Pictured: Monse Rivero, Vice President of the Honors Student Council, at the 2023 Roundup.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
NTCC’s Agriculture Club and Program again proved this past 16 September that it cannot only produce fresh foods in sustainable, scientific ways, but prepare them in the form of a delectable dinner. The NTCC honors program, in turn, enjoyed its seventeenth fall-semester get-together in as many years, bringing over 60 parents and students to the Agriculture building for a sumptuous evening meal. It was one of the largest gatherings for an honors roundup in the history of the series, but one not quite surpassing the group of 70 that showed up in 2015. The students of the Agriculture Club under the direction of Rene McCracken provided a fiesta Mexican meal with tortillas, beef, chopped vegetables, creamy rice, and a piquant corn & bean recipe. Christine Yox provided two home-baked varieties of Mexican cookies, and fresas con crema.
The annual dinner has been beholden to patrons of Honors Northeast, particularly over the years, Drs. Jim and Paula Archer, and Dr. Mary Hearron. The Archers not only initiated the roundups back in the fall of 2007, but hosted them at their ranch for the first thirteen years. Dr. Hearron provided and cooked the hamburgers for that whole first skein of roundups. Patrons like the Archers and Dr. Hearron have also continued to provide the program with the wherewithal which makes social events such as this possible.
The evening concluded two brief festivities. One was a prize for the best Mexican table decoration. Honors Scholar Alison Majors (pictured) won with an arrangement centered by her talking Mexican chicken:
The evening concluded with some whacks at a Piñada, controlled by Michael Rodriguez, a student in agriculture who also helped with the honors film project this last summer.”
