Reporter   

As the spring semester comes to an end, we welcome incoming SGA president Travis Tillis. Winning by 228 votes in the elections that recently took place a couple weeks ago, Tillis has accepted his duties as the new president, and he will be begin his duties during the summer of 2013.

Tillis said he was happily surprised when he was told he had won.

“I was ecstatic. I was so happy,” Tillis said. “I have a deep faith in God, so I knew if it was his will it would be done.”

Tillis said his strong leadership skills and creative mindset are just a few qualifications that make him ready to represent BC as SGA president along with the fact that he enjoys organizing. He says he wants to help make the student-teacher relationship stronger and to make an impact while serving his term.

After attending Dallas County Community District in Dallas, Texas, Tillis transferred to BC as an industrial arts major.

He said that he immediately loved BC because it pushed him and that he prefers the education system here in California as opposed to in Texas.

“The education system here is above the system back there,” he said.

Tillis has had his share of struggles not only in school but also in other aspects of life. His strife has taught him so much, he said, motivating him to help give back.

“I’m a guy who has experienced a lot of hardships in life. I grew up very poor and experienced some things a young man shouldn’t experience,” he said. “My main thing is to try to give back to the community and mentor the young men who are coming up so they won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made.

“Not only young men but the young women because the young women dictate how the young men move…whatever they like is what the men are gonna like.”

This is Tillis’s third semester at BC. He began attending school here in the spring of 2012 after moving from his hometown in New Orleans to Texas then finally here to Bakersfield.

He started going to college at the age of 17 and is now 33 years old. Despite what others may think, Tillis said that he is proud of what he has accomplished and is not planning on prolonging his success anytime soon.

“I feel good. I feel young. This is the best time of my life actually,” he said.

He also lamented on the challenges of being a student.

“You will be tested but you have to stick with it and graduate. It’s all about completion,” he said. “It’s not where you started. It’s where you finish.”

One thing Tillis is big on is being alert and doing things to help out the community. Although he is studying to become a civil engineer, he aspires to be a public speaker or preacher for his future career, following the ways of one of his role models Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some of his other role models include Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Ellen G. White and T.D Jakes.

In spite of this being Tillis’ first time serving as SGA president, the leadership position is not all new to him as this semester he has been serving as president of the African American Student Union. He is also active in the math club.

While in office, he plans on working with his team members and finding out what effective methods can be useful to help students excel and increase the retention rate. He also plans on continuing the new and old programs that SGA has implemented at BC that were effective for students. Tillis says he is looking forward to what the future year has in store.

Special to the Rip

The Eighth Annual Driller Football Hall of Fame Banquet and Induction Ceremony will take place May 10 at the Marriott Ballroom at 801 Truxtun Ave.

Several of the inductees also played sports at Bakersfield College.

Social hour begins at 6 p.m., dinner is at 7 p.m. with the Induction Ceremony capping off the evening at 8 p.m.

Seven more Driller greats and three more Valley Championship teams, 1937-39, will light up the Driller Hall on this evening.

The Inductees are: Jim Kennedy, Jerry Tarr, Bill Rankin, John Van Osdel, Jim Kunau, Doug Loman and Gary Williams.

What is unique about this year’s class of inductees are the special ties and memories of playing for the Bakersfield College Renegades after their high school years as Drillers.

At one time in history, Bakersfield High and BC shared the BHS Campus on California Avenue.

Jim Kennedy attended Bakersfield High from 1948-52. He played both offense and defense, but primarily right tackle for BHS his junior and senior years. In ’51, Kennedy helped lead the Drillers to a 27th Valley Championship.

He recalls there was not much of a transformation from high school to college. Not only did BHS and BC have classes on the same campus, they shared the same playing field (Griffith Field) and locker room.

Jerry Tarr attended BHS from ’53-’57. He played offensive and defense for the Drillers for two years and in’56 (his junior year), he helped lead BHS to another Valley title.

He also participated in track for three years while at BHS.

