(WACO) – It is a place that one may not think of as visiting to get back to nature: the Chernobyl Power Complex in the Ukraine.

The nuclear facility became well known in spring 1986 as the site of reactor explosions due to inadequate design and worker error, according to the World Nuclear Association.

The plant was re-opened as a tourist attraction in 2011, according to the WNA. And this is a place Garrett Fulcher of Hamilton wants to visit because he is curious about how nature adapted to the accident.

That kind of interest propelled Fulcher to earn an Associate of Applied Science degree in Radiation Protection Technology at the Summer 2016 Commencement at Texas State Technical College in Waco.

As a student worker, he worked with Environmental Health, Safety and Radiation Protection Technology faculty members.

“He assisted in setting up the labs for experiments and was very helpful packing equipment to ship out for calibration,” said Jacob Navar, an instructor of Radiation Protection Technology. “He grasped the technical aspects and could do these without supervision.”

During the summer, Fulcher and other students took soil samples along the Brazos River and sent them to The University of Texas at Austin’s Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory. The goal was to detect radiation and elements such as cadmium, chromium and arsenic in soil.

“The hands-on work gives me the job experience I need to get where I am going,” he said.

Fulcher will begin temporary employment in September at Quantum Technical Services in Houston, where he will work with employees performing diagnostic scans for naturally occurring radioactive material deposits at chemical and petroleum plants.

Meanwhile, Fulcher is applying for positions at U.S. Department of Energy labs and wants to conduct nuclear research.

He wants to see more students join the Radiation Protection Technology program because as baby boomers retire, younger and knowledgeable workers will be needed to fill positions.

“Follow what you are passionate about,” Fulcher said. “I’ve always been fascinated by how things work. And, keep an open mind.”

During his downtime, he enjoys hunting, fishing and off-roading.

“I am a small-town farm boy who grew up in the country,” he said.

He graduated in 2004 from Evant High School where he ran track.

After high school, he worked in a machine shop, was a certified hostage negotiator for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and traveled throughout the country.

He came to a point when he knew he needed to find a career that interested him.

“I was fascinated with working with atomic particles and how they work with each other,” Fulcher said.

(WACO) – A member of Texas State Technical College in Waco’s Environmental Health, Safety and Radiation Protection Department has been reappointed to a federal-state commission.

Linda Morris, an adjunct instructor, campus radiation safety officer and former department chair, was named by Gov. Greg Abbott in August to serve a term expiring Sept. 1, 2021, on the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. She was first appointed in 2012.

“It’s been an honor serving under Gov. Rick Perry and now Gov. Abbott,” Morris said. “I consider it a bright point of my career.”

The commission oversees the Texas Compact Waste Facility operated by Waste Control Specialists LLC in Andrews.  The commission looks after the disposal of low-level radioactive waste and studies new applications.

“I think it’s a positive image for TSTC,” Morris said about her role on the commission. “We have the only radiation protection technology program among Texas’ two-year colleges. Everyone sees me as a non-biased source on the commission.”

Morris is a technical expert on the eight-person panel made up of representatives from Texas and Vermont – states forming the commission.

“This allows the commission to analyze and assess many of the issues that come before us without the need to hire outside experts,” said Brandon T. Hurley, commission chair and an attorney at Kelly Hart and Hallman law firm in Fort Worth. “Linda has also been the chairman of our rules committee during a time when we have undergone a significant revision and addition to our rules that improved the way our commission operates and improves the processes utilized by waste generators and the operator of the low-level radioactive waste facility in Andrews County.”

Morris is a licensed medical physicist by the Texas Medical Board. She is a co-advisor for TSTC’s student branch of the Health Physics Society and co-director of the Central Texas Science and Engineering Fair held each winter at TSTC in Waco.

Morris has made presentations on radiation protection topics at conferences in Canada and the Czech Republic.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry in 1970 at Lamar University in Beaumont. Morris went on to receive a master’s degree in biophysics in 1971 from Texas A&M University in College Station.

(WACO) – Juan Buitron will have good thoughts in his mind as he walks across the stage at Texas State Technical College’s Summer 2016 Commencement on Friday.

Buitron, 21, of Mount Pleasant said he will miss playing pool and racquetball at TSTC’s Murray Watson Jr. Student Recreation Center. He will also think about playing on his guitar and jamming with friends.

Buitron is among more than 500 graduates from TSTC’s Waco, Fort Bend County, North Texas and Williamson County campuses who will graduate on Friday in Waco. He will receive an Associate of Applied Science degree in Diesel Equipment Technology – Off-Highway Specialization.

Buitron represents the first generation in his family to graduate from college. He has three siblings – one who has graduated from college and two in the military.

“Whenever we get together as a family, we talk about our parents and appreciate what they do – working hard and wanting us to have a better future,” he said. “Whatever you work for will make you successful.”

