Latest news with #Honorable
USA Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Jalen Carter praises Eagles rookie defensive tackle Ty Robinson: 'That Boy is Fire'
Jalen Carter praises Eagles rookie defensive tackle Ty Robinson: 'That Boy is Fire' The Philadelphia Eagles selected former Nebraska star Ty Robinson in the fourth round, and All-Pro defensive tackle Jalen Carter has praised the rugged defender The Philadelphia Eagles selected former Nebraska star Ty Robinson in the fourth round, and All-Pro defensive tackle Jalen Carter has praised the rugged defender through six OTA sessions. The Eagles selected Robinson with the 111th overall pick in April's draft. After a recent practice, Carter was asked about the rookie and raved about his potential. In 2023, Robinson was an Honorable Mention All-Big 12 Conference after playing in all 12 games with 11 starts (29 tackles, 4 TFLs with one sack, 6 PBUs). In 2024, during his final season with the Huskers, Robinson was named Third-team All-Big Ten Conference after starting all 13 games (37 tackles, 12.5 TFLs with seven sacks, 4 PBUs, FF). Here's what Lance Zierlein of said about the rugged defensive tackle: "Bully with a roughshod playing style that forces blockers to match his physicality. Robinson is built for the trenches with the versatility to play in odd or even fronts. He's first into contact with his hands and mitigates average knee-bend with brute force in his upper half. He's powerful to set edges but lacks length to control and quickly shed NFL blockers. He's an effort rusher with active hands who can exploit a weak edge and thrive in gaming fronts but possesses average creativity. Robinson might not be a star, but his effort, strength and demeanor could make him a productive pro for years to come."
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Dunbar grad wins prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship
For the first time in a decade, a Dayton Public Schools student has been awarded the Honorable Gates Millennium Scholarship. Paul Laurence Dunbar graduate Simeon Akins is the 20th to get the scholarship in the district's history. After years of excellent grades, playing the clarinet in the band, pioneering in the National Honor Society, and what he says were four intricate essays, Simeon is going to Belmont University for free, thanks to the Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation. 'It's supposed to cover everything, including the books, my freaking room and board, the actual pay of the school, even the food,' said Simeon. 'I already say that? Yeah.' The Gates Millennium Scholarship is a highly selective and prestigious scholarship that is need-, merit- and academic-based. It's familiar in the Dayton Public Schools district. 'The fact that we have 20 of them, you can start to call DPS 'the home of the Gates scholars,'' said DPS Superintendent Dr. David Lawrence. Lawrence said Simeon adds to the district's legacy of excellence. 'We again produce scholars, they win lots of scholarships and lots of awards,' said Lawrence. 'And I think: Don't always believe what you hear, but believe what you see. 'And I'm so proud of Simeon.' Simeon said one of his favorite counselors at Dunbar told him about the scholarship, and one of his teachers took him on the college tour in Nashville. He said he is grateful for the support from his family and the district, and now he is pushing that message forward. 'It shows that they actually believe you're well capable of learning things,' he said. 'I guess like challenging yourself is the only way to iron things into yourself.' Simeon said he plans to study Audio Engineering and possibly minor in Art at Belmont. With the hopes to repair a local DJ's equipment who he says really enjoy his music. 'They were impressed with my music,' said Simeon. 'And they were like, Ooh, the kid has got the beats.' After graduating from Dunbar as valedictorian last week, Simeon plans to travel the country this summer with his mom before heading to Nashville in the fall. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Miami Herald
27-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Clean energy workforce training hub a ‘gamechanger' in this struggling factor town
Decatur, Illinois, has been losing factory jobs for years. A training program at a local community college promises renewal and provides training for students from disenfranchised communities This story is part of a collaboration between the Institute for Nonprofit News' Rural News Network and Canary Media, South Dakota News Watch, Cardinal News, The Mendocino Voice and The Maine Monitor, with support from Ascendium Education Group. It is reprinted with permission. DECATUR, IL. - A fistfight at a high school football game nearly defined Shawn Honorable's life. It was 1999 when he and a group of teen boys were expelled and faced criminal charges over the incident. The story of the "Decatur Seven" drew national headlines and protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who framed their harsh treatment as blatant racism. The governor eventually intervened, and the students were allowed to attend alternative schools. Honorable, now 41, was encouraged by support "from