After high school, Tarr attended BC where he participated in football and track. Tarr won numerous awards while participating in track and football for the Renegades and has been inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

He transferred to the University of Oregon where he competed in football and track and in ’61 won the NCAA High Hurdles Championship.

He is in the University of Oregon’s Hall of Fame and was inducted in the Bob Elias Hall of Fame in ’76.

Tarr played a short time in the National Football League for the Denver Broncos before returning to Bakersfield.

Bill Rankin attended Bakersfield High from’61-’64.

He played varsity football as a right tackle on offense and a left tackle on defense.

He also participated in track for three years while at BHS.

Rankin received several prestigious awards, including the Harry Coffee Most Inspirational Player Award and the Gold Championship Football that his dad received in the 1920’s.

Rankin also wrestled his sophomore year and participated in track and field.

John Van Osdel attended BHS from ’61-65. While at BHS, Van Osdel competed in football, basketball and baseball.

For the football Drillers he played at the tight end and defensive end positions. Van Osdel was one of the most complete and spirited players while attending BHS and received several awards including All-City.

Van Osdel received a scholarship to play for the University of Colorado Buffaloes where he played for a year.

He then returned home to play for BC where he earned All-Metro Tight End. He graduated from Fresno State in 1972.

Jim Kunau attended BHS from ’72-’76. Kunau played football all four years, starring as a defensive back and quarterback for the Drillers.

He was chosen as Most Dedicated Player in the ’74-’75 season. He also played basketball and baseball while at BHS.

Doug Loman attended BHS from ’72-’76. Loman played football all four years as quarterback and/or linebacker for the Drillers and earned All-City honors his junior and senior years.

 In ’76, he was selected as “Player of the Year.”

Loman attended BC in ’76-’77 and played baseball for the Renegades. In ’78, he was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the second round. He played for the Brewers’ organization for eight years.

Gary “Sugar Bear” Williams attended BHS from ’74-’78. He played varsity football all four years. Williams played linebacker for the Drillers and accumulated several prestigious awards.

In ’76, he was named the Frank Gifford Most Inspirational Player, in ’77, the Harry Coffee Most Valuable Player; All-City and All-League in ’76 and ’77. Bakersfield Californian Lineman-of-the Year in ’77 and he was also team captain in ’77.

By Adam Cree

Reporter

Deplorable: the only word to describe the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Now, one brother responsible is dead and the other is in a hospital in police custody. Having sustained multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the throat, the last suspect has to write to communicate, a small comfort to those who can no longer walk.

When Whitney Houston died, the White House flew the American flag at half-mast, symbolizing that a tragedy has occurred.

I ask, is it really a national tragedy when an entertainer dies? No. Sad?

For some, but when innocent people are bombed at an international event that is a tragedy.

Innocent lives were lost and people were maimed. Families were devastated and a peaceful event has been forever stained by bloodshed and horror.

People who were there for no political reason, who were simply cheering and having a good time, now have to relearn to walk.

They have to learn how to forget the trauma, to try and move past nightmares. In more ways than one, many lives were shattered on that day.

It is also a massive blow to our national pride. How could we let this happen? Isn’t this what the Department of Homeland Security get’s it’s blank check for?

This isn’t a question of if the flags should be flown at half-mast, but instead for how long. For those who say differently, I ask, why?

Why shouldn’t we mourn the loss of innocent American lives?

If we can’t mourn for members of our own nation, does that mean our aid around the world in times of disaster is hypocrisy?

 Why is it okay to lower our flags for a crack user singer but not a terrorist attack on our own soil?

Lowering the flag to half-mast is deeply symbolic for our nation. If this isn’t a situation that deserves it to express our collective sadness and grief, then nothing is.

Like 9/11, this should be an event that unifies the USA. Instead, it will divide us further, another blow to our national identity, another wedge in our politics. Perhaps that is reason enough to fly the flag at half-mast.

