College Graduates 200 at Summer Ceremony
A-B Tech Nursing Graduate Ernest Grant urges students to maintain their thirst for knowledge at the August commencement ceremony.
Twenty-eight years after he sat in the same auditorium waiting to receive a diploma from A-B Tech in practical nursing, national Outstanding Alumni Award winner Ernest Grant urged students at the college's summer commencement ceremony to maintain their thirst for knowledge, but keep a perspective on what's important in life.
Two hundred students graduated Aug. 5 during a ceremony in Thomas Wolfe Auditorium that included the presentation of the 2005 Staff Member of the Year Award to Maintenance Mechanic and Safety Technician Marty Rice.
Although Grant continued his education after A-B Tech, earning a bachelor's in nursing from North Carolina Central University and a master's in nursing from UNC-Greensboro, he said he is always "proud to stick my chest out and say I'm a graduate of A-B Tech first."
A nursing education clinician in burn outreach at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center, Grant has received numerous honors for his work, including the 2004 American Association of Community Colleges Outstanding Alumni Award and Nursing Spectrum magazine's 2002 Nurse of the Year. His accomplishments have taken him to the White House to be honored by President George W. Bush and put him in the spotlight with fellow community college graduates like U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona and Star Wars' George Lucas.
Maintenance Mechanic and Safety Technician Marty Rice, center, receives congratulations from President K. Ray Bailey and Trustees Chair Harvey Haynes on his selection as 2005 Staff Member of the Year.
But nursing wasn't where Grant's sights were set when he graduated from high school in Swannanoa in the 1970s. Hoping to become an anesthesiologist, but coming from a poor family, he followed the advice of a guidance counselor, who encouraged him to begin his college career at A-B Tech. Six months into the practical nursing program, he realized he had found his niche.
Grant began working at Memorial Mission Hospital and taking classes at Western Carolina University after he graduated, eventually moving to Chapel Hill, accepting a job as a burn nurse at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center, and completing his bachelor's and master's degrees.
Along the way, he was guided by three principles:
- An unquenchable thirst for knowledge "I consider myself a perpetual student."
- A desire for excellence "I sweat the big and the small stuff."
- And a desire to serve humankind "All of my professional life has been devoted to public service."
Yet despite his professional success, Grant said he began to realize there was more to life after his mother's health began to decline a few years ago. He told the audience the two shared a bond so close they could finish each other's sentences, and recalled his mother frequently chiding him to "slow down," to which he would jokingly reply, "When I make my first million."
Recently, Grant received a statement from the Social Security Administration and discovered he made that million in 1998. He also lost his mother earlier this summer.
Recalling how precious his time with her had been, he read a piece called "The Mayonnaise Jar and Coffee" in which a professor fills a mayonnaise jar with golf balls, then adds pebbles, sand, and coffee until the jar is completely full. The professor told his class the jar represents their life. The golf balls are the important things God, family, children, health, friends, and passions. The pebbles are the other things that matter jobs, houses, cars. The sand is the "small stuff." The coffee is added "to show that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."
Like the professor in the story, Grant urged students to take care of the most important things first. "I ask you to ask yourself: 'What is my perspective on life?' ... Keep your thirst for knowledge, but always keep your perspective on what is important in your life."
Culinary Graduate Cooks For King of Norway
Anu-Riikka Henriksson, a 2002 graduate of the Culinary Technology Program, is now a sous chef at a café that seats 70 people in the winter, with a summer terrace which seats 140.
The café is in Oslo, Norway, situated near Holmenkollen Ski Jump, the main arena for the 1952 Winter Olympic Games and where the Holmenkolldagen World Cup is held each March. Actually, the café is inside the jump itself. The jump sits almost 200 feet from the ground and is 362 feet long.
From inside this giant, Henriksson is in charge of ordering and preparing the food, hiring and training the staff, paying the bills for the café, and feeding royalty.
"We are also responsible for all the food and catering during the ski jump world cup at Holmenkollen. That is how earlier this year I was responsible to feed the Norwegian royal family for two days," Henriksson said. "On Sunday, there was also the Queen of Denmark."
