(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/.