Buitron said he learned along the way about taking care of oneself.

“Have yourself a small, basic tool kit,” he said. “Get ready to study. Sleep early and wake up early and get to class. Eat right and healthy. Have that ambition to learn something.”

His favorite class was Power Train II, which teaches students how to inspect and repair drive shifts and clutches. He credited Diesel Equipment Technology program faculty members Julian Alfred, John Goebel and Kent Kahler with graciously giving their knowledge to him.

Kahler said Buitron asked good questions and was punctual – qualities that make it a joy to teach students like him and see the opportunities they have in their career fields.

“It makes your job more fulfilling when you have students like him; they just need some guidance,” Kahler said.

Buitron is currently job searching in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

He was born in Stephenville and moved with his family to Mount Pleasant when he was 4.

“There are a lot of country roads,” he said. “It’s fun living there. You can go mud riding, hunting, you name it.”

When he was young, he would watch his father work on trucks. During these times, Buitron learned about screwdrivers, hacksaws and pliers. He started assembling his first tool box when he was 15.

Buitron is a graduate of Mount Pleasant High School, where he was a kicker and outside linebacker on the football team.

He first heard about TSTC from one of his sisters. Buitron visited the campus before enrolling, and while visiting other technical programs, kept thinking that Diesel Equipment Technology was what he wanted to study. He liked the hands-on work and even improved his tool box through his classes.

“I didn’t want to go to a four-year college,” he said. “I like school, but I wanted to get a two-year degree.”

Buitron used financial aid and worked at a Waco retail store as a loss-prevention specialist.

“We closed at 10 p.m. on Fridays and on Saturdays at 11 p.m,” he said. “All my classes were Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 3 in the afternoon. At that time, I would do homework and study and go to work.”

He wants to go back to college and study architecture, a subject he studied for two years in high school.

“I want to learn to make ideas into my own houses,” he said.

(WACO) – The challenge was broad, but Reannon Ruark was ready for it.

Ruark led 16 people in April to build what was heralded as the World’s Largest Cookie Mosaic measuring 1,681 square feet at Baylor University. The work involved baking 43,000 cookies in three days and using them to create bear paws and a large “BU” in five hours. The event was originally planned for outdoors, but due to the weather, the feat was moved indoors to the university’s Bill Daniel Student Center.

“You have to have a high tolerance for last-minute changes and an attention to detail,” said Ruark, 34, of Waco.

She mastered her culinary skills at Texas State Technical College in Waco, where she received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Culinary Arts in 2012. Ruark said her first days as a culinary student were intimidating, but she was blessed to have Chef Gayle Van Sant as an instructor in the Food Preparation I class.

“Reannon is an example of the kind of student we want to produce,” said Van Sant. “I like to see where our students fly and land.”

Ruark went to work after graduation for Aramark, which has a catering and food service contract with Baylor. She is based at Baylor’s East Village Bakery and involved in the production of pies, cakes, scratch-made glazed donuts, cinnamon rolls, gourmet cupcakes, cannoli and specialty treats.

“What I love about my job is when people appreciate the products,” she said.

Another aspect of Ruark’s work is catering campus events, such as Homecoming, Welcome Week and other activities. Planning for these events can start at least a month ahead of time.

“I put my hands in a lot of the custom stuff,” Ruark said. “I also do a lot of the management.”

Kyle McElroy, food service director of Penland Crossroads dining hall at Baylor, said Ruark has worked hard to define her culinary role at the university. She typically goes from planning the logistics of food demands during summer during two-a-day practices for the Baylor Bears football team to continuing the effort of producing scratch-baked goods for a majority of the university’s dining locations.

“There is an industry shortage of qualified culinarians in general,” McElroy said. “To have a local access to students of the caliber the TSTC Culinary Arts program produces, we would be lost without them.”

Ruark was raised in Keller, Texas, and graduated in 2000 from Coppell High School in Coppell, Texas. She learned how to cook from her mother, Lavona Daily, a co-partner in the Cajun Corner restaurant in North Richland Hills in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

“I grew up in a very matriarchal family,” Ruark said. “It was my mother, my grandmother and both great grandmothers. We never ate fast food. We made actual marinara sauce with vegetables. Hot food is my passion, but I’m good at pastry.”

Culinary Arts is Ruark’s third career. She has previously been a medical assistant in invasive cardiology and a 401K business administrator in Waco. She learned about TSTC while helping a friend research colleges.

“I just decided I was done with the paperwork and wanted to do something I like,” she said. “I made it a commitment to read and do homework. I decided as a grown woman I was going to do things right.”

(WACO) – Texas State Technical College in Waco will continue to partner with two area school districts and a public independent charter school this fall as part of early college high schools.