The food prepared during sporting events is very simple, Henriksson said. She served soup, open face sandwiches, and the Norwegian polse, their take on a hot dog.
However, the first time she prepared King Harald V's food was at a lunch the café catered at the end of this past year where the king presided over a ceremony. He gave the King's Honor Medal to a man for his lifetime work for the Norwegian economy.
"Since in Norway usually is served a cold lunch, we had Norwegian style tapas for the lunch," she said. The tapas have a Norwegian twist using fish rather than traditional Spanish cuisine.
For the awards ceremony Henriksson served smoked pepper salmon, marinated blue shells, fish paté, cinnamon curry salmon, pepper and tea marinated pork filet, chili marinated tenderloin, spicy sausages and turkey breast in pesto with a Waldorf salad, marinated apples, guacamole, mustard sauce, Norwegian scrambled eggs and a variety of breads.
"I worked that party for the king alone, like most of the parties I do," she said. "I have trained couple girls to wait tables, and they are coming along well."
Henriksson works for a company that also owns a French bakery and another café in Oslo. They cater special events and handle large parties, but the daily income comes from the café serving the tourists who come to see the ski jump. Last year, they had over one million visitors.
"The largest event this year has been a Norwegian marching band day when we had over 25,000 people to feed for a day," she said.
"I enjoy my work, and am learning some Norwegian language. I visit Finland, where my family lives, about two or three times a year," Henriksson said. "I would love to live and work in Asheville again. I got my B.S. degree at Montreat College, my Culinary Technology degree at A-B Tech, and consider Asheville my home."
Endowed Scholarship Established In Memory Of Nursing Graduate
Theresa Sabo
Theresa Sabo spent 18 years of her health care career performing psychological testing at Highland Hospital and then Appalachian Hall. When she decided on a career change in the late 1990s, she turned to A-B Tech and entered a field for which she seemed destined.
"She decided to do something she had always wanted to do - nursing," said her husband Bill Sabo. "She wanted to focus on patient care. It was real important to her."
In 1998, she returned to school, graduating in 2000 with an associate's degree in Nursing. Upon her graduation, one of her instructors wrote to her, "You are the perfect blend of professional skill, intelligence, honesty, common sense, and personal empathy and compassion. If I am ever taken ill, I want you caring for me."
Theresa enjoyed her two years at A-B Tech, according to her husband. "She made good friends. It wasn't unusual to have five or six people around our dining room table studying,"
Theresa was hired by Mission Hospitals and worked in the Oncology Unit at St. Joseph's. According to her husband, she received numerous cards and letters from patients and their families thanking her for being their nurse during a difficult time. "Compassion for her patients is what motivated and drove her," he said.
After only a few years as a practicing nurse, a cruel twist of irony hit Theresa in the form of ovarian cancer. Then, in 2004, it took her life.
An endowed nursing scholarship has been established at A-B Tech in her memory.
The endowment is her family's effort to honor her devotion to the profession and to continue Theresa's legacy of commitment to caring for the suffering and their families.
The Theresa Sabo Memorial Nursing Scholarships will be given by her three children Dylan, Jeff, and Courtney Sabo and by her siblings, Mary Nell Williams, Carolyn Meade, Ann O'Connell and Thomas Williams.
Endowed scholarships keep their principal balance while scholarship funds are provided by the interest the principal draws. "The family's ultimate goal is that two deserving nursing students will have their second year of study completely paid for," Sabo said.
The endowment was started with a gift from the family that will generate funds sufficient to achieve 60 percent of that goal. "We are looking for ways now to come up with the rest," he said.
The scholarships are to be given at the discretion of the nursing faculty with emphasis on students who are committed to direct patient care and demonstrate an ability to treat people with dignity and compassion. "That was Theresa's primary concern," Sabo said.
Other criteria to be considered are professional competence and skill, with a strong preference for students who are interested in working in a hospital setting, particularly with oncology patients.