For all the new names, places and roads to learn, I get the feeling I’ve been here before. Matter of fact, a certain sense of déjà vu has been unshakable these past few weeks.
Pardon the first-person stream of consciousness there. Bland introductions aren’t as exciting to read. But, since chronicling the best of what Hinds Community College has to offer is part of my job now, I’ll do the handshake thing…
I’m Danny Barrett Jr. and I arrive here in the Public Relations office from a world in which many a PR guy arrives, that of print journalism. Working for The Vicksburg Post for just shy of 10 years afforded me insight on how the sausage gets made when it comes to making laws and how everyday Joe Q. Publics make their way through what Prince once termed “this thing called life.”
So why is this familiar and why did I choose Hinds to continue my communications career?
Education and the free flow of information is the only way a civilized society can advance. And I know firsthand the value of an associate’s degree as a hand-up in one’s schooling. I’m a product of a solid, two-year program myself, having graduated from Delgado Community College in my native New Orleans in what seems like a thousand years ago. It eased me into college life like so many of Hinds’ students right now.
In my first few weeks on the PR staff, I’ve talked to high school students in the budding Gateway to College program at the Vicksburg-Warren Campus and to those in the welding program at four of Hinds’ six campuses. And I know plenty enough people in social circles who’ve benefitted from skilled labor courses at Hinds and elsewhere to appreciate the value of an education here. They vary in age, but not in motivation, which is to put their talents to work in a global economy.
I remember an old saying from a longtime managing editor at the Post handed down through the decades. Everyone has a little red wagon they like to show off and you just have to find out what it is to see if it’s worth writing about. Here’s hoping I can find out about what kinds of wagons Hinds’ graduates will assemble, nurse, weld, represent, upgrade, propel to the air and more in the future.
