming to work every day.
"Everybody here is like a small family, we come to work, we know what we gotta do every day."

It's hard and hot work, but also satisfying and rewarding, Wilder said. 

"The guy who owns the place, he's a leader, he's a real nice guy," Wilder added "He's more of a, you know, let's not point a finger at what caused the problem, lets find it, you know find the problem, fix it and go on."

Owner John Kidd says running a successful business is really very simple.
"So, it's people, peoples the heart of your business you know. That's the bottom line, it's no more complicated than that," Kidd said. 

Kidd has two sons who also work here, and he treats the other employees like sons, as well. When Jason Wilder expressed interest in furthering his education, Kidd encouraged him, helped him with scheduling and occasionally provided a little extra money for tuition and books. 

"I'm ready to take the next step, I want to better myself, maybe work in an office or work where I'm making a little more money and have good benefits," Wilder said.

So, seven years ago, Wilder came to Jefferson State Community College. He worked through his courses slowly, taking one class at a time and paying for each one up front.
When we visited Wilder, he was finishing his final exam before getting his associate degree in mechanical engineering. 

Professor Tom White is proud of the man he considers one of his best students.
"He's persevered, he's stayed the course, he's taken difficult academic subjects and has done well in each of those and he's to be commended," White said. "A lot of younger students need to pick up on that and try to develop a strong work ethic and not give up.
With his degree under his belt, Wilder isn't quitting his job just yet. He said his boss has been good to him, and he'll take his time. 

"Five years from now, I'd like to be working for a big company like Alabama Power," he said. "I've always wanted to work for Alabama Power, it's been a dream. Or TVA, like a nuclear plant, or any kind of big company that I can really grow in and use all the experience I have to help a company out."

John Kidd won't be surprised at Wilder's future success stories. But, he's not ready to say goodbye, either. 

"You know, who knows -- maybe after Jason gets out of college, maybe we'll start an engineering firm and since we've worked together for so long and opportunities come along that's exactly what we'll do."

Jason Wilder wanted something, and he worked hard and never gave up. He's a good man, and a good example for us all. That's the Spirit of Alabama. 

Article by NBC 13 News Anchor Mike Royer

Love and Marriage

Hal Harris' Daughter was Recently Married

Pictured are (L to R) Hal Harris, Hal's wife Lydia, Katherine, Drew, daughter-in-law Sarah Harris, granddaughter Emily Harris, and son Stephen Harris.

Hal's Daughter, Katherine Harris, married Drew White on June 22nd at the Sonet House in Leeds. 

Katherine is a math tutor at Calera Elementary School and Drew is doing his rotations in the Birmingham area for his last year in pharmacy school at Auburn University. They now live in Hoover. Congratulations!