around the world," but he said the incident was traumatizing and he continued to struggle academically and socially. Over the years, he dabbled in illegal activity and was incarcerated, most recently after a 2017 conviction for accepting a large amount of marijuana sent through the mail. Today, Honorable is ready to start a new chapter, having graduated with honors last week from a clean energy workforce training program at Richland Community College, located in the Central Illinois city of Decatur. He would eventually like to own or manage a solar company, but he has more immediate plans to start a solar-powered mobile hot dog stand. He's already chosen the name: Buns on the Run. "By me going back to school and doing this, it shows my nephews and my little cousins and nieces that it is good to have education," Honorable said. "I know this is going to be the new way of life with solar panels. So I'll have a step up on everyone. When it comes, I will already be aware of what's going on with this clean energy thing." After decades of layoffs and factory closings, the community of Decatur is also looking to clean energy as a potential springboard. Located amid soybean fields a three-hour drive from Chicago, the city was long known for its Caterpillar, Firestone Tire, and massive corn-syrup factories. Industrial jobs have been in decline for decades, though, and high rates of gun violence, child poverty, unemployment, and incarceration were among the reasons the city was named a clean energy workforce hub funded under Illinois' 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). Decatur's hub, based at Richland Community College, is arguably the most developed and successful of the dozen or so established statewide. That's thanks in part to TCCI Manufacturing, a local, family-owned factory that makes electric vehicle compressors. TCCI is expanding its operations with a state-of-the-art testing facility and an on-site campus where Richland students will take classes adjacent to the manufacturing floor. The electric truck company Rivian also has a factory 50 miles away. "The pieces are all coming together," Kara Demirjian, senior vice president of TCCI Manufacturing, said by email. "What makes this region unique is that it's not just about one company or one product line. It's about building an entire clean energy ecosystem. The future of EV manufacturing leadership won't just be on the coasts - it's being built right here in the Midwest." Related: Want to read more about how climate change is shaping education? Subscribe to our free newsletter. The Decatur CEJA program has also flourished because it was grafted onto a preexisting initiative, EnRich, that helps formerly incarcerated or otherwise disenfranchised people gain new skills and employment. The program is overseen by the Rev. Courtney Carson, a childhood friend of Honorable and another member of the Decatur Seven. "So many of us suffer significantly from our unmet needs, our unhealed traumas," said Carson, who was jailed as a young man for gun possession and later drag racing. With the help of mentors including Rev. Jackson and a college basketball coach, he parlayed his past into leadership, becoming associate pastor at a renowned church, leading a highway construction class at Richland, and in 2017 being elected to the same school board that had expelled him. Carson, now vice president of external relations at the community college, tapped his own experience to shape EnRich as a trauma-informed approach, with wraparound services to help students overcome barriers - from lack of childcare to PTSD to a criminal record. Carson has faith that students can overcome such challenges to build more promising futures, like Decatur itself has done. "We have all these new opportunities coming in, and there's a lot of excitement in the city," Carson said. "That's magnificent. So what has to happen is these individuals who suffered from closures, they have to be reminded that there is hope." Richland Community College's clean energy jobs training starts with an eight-week life skills course that has long been central to the larger EnRich program. The course uses a Circle of Courage practice inspired by Indigenous communities and helps students prepare to handle stressful workplace situations like being disrespected or even called a racial slur. "Being called the N-word, couldn't that make you want to fight somebody? But now you lose your job," said Carson. "We really dive deep into what's motivating their attitude and those traumas that have significantly impacted their body to make them respond to situations either the right way or the wrong way." The training addresses other dynamics that might be unfamiliar to some students - for example, some male students might not be prepared to be supervised by a woman, Carson noted, or others might not be comfortable with LGBTQ+ coworkers. James said that at first, he showed up late to every class. But soon the lessons sank in, and he was never late again. He always paid attention when people talked, and he gained new confidence. "As long as I put my mind to it, I can do it," said James, who would like to work as a home energy auditor. Richland partners with