The Henderson County Bar Association awards $500 to Trinity Valley Community College’s Third Annual Learning Symposium winners.

During the association’s regularly scheduled meeting on Friday, May 3 at the Athens Country Club, members of the Bar Association had the opportunity to recognize the students who won the cash prize, visit them on their projects, and learn more about the symposium from TVCC faculty and staff members.

“I am so proud of our students,” Associate Vice President of Instructional Innovation and Support Holley Collier shared. “We wanted to give them the opportunity to showcase the great things they are doing in the classroom. We know the great things are students doing on the football field or on the basketball court, but we also know our faculty are making huge strides in advancing the education of our students in the classrooms.”

Collier shared her appreciation to the association for supporting the students.

“I am just thrilled that you are able to support them,” Collier added. “They can use the awards [from the Symposium] to help them with transferring to another university or in their career.”

Philosophy Instructor Matt Cleaver was excited to share the success of the students with the association.

“I was very impressed by the work our students do,” Cleaver noted. “It was fun getting to see what goes on in biology or speech classes and it gave our students a platform to showcase what they can do.

Daniil Tikhonov and Delana Rosberg won “The People’s Choice Award” for their presentation of “A Visual Representation of the Sugar Found in Various Foods and Drinks.”

Professor of Biology Sheree Daniel-Huddleston mentored the students.

“We were doing a project in our lab, and we just found it interesting,” Tikhonov mentioned on his project with Rosberg. “I just want to say thank you to the Bar Association for donating the money. I appreciate it a lot.”

Arin McNeel won “Most Creative Award” for her presentation of “Cardinal Harmony: The Convergence of Science and Art Through Pressed Flowers.”  Huddleston mentored McNeel in her presentation. For McNeel’s project, she was inspired by a project on pressed flowers in her biology class.

“When I learned about the symposium, I thought how I could make art and the press flowers [project] come together,” McNeel shared.

McNeel created two cardinals for her presentation: a red cardinal and genetically mutated yellow cardinal.

“Yellow cardinals are extremely rare,” McNeel explained. “There’s a one in million chance that it can happen. With red cardinals, they possess an enzyme in their stomach that converts all the berries and fruit that they eat to make their feathers red. With yellow cardinals, they lack that enzyme which causes the pigment of their feathers to be yellow.”

McNeel added that the project made her fall in love with Biology.

“I was an accounting major and now I’m a biology major,” McNeel laughed out. “I owe a great deal to our Professor Huddleston. She was a lot of fun!”

McNeel expressed her gratitude to the Bar Association.

“Thank you again for donating the money to our cause,” McNeel said. “I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a little kid, so it was very special to me to hear the money was donated by lawyers. “