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Spring Break

Flor Cortez

Jamie Carrroll

By Nick Kawano
Spring Break is traditionally one of the best times of the year if you’re a college student. College students all over the world will go places and party with friends.

Here in California, college students love to go to the beaches. Avila and Pismo are two popular beaches that people around this side of town go to. I went around campus to ask three random people that I did not know what they were doing for spring break.

Jamie Carroll said, “Spending time with my family and friends is going to take up most of my spring break.” Miguel Franco, was another guy I asked and he said, “whenever I’m not working, I’m spending the day with my friends.” The last person I asked was Flor Cortes who stated, “I’m working full-time so I won’t have time to really do anything else.”

Westside Parkway nears completion

View of Westside Parkway

For many Taft College students, the school day begins with a timely commute from Bakersfield. Soon this commute may become less time consuming with the completion of the final phase of the Westside Parkway.

The final stretch of the road, which currently connects Truxton Avenue to Allen Road, will connect Allen Road to the intersection of Heath Road and Stockdale highway. Westside Parkway, from Truxtun Avenue to Allen Road, officially opened to traffic on August 2, 2013. The project includes three lanes in each direction with interchanges at Truxtun Avenue, Mohawk Street, Coffee Road, Calloway Drive and Allen Road.

For the many students that commute each day, the parkway shaves crucial minutes off of their drive, and with the final segment being completed, the average drive time is expected to decrease.

There is no official date for the final segment of the parkway to open, but according to CalTran,s it should be available for traffic in Early 2015.

Win a 32″ Dynex TV!

Win Weber Gas Grill!

Classified Appreciation Resolution

Taft Wine and Jazz Festival

Softball Season Suspended

Softball Field Idled for 2015 Season

Athletic Director Kanoe Bandy

By Mickey Van Horn

This year couldn’t have gotten any worse for the Taft College softball team. During an announcement for the upcoming season, Athletic Director Kanoe Bandy announced that the TC softball program was going to be suspended for the year.

This decision came solely based on recruiting issues and lack of players. The last time Taft College suspended a sports program was nearly 11 years ago in 1994 when the entire athletic program was suspended as a result of a financial crisis. Softball and baseball were the first sports that were reinstated in the spring of 1996.

“We couldn’t just let this season happen, especially when our softball team roughly had 11 players currently on the roster. It came to our attention that we had to do something about it. We had a board meeting with the President and Vice President of Taft College and discussed how we would make our decision. It didn’t take long for us to realize that It wasn’t fair to the girls on the team”, Kanoe Bandy had said during an interview.

You may wonder what’s next for the softball program heading into next fall. Kanoe said with authority that they will be back in time to play ball next fall. “We just need this time off to get our recruiting back and make this team stronger.”

No angels in the outfield.

Sexual Assault Awareness Seminar

Women of the Week

Homegrown Art with Maggie Blackwell: The Journey along the Yellow Line

Maggie Blackwell’s “Tool Pusher Trailer”

Artist Maggie Blackwell at TC Gallery

By Cougar Echo Staff: Josiah Birkbeck, Lisa Ybarra, Mickey Van Horn, Michael Clites, Nick Kawano, Bruce Gray, and Brenda Magana

Maggie Blackwell, local artist, took time to speak with the Cougar Echo Staff about her current exhibit at the Taft College Art Gallery. The showing features paintings of regional subjects of local interest including oilfield equipment and scenery.

Blackwell’s medium for this exhibit is pure-pigment chalk pastels on 600 grit archival sandpaper which magnificently reflects light adding to the vividness of the works. Works include studies in landscapes—Sequoia, Kern County, and Eastern Sierra—and Americana including motel signs and Airstream trailers.

She is also working on a children’s book featuring “Beulah” the Airstream Trailer, a character that evokes fond memories from her childhood and her experiences and travels following “the never-ending yellow line of the highway.” The artist started her career with oil-based paint, then went into water colors to protect her children from the fumes of the oils, and has been using chalk since 2001. She says she now owns over 3,000 pieces of chalk of varying colors.

GOING places . . . Taft College Alumni Exhibit # 3 also includes stonework/ceramic by Jovanne Ayala and is now open in the TC Art Gallery and will run until April 15th. Hours are Monday-Thursday 9AM to 4PM and Friday 9AM to 12PM.

“Balanced” by Blackwell

Landscape by Blackwell