While the news will forget this event in a few months, the families of those hurt never will.

For them, this event will never end. They will be reminded of it every time they see their loved ones’ scars.

Every time they watch a friend tremble at recalling the event, they will be reminded.

Hopefully, through them, we can all remember the tragedy this was. Flying our flags at half mast is the simplest way we, as a nation, have to say, “We’re with you, every step of the way.”

Anything less would be a disgrace and show our joke of “unity” as that, the farce that it is.

CON:

By Mitchelle De Leon

Reporter

Following the Boston Marathon bombings, we should treat the past events with utmost care and respect for everyone.

I believe that flying a flag half-mast is disrespectful to the victims of other tragedies, as if implying that one tragedy is more tragic than the rest.

Incidents with much higher casualties occurred recently. For example, the explosion of a Texas fertilizer plant received much less attention even though its death toll was higher.

Horrifying and senseless acts of violence occur in our country on a daily basis, but the victims remain faceless and nameless because the scale of the violent acts does not match up to bombings at a famed marathon.

Outside the borders of our nation, we have our armed forces risking their lives. Therefore, we should also honor each life lost in those costly wars, but despite our patriotism, the vast majority of those brave individuals become statistics with many untold stories.

When we return our flags back to their normal state, we’re signaling the end of the mourning period, at least for the people who were not directly affected by the bombings.

We’re signaling our return to apathy toward victims of any tragedy.

This apathy is only natural. We shrug off the many terror incidents outside our country because we believe that we have successfully insulated our country from them.

Our apathy stems from our culture, but that doesn’t mean it should be acceptable. The Boston incident is unique because the perpetrators, as we have learned, had a political and ideological agenda that previously inflicted our country with immense sorrow; hence, we use the word “terrorists” to describe them.

The tragedy at Boston affects us more than the explosion of the Texas fertilizer plant or any other recent incident, within or outside our country, because it succeeds in sending the terrorists’ chilling message:  This can happen to you.

For instance, only a week after the Boston bombings, Canadian authorities announced that they thwarted a plot to derail a train headed to New York City.

We will never be truly secure despite all the preventive measures that we have already taken and the measures that we will likely enact in the near future.

Individuals like the Tsarnaev brothers will continue in their attempts to penetrate our morale and to punctuate the history of our country.

By lowering our flags, we’re allowing these terrorists to propel their message more than they already have.

Over time, we will forget the names Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, instead remembering them with one word that one of their uncles famously used to describe them: losers.

Unfortunately, we will also forget the names Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, Martin Richard and Sean Collier along with the 298 individuals injured.

We should honor all of these victims but not with a ceremony that doesn’t include victims of lesser-known tragedies.

Features Editor

The proposed smoking policy at Bakersfield College is still in administrative limbo, and the ultimate fate of the policy may not be resolved until over the summer break. This policy may also become a district-wide policy if the legislation approves it.

According to Nick Acosta, SGA general counsel and spearhead behind the tobacco-free campus policy, the issue may not be resolved this coming fall semester as planned. However, Acosta is taking steps to further the initiative.

“From what I hear, they [the board of trustees] are really looking at it positively, the policy and the idea,” said Acosta. “I think it will take effect, it is just a matter of if it will be in the fall or if it will be delayed a little bit.”

So far, Acosta has presented the policy to numerous boards that control the outcome of campus-wide policies, such as the Academic Senate, the Faculty and Department Chairs. The final word on the matter, which is appointed to the board of trustees and chancellor of BC, has not been handed down.

It seems to not to be a lack of effort on Acosta’s part though. Granted he was not able to present the policy at the last board of trustees meeting, he and BC president Sonya Christian have broached the subject with the powers that be.

“I did talk to her [Sonya Christian] and she said she has mentioned it to the board of trustees and the chancellor, and said that it is going over well,” said Acosta referring to his conversations with the BC president.

“She says that they like the idea and they want to move forward with it, but as a district wide policy,” said Acosta about his informal talks with the president.