the energy utility Ameren to place trainees in such positions. "I like being out in the field, learning new stuff, dealing with homes, helping people," James said, noting he made energy-efficiency improvements to his own home after the course. Related: To fill 'education deserts,' more states want community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees Illinois' 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) launched the state's clean energy transition, baking in equity goals that prioritize opportunities for people who benefited least and were harmed most by the fossil fuel economy. It created programs to deploy solar arrays and provide job training in marginalized and environmental justice communities. FEJA's rollout was rocky. Funding for equity-focused solar installations went unspent while workforce programs struggled to recruit trainees and connect them with jobs. The pandemic didn't help. The follow-up legislation, CEJA, expanded workforce training programs and remedied snafus in the original law. Melissa Gombar is principal director of workforce development programs for Elevate, a Chicago-based national nonprofit organization that oversaw FEJA job training and subcontracts for a Chicago-area CEJA hub. Gombar said many community organizations tasked with running FEJA training programs were relatively small and grassroots, so they had to scramble to build new financial and human resources infrastructure. "They have to have certain policies in place for hiring and procurement. The influx of grant money might have doubled their budget," Gombar said. Meanwhile, the state employees tasked with helping the groups "are really talented and skilled, trying their best, but they're overburdened because of the large lift." CEJA, by contrast, tapped community colleges like Richland, which already had robust infrastructure and staffing. CEJA also funds community organizations to serve as "navigators," using the trust and credibility they've developed in communities to recruit trainees. Richland Community College received $2.6 million from April 2024 through June 2025, and the Community Foundation of Macon County, the hub's navigator, received $440,000 for the same time period. The other hubs similarly received between $1 million and $3.3 million for the past year, and state officials have said the same level of funding will be allocated for each of the next two years, according to the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. CEJA hubs also include social service providers that connect trainees with wraparound support; businesses like TCCI that offer jobs; and affiliated entrepreneur incubators that help people start their own clean energy businesses. CEJA also funded apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs with labor unions, which are often a prerequisite for employment in utility-scale solar and wind. "The sum of the parts is greater than the whole," said Drew Keiser, TCCI vice president of global human resources. "The navigator is saying, 'Hey, I've connected with this portion of the population that's been overlooked or underserved.' OK, once you get them trained, send their resumes to me, and I'll get them interviewed. We're seeing a real pipeline into careers." The hub partners go to great lengths to aid students - for example, coordinating and often paying for transportation, childcare, or even car repairs. "If you need some help, they always there for you," James said. Related: Losing faith: Rural, religious colleges are among the most endangered In 1984, TCCI began making vehicle compressors in a Decatur plant formerly used to build Sherman tanks during World War II. A few decades later, the company began producing compressors for electric vehicles, which are much more elaborate and sensitive than those for internal combustion engines. In August 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker joined TCCI President Richard Demirjian, the Decatur mayor, and college officials for the groundbreaking of an Electric Vehicle Innovation Hub, which will include a climatic research facility - basically a high-tech wind tunnel where companies and researchers from across the world can send EV chargers, batteries, compressors, and other components for testing in extreme temperatures, rain, and wind. A $21.3 million capital grant and a $2.2 million electric vehicle incentive from the state are funding the wind tunnel and the new facilities where Richland classes will be held. In 2022, Pritzker announced these investments as furthering the state goal of 1 million EVs on the road by 2030. Far from the gritty industrial environs that likely characterized Decatur workplaces of the past, the classrooms at TCCI feature colorful decor, comfortable armchairs, and bright, airy spaces adjacent to pristine high-tech manufacturing floors lined with machines. "This hub is a game changer," said Keiser, noting the need for trained tradespeople. "As a country, we place a lot of emphasis on kids going to college, and maybe we've kind of overlooked getting tangible skills in the hands of folks." A marketing firm founded by Kara Demirjian – Richard Demirjian's sister – and located on-site with TCCI also received clean energy