Honors students present at the Meeting of the GPHC

Pictured: Neida Perez, Dr. Andrew Yox, Aubrey Watkins, Alyssa Ochoa, and Sam Pollan.

By: Dr. Andrew Yox

Scholars of Honors Northeast, the honors program of Northeast Texas Community College, presented recently for the fourteenth time at the annual meeting of the Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC), this time at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls. The GPHC, dating back to 1975, is an association of eighty honors programs and colleges, supported by both colleges and universities.  It represents one of the six regional components that make up the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC).

In nine of the fifteen years in which NTCC has presented at the GPHC, the scholars of Honors Northeast have won at least one major regional award—in 2015, three did.  It was not to be this year.  A medical injury, and a death in the family took out two NTCC sophomores at the last minute. With a top Caldwell-winning essay, Neida Perez’s fascinating study of the Texas wars against microbes was not quite able to surpass a raft of university entries in the judging.  In a very crowded room, where some colleges took advantage of a loophole in the rules of having more than one presenter per poster, Alyssa Ochoa’s work on the dairy industry of Texas, and Aubrey Watson’s prize-winning work on the rise of the Cowboy Church did not rise to the occasion.  Both won high marks, however.

In the panel presentations on Saturday, 11 March, Sam Pollan exhibited NTCC’s ongoing work in niche cinema. His offbeat, engaging manner, and the suffragette film trailer at the end drew the first questions of the audience.  Neida Perez also delivered a lively oral presentation on Texas’ wars against pathogens. Presented against the backdrop of modern civilization’s current inability to transcend the declining efficacy of anti-biotics, this presentation too won some immediate public feedback.

Alyssa Ochoa’s poster on the history of the Texas dairy industry was an innovative look of how the obstacles that have masked Texas’ innate dairy advantages, have largely subsided.  Aubrey Watkins brought to the under-conceptualized history of the Cowboy Church an interpretation that ran counter to the current authority—Marie Dallam’s Cowboy Christians (Oxford, 2018).  Watkins argues that the Texas-based church is largely unprecedented rather than anticipated by earlier movements in American church history.

Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox noted, “It was arresting this year to experience Midwestern University, and some of the novel sights this area of Texas had to offer. In addition to presenting their own work, three of our scholars hiked the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife refuge, and two of us got to view some of the area’s ultra-modern art treasures, as well as create prints.  Our students all presented winsomely, with a good deal of verve, and understanding.  Lurking behind the trip was an NTCC tradition of scholarship—enabled by many--for which we are thankful.”