“The only issue seems to be that, if we do that, we are slowing down the progress that we are making now. If that is the case, it might not happen in the fall, because they [Porterville and Cerro Coso Colleges] must approve the same policy.”

Acosta has plans to urge the board of trustees and the BC chancellor to make some type of decision before he leaves his post with SGA, saying that although he is confident that new members will pick up the policy, he wants to see it through.

“What she [Sonya Christian] wants me to do is talk to the board of trustees,” Acosta noted this as being a perspective informal meeting. “To give them a run through of everything we have done with the policy so far, put pressure on them and say, ‘it would be nice if we could get all three, but we want to move forward with BC now. If it goes well at BC, they can jump on board later.’”

Incoming SGA President Travis Tillis gave a vote of confidence for confirming the ultimate end of the policy.

“If it gets caught up, I will personally make sure that the policy sees it to the end,” said Tillis.

Sports Editor

Now that the Los Angeles Lakers have been swept out of the playoffs and are done playing the most disappointing season in franchise history; I’ve come up with the best offseason move for this summer.

The Lakers should fire head coach Mike D’antoni. It clearly didn’t work. With all the hype that was built up last summer when the team acquired Dwight Howard (being the center piece) and Steve Nash, things went wrong from the start.

Now I understand, D’antoni wasn’t the head coach in the beginning of the season, Mike Brown was. I don’t want to get into Brown, but from the moment they hired him after Phil Jackson left, I knew that he (Brown) wasn’t the man for the job.

Just like D’antoni, Brown just doesn’t fit the Lakers system.Now I’m not saying D’antoni is not a good coach, but that’s the problem, he’s good, not great.

Check D’antoni’s track record, when he was in Phoenix coaching the Suns, they won 50 plus games in four of the five years he was there. They did that because D’antoni’s system seems as if it is just trading baskets with opponents.

Every time he took the Suns into the postseason, they came up short. The reason they weren’t successful in the playoffs, (in terms of winning a championship) is because teams like the San Antonio Spurs and their head coach Greg Popovich teaches their teams to play defense.

The Spurs and the Dallas Mavericks showed D’antoni that up-tempo basketball doesn’t work in the playoffs. At some point in time, you’re going to have to play defense.

The Lakers averaged 102 points per game this season under D’antoni.  The down side to that great offensive statistic is that they allowed opponents to score 101 points per game.

If I had it my way and it was up to me to hire a new coach for the Lakers, I would listen to what Jackson has to say and would give him the position back.

The only guy I would consider if Jackson wasn’t interested, is former  Utah Jazz head coach and Hall of Famer, Jerry Sloan.

Reporter

Bakersfield College men’s golf has wrapped up its 2013 season without putting any players into the final round of the state playoffs. The team has been ranked fifth in their conference, moving up from the seventh spot from last season.

Neil Bautista and Travis Millwee both nearly made it to the final round, with Millwee losing due to one stroke. “Overall, we made some improvement over last year,” said head coach Bill Kalivas. “Last year’s team was extremely young, almost all freshmen, and I think they had a difficult time adjusting to college golf, with the type of competitions and venues that were more difficult than they were used to playing. Of the majority of last year’s freshmen only three returned, and they seemed to be our stabilizing factor this year.”

Kalivas credits some of the improvement to his returning players.

“They maintained a very steady pace in terms of their play, their leadership qualities, and their ability to understand what it took to be successful,” said Kalivas referring to sophomores Bautista, Millwee, and Kevin Antongiovanni. Bautista had an average of 76, Millwee had a 77, and Antongiovanni had an 86.

Freshman players Paul Cooper shot an 82, Jake Jocobus an 80, and P.J. Carmichael an 89. While Kalivas says the season was underwhelming he notes that a big part of it is helping the athletes out for the future.

“I think our most important focus is allowing our athletes to extend their athletic career, and guide them so that academically they can transfer,” Kalivas said.