hub funds to promote the training program. This has been crucial to the hub's success, according to Ariana Bennick, account executive at the firm, DCC Marketing. Its team has developed, tested, and deployed digital billboards, mailers, ads, Facebook events, and other approaches to attract trainees and business partners. "Being a part of something here in Decatur that's really leading the nation in this clean energy initiative is exciting," Bennick said. "It can be done here in the middle of the cornfields. We want to show people a framework that they can take and scale in other places." With graduation behind him, Honorable is planning the types of hot dogs and sausages he'll sell at Buns on the Run. He said Tamika Thomas, director of the CEJA program at Richland, has also encouraged him to consider teaching so he can share the clean energy skills he's learned with others. The world seems wide open with possibilities. "A little at a time - I'm going to focus on the tasks in front of me that I'm passionate about, and then see what's next," Honorable said. He invoked a favorite scene from the cartoon TV series "The Flintstones," in which the characters' leg power, rather than wheels and batteries, propelled vehicles: "Like Fred and Barney, I'll be up and running." The post Clean energy workforce training hub a 'gamechanger' in this struggling factor town appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
CJ Hester, John Volker give Michigan football two new running backs via transfer portal
For the second time in 48 hours, the Michigan football team has added to its running back corps. First, Saturday evening, UMass transfer CJ Hester made his pledge to join the Wolverines, which he shared on social media. Assistant coach Tony Alford's running back room had dwindled to two primary options − Jordan Marshall and Alabama transfer Justice Haynes − after Ben Hall's decision to enter the portal earlier this month. Advertisement "Beyond blessed to announce my commitment to the University of Michigan!," Hester posted with a picture alongside coach Sherrone Moore. "Thank you to everyone who's supported me on this journey. Maize and Blue, let's work! #GoBlue #Committed." Hester began his career at Western Michigan in 2023 − U-M's now defensive line coach Lou Esposito was the defensive coordinator at the time − and ran 29 times for 124 yards (4.3 yards per carry) and a pair of touchdowns. Then a season ago he transferred to UMass, where as a sophomore he rushed 119 times for 529 yards (4.4 yards per attempt) and four touchdowns. New offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey has also been known to use his backs out of the backfield in the passing game and Hester flashed a bit of that ability, too, with 14 catches for 58 yards for the Minutemen. Hester, a Cincinnati native (Wyoming High School), shares a hometown with Marshall and now also a potential role in the backfield. Advertisement U-M locked up the commitment after he visited Ann Arbor this weekend during the spring game. The Wolverines weren't done there. On Monday afternoon they added former Princeton running back John Volker. An incoming graduate student, Volker spent the past four years at Princeton, where his playing time grew each year. A 6-foot, 210-pound back from Fair Haven, New Jersey (Rumson-Fair Haven Regional), he ran 245 times for 1,183 yards (4.8 yards per carry) and 17 touchdowns. In 2024 was likely his best season, when he had 89 carries for 514 yards (5.8 per rush) and six scores, including a career-long 75 yard rush as he was named Honorable Mention All-Ivy League. Like Hester, he also has decent hands coming out of the backfield, catching 31 passes for 273 yards and two touchdowns at Princeton. Advertisement Fun fact: His brother, Charlie, also played football at Princeton but is now on the United States Bobsled team. Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@ and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: CJ Hester, John Volker give Michigan football new two running backs
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Orange City art exhibit to showcase Siouxland artists
ORANGE CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — An upcoming exhibit in Siouxland will display the works of artists from three different states. Orange City Arts announced in a release Wednesday that the 2025 Regional Art Exhibition will run from Saturday, April 5 through Saturday, May 3 at the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center in Orange City. Twenty-nine artists from Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota will be represented, with 34 works to be displayed in total. ACME Comics throwing 30th-anniversary celebration This year's optional show theme is 'Stewards of Creation.' According to the release, this theme 'encourages artists to reflect on themes of responsibility, care, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world.' The show will be free and open to the public. During the closing reception on May 3 at 6:30 p.m., 'Best in Show' and 'Honorable Mention' recipients will be announced and will receive cash prizes. During its run, the exhibit will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