“Since the students are part of an early college high school, there is no charge to the student,” said Sheryl Kattner-Allen, a manager in Dual Enrollment Operations at TSTC. “The school districts pick up all the costs. TSTC benefits students by helping them to complete their degrees and get placed in the workforce.”

Texas has more than 150 early college high schools, according to the Texas Education Agency.

The TEA has given approval for the La Vega Independent School District to have an early college high school for the second year at La Vega High School. This partnership also includes McLennan Community College. La Vega students who apply for the program can choose which associate degree track to pursue at either of the colleges.

“We are really blessed at La Vega ISD in where we are and have access to colleges and opportunities for our students,” said Elicia Krumnow, director of the early college high school at La Vega ISD. “The relationship with TSTC goes back a while through our Career and Technology Education programs.”

The La Vega Early College High School had 50 freshmen who this academic year will be sophomores. For the upcoming academic year, it accepted 69 incoming freshmen.

“There is an application process and we have populations that we target based on the standards given by the state,” said Krumnow. “Our district is a Title I district and some of our students are economically disadvantaged. We also target students that are underrepresented at the college level. Black males are underrepresented along with minority students – minority females in particular. We also target students that are English-language learners or first-generation college goers.”

TSTC will start its third year with the Connally Independent School District for Connally Career Tech Early College High School for students to earn associate degrees and high school diplomas concurrently.

Connally Career Tech focuses on TSTC’s technical careers for its students, said Principal Hermann Pereira. This year’s early college high school will begin with 120 Connally students, five teachers, one counselor and one principal.

“We are recruiting students who have a passion for career and technology fields,” Pereira said.

TSTC has its longest early college high school partnership with Rapoport Academy in Waco. Students take the Texas Success Initiative assessment between eighth and ninth grades and begin taking college-level courses at TSTC or MCC. This year, Rapoport Academy will have 160 high school students taking college-level classes at TSTC and MCC, Superintendent Alexis Neumann said.

Neumann credited TSTC with being an innovator in forging early college high school connections.

“The students get what they need and what they are interested in,” Neumann said.

For additional information on Texas’ early college high schools, go to tea.texas.gov/curriculum/echs/.

(WACO) – Shawnthena Burks can literally use the farm-to-table concept made popular these days in the culinary world.

Burks, 32, can slaughter cows and hogs, shell purple hull peas straight from the garden and use fresh peaches to top a tasty dessert.

Burks, who will graduate in August with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Culinary Arts at Texas State Technical College in Waco, credits her upbringing for making her the cook she is today.

She grew up on family land in Sandy in Limestone County as a self-described country girl. She had always been good with her hands, whether it was braiding hair or creating crafts.

“You saw cows, donkeys and grasshoppers,” she said. “I didn’t have cable.”

She spent a lot of time with her grandfather, Taylor Reed, who taught her how to make fresh pork sausage, butter and pork cracklings.

Her mother, Margaret Burks, taught her a lot about cooking while working two jobs. Burks and her mother would often pick and prepare vegetables from their garden.

“We would have a full family meal – a protein, three fresh vegetables, bread and tea each day,” Burks said. “My mother was always in the kitchen.”

She graduated in 2002 from Mexia High School and was active in the DECA club.

And the older she got, the more she developed a talent for baking cakes.

“When she did let me in the kitchen, my mother was impressed,” Burks said. “Food and family is everything.”

After high school, Burks had an automobile accident and said she did not know what to do with her life. But in 2012, she realized the profession she needed to pursue after making two wedding cakes.

“I think I reached a plateau of what I wanted to do in my life,” she said. “I was 27.”

She researched TSTC and learned about its Culinary Arts program. She visited the campus and talked to staff members who helped ease her way into technical college life.

“My faith is what put me here,” she said. “I asked God what I could do that I was overlooking and something my family could benefit from.”

Burks cited TSTC’s Chef Martin Ellenberger and Chef Len Pawelek as having pushed her hard in the Culinary Arts program.

Pawelek said Burks was ahead of her time in using vegetables and meat as fresh as possible in her dishes.

“She is way ahead of the curve in what the industry is coming back to,” he said. “I think she’s very respectful and passionate about what she does. She shows up and has a great attitude.”

Burks already has a job working at Rio Brazos Fine Custom Cuisine in Waco where she will be working with catering, a food truck and food preparation.

In the fall, Burks will begin work on an Associate of Applied Science degree in Web Design and Development Technology at TSTC in Waco. Her goal is to maintain her own web site for the catering business she wants to open one day.

“If I can keep following the path where every door has been open for me and build something big, I want to give back,” she said. “I want to have jobs open for good people.”

Summer commencement for TSTC campuses in Waco, North Texas, Williamson County and Fort Bend County is at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 19, at the Waco Convention Center on Washington Avenue.