When I was in college, it was still called Ricks College,
and it was still a 2 year school. Most kids went for their two years, and then
transferred to BYU or Utah State, or wherever else they wanted to go. My plan
was to go to Ricks and then BYU. So off to Ricks I went.
At some point during my first or second year there, I went to visit Emily at BYU. Emily had been my very best friend forever in 8th grade in Turlock, and then she moved to Bakersfield. So I had the chance to go to BYU for the weekend and visit. And a strange thing happened to me. I don’t have any clue what we did, but I’m sure it was a great visit, as those kinds of things usually are. What I do remember is that just being on the campus made me feel…I don’t know. I didn’t feel that it was a bad school or anything. I just felt this overpowering, very unexpected feeling that I did not want to go to school there. It totally threw a wrench in my perfectly laid out plan. Now what was I going to do? I had no idea, all I knew was that I had zero desire to ever go to BYU.
Time went by, and one day in one of my classes, the elementary ed faculty at Ricks College visited one of our classes and presented a whole new plan. There was this college in Northern Idaho, Lewis-Clark State College, that was going to work with Ricks College teachers to provide a satellite program in Rexburg for people who wanted to finish a four year degree without having to leave. See, there were a lot of local people going for their teaching degrees who were established residents of Rexburg, with husbands and kids and a whole life. That made it harder for them to just pick up and go to a different school to finish. Hence, this satellite program. Ricks College teachers would take off their Ricks hats at the end of the day, and in the evening they’d put on their LCSC hats and provide Jr. and Sr. level classes to those in the program. The only down side was that the students would have to go up to Lewiston, to LCSC, for 8 weeks during the summer, to meet some heavier duty requirements.
It sounded good to me! Are you kidding? Rexburg? I would stay in Rexburg forever, I loved it a ton there. This was a chance for me to stay in Rexburg all four years, even though Ricks was only a two year school. So I signed up.
Summer in Lewiston was pretty…ok. Ha ha!
All of us who came up from Ricks lived in this dorm on campus, and we would go to classes from 8-5 every day. One of our classes we completed, from start to finish, in one week. The other classes were more like half day classes, and we had two classes a day. It still filled our days up with classes, but the classes lasted longer than a week. At the end of 8 weeks, we had finished up a semester’s worth of work, and that was that.
While I lived in Lewiston, I threw myself heavily into working out in the gym. I did lots of stair masters and a little bit of weight training.
I also tried roller blading. I got about half a block and hated it so much that I never roller bladed again.
Another thing I did that summer was I loved to play soccer. I had a lot of fun playing casual soccer with the people in my program.
One night, a group of us ladies dressed up and went to a play. We saw Oliver Twist. I remember that being a lot of fun.
I remember that there was a paper mill in Lewiston, and it stunk. I will never be a fan of the smell of paper mill. Ha ha! I also remember that it was there in Lewiston, in one of my classes, where I first saw someone use a scanner. Boy were we awe struck by the amazing technology of it all. I never dreamed I’d have one in my house one day, and end up taking it for granted.
I also remember that our week long class was taught by the head of the department, and his wife. I’m sure it’s a silly thing to remember, but one day they were addressing the topic of professional dress. That day they were both wearing sweat pants. The irony of that one was talked over amongst ourselves afterwards for quite a long time. It was a good laugh.
Last one. I remember that there was a river, and over the river was a bridge. On one side of the bridge was Idaho, and on the other side of the bridge was Washington. So one day I walked across the bridge, and thought that it was the coolest thing ever to walk from one state to another. Ha ha!
Here's a picture of the area.
These pictures are just crazy pictures of our awesome group. The first one is me and Liz Bennett--she was my best friend in the program, we had a great time.
This girl's name is Susan.
A guy named Steve being silly. He was probably my second best friend in the program. His sense of humor just meshed so well with mine. He was great. (And married, so it was nothing like that).
Mike and Elena (?) are there in the middle, they were married to each other. I don't remember the others' names.
This is Liz with this other lady, who I remember just completely loving to be around. I wish so bad I could remember her name!
Girls' Night!
Here is our whole group, at the end of the summer. It was a social at the home of the head of the department. (The sweats guy). He and his wife are on the left, he is in a striped shirt and she is right next to him.
