Three Rivers College opened its Wednesday board meeting by honoring health partners in the community for their help during the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Dr. Wes Payne recognized Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center staff CEO Rick Naegler, pediatrician Dr. Dean Dye and Johnna Craft, director of risk management and facility compliance officer. Honored in absentia were Dr. Christopher Montgomery and Butler County Health Department Administrator Emily Goodin.
“In recognition that the pandemic has been declared at an end, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank our partners who worked with us in getting through that and creating our plan for how we were going to deal with it,” said Payne.
These partners worked with the school to administer COVID tests and set up screenings, iron out the protocols for exposure, and answer questions from faculty and students, according to Payne. In the first year of the pandemic, a total