All three sophomore players will be transferring to four-year universities to continue their golf careers. Part of the reason the team has struggled both this season and the last is due to the nature of the environment the golf team plays in, says Kalivas.

“If you look at the demographics of our community, there aren’t a lot of country club kids,” he said. “Our courses are still extremely nice courses and still challenging enough, but the difference here is that land is not as much as a premium as it is in Los Angeles, or in Ventura, or Santa Barbara.

“Consequently the golf courses in those areas are much narrower, much more challenging and much more unforgiving, so if you’re offline on any of those courses you pay a heavy price in terms of penalty strokes. Here, even though there is some difficulty, you can scramble and escape and still score well enough to be respectable.”

Other junior colleges in the south have much more difficult courses, says Kalivas, and this puts BC at a distinct disadvantage within the conference because BC players don’t readily have access to these types of courses. “We can’t just run down there and practice,” says Kalivas. “Everything is two or three hours away.”

Online Editor

Instructors at Bakersfield College are required to give a final at the end of each semester, and many of them have mixed emotions and thoughts on the outcome and even the final itself.

Rosa Garza, a Chicano history professor, stated that to her any exams are important.

“It allows you to see how the students are doing,” said Garza. “Mine are usually multiple choice, true and false, fill-ins.”

Garza changes her finals every year due to the fact that in the previous years, a student took a copy of the exam and all the students knew the answers before the exams were given. “So I don’t let them keep the exam themselves,” she said.

When asked of what he thought of giving finals, Wayne Cooper, a BC chemistry professor, stated that he had mixed emotions.

“How do you really evaluate what someone gets out of your class?” stated Cooper. “Now if you had a good way to look into an individual’s mind and looking at the gray cells and see what they have left there when they go out of your class, it would be easy, but in a sense then, finals are kind of a double-edged sword.”

Cooper then went onto add that it is necessary to give a final and that it gives him the feel of what his students get out of his class, but his real question is: Do the finals really tell what the students got out of his class?

He also said that he doesn’t expect his students to know everything about his class, because if they did then they would be the ones teaching the class, not him.

Cooper’s advice to those who struggle with finals is, “start preparing the first day of class.”

Jack Pierce, a BC geology and earth science professor, stated that he finds finals necessary because it looks at the student’s comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter over the semester.

He gives multiple choices and essays for his finals, which doesn’t really have a right answer.

“The essay questions gives how they would logically answer a question,” stated Pierce. “There’s a correct answer as to the logic behind it.”

“We have a lot of smart students in Bakersfield College, but there is a portion of them that don’t prepare and so then it looks like they don’t know,” said Pierce of some students who do a bad job on finals due to lack of preparation. “But I think they are bright.”

Devlin Kelly, a BC biology professor and Levan Scholar, stated that she isn’t sneaky when it comes to finals. “It’s pretty straight forward.  They know what they need to know, they know what they need to learn.”

Kelly has a Twitter, Facebook and even a podcast for her lectures so that her students could get all the help they need in order to pass her class.

Both Kelly and Pierce’s advice to taking a final is to get a good night sleep. Pierce shared his experience as a student.

“I remember when I was doing my bachelor’s degree,” he said. “I would just labor all night in terms of studying everything and anything in order to try and perform well on the final exam in San Diego State.”

Pierce went on to say, “then I became a graduate student at the University of Idaho and I had my finals. I basically studied what I thought was necessary and had a good night sleep, and I did much better than I did in San Diego State.  I think it’s because I had a good night sleep, I really do.”

We fear people may have voted for the policy not for the cigarette but because of the smoker. It’s something to think about. It is unclear when people started looking down upon smokers, but it seems that as a society we have deemed them inconsiderate and an unhealthy group.

The general thought process of non-smokers is why does anyone want to do something that is obviously unhealthy.  It’s incomprehensible. People feel they have a right to voice their concerns when more often than not it’s unwanted.

We’re not saying we are pro-smoking or anti-smoking, we just feel the need to point out the difference. That difference is from disapproving of the product to disapproving of the user of that product. This seems elementary to say, but people shouldn’t be judging other people on their ‘vices’ so to speak.

There is an unfair bias here. When someone finds out someone else is a smoker, the first emotion is disappointment. That tune changes when someone finds out someone’s a drinker or pot smoker, the emotion is passive.  What makes other ‘vices’ so much better than using tobacco?

So as the school board mulls over the pending smoking policy, we ask students to think about why they voted and if it was for reasons not contaminated by society’s view of what’s deemed acceptable.

Reporter

Bakersfield College softball has wrapped up this season with a season record of 7-31, and a Western State Conference record of 5-13.

Coach Sandi Taylor has also celebrated her 500 career win this season, achieving this on April 20, against Fullerton.

On April 18, BC hosted Santa Monica in a doubleheader, beating them both times.

The first game was 14-1 and the second 5-3.

BC took a quick lead in the first game, scoring six runs in the first inning thanks to a grand slam by Kassidi Ward.

BC collected 12 hits and gave up one run in the third inning.

In the second game, BC made eight hits, but struggled along for the first five innings before scoring all five in the sixth inning, including a home run by Katie Hoffman, and another home run by Ward.

BC scored another win against Fullerton College on April 20, as part of a doubleheader, which was a makeup game after being rained out in the beginning of the season.

BC won the first game 9-8 with 10 hits and a home run by Brooke Charles.

Fullerton scored all eight of its runs in the second inning and led until the fifth when BC put up four more.

BC lost the second game of the day 14-6, but held Fullerton two within one run up until the eighth inning wherein Fullerton scored seven runs.

BC put up nine hits, and another home run by Ward.

“I’m real pleased, we did a lot of good things, made a couple of double plays in that game. There was a lot of positive things to end the year,” said Taylor.

BC hosted Citrus College for the final game of the season on April 23. Citrus won 8-2, but Taylor was pleased with the team’s performance, remarking on the improvement from when they played Citrus at the beginning of the year.

“Compared to where we were the first round . . . we didn’t even really compete in those first two [Citrus] games, and yesterday I thought we matched them.

We had 10 hits, they had 10 hits. We had a couple more errors, and then they got some timely hits so it was a little bit different there, but for the most part we matched them.”

Reporter

Joseph Kosinski’s “Oblivion” is confusing, strange, and left me oblivious.

Kosinski who directed the film “Tron: Legacy” has tried his directing skills at another sci-fi film “Oblivion”. The film stars A-list actor Tom Cruise who is known for his exceptional acting skills, and action movies, but “Oblivion” is a disappointment added to Cruise’s resume’.

Usually I don’t mind paying $10 to get into a movie, and usually I don’t mind sitting two hours through a movie, but with “Oblivion” I was angry.

The first hour of the film is just Cruise, who plays Jack Harper, narrating the story of how Earth went through a battle with aliens known as the scavengers.

Harper who is now known as the clean up crew has stayed on Earth to protect resources needed for the new planet where all other humans reside.

The first hour is particularly boring since the only person you see is pretty much only Cruise.

For a while I forgot what the movie was about and I didn’t even think of Cruise as Harper but as Tom Cruise.

Cruise tried to display emotions but they didn’t seem real and he spent most of the movie looking confused.

The real acting came when Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko showed up. Freeman starred as Malcom Beech and Kurylenko as Julia. Freeman showed his exceptional acting skills.

Although he had fewer scenes than Cruise in the movie, the acting seemed genuine. Kurylenko even surprised me as she made her on screen chemistry with Cruise look more legitimate.

Some pros to the movie were the scenes had great graphics and the destroyed Earth looked believable, but those are the only pros.

The film ends with a confusing ending and twist that had a lot of unanswered questions. I’m guessing that probably went into oblivion as well.

Not a film I would recommend to many people, just wait until it hits DVD and decided if you want to watch it.

2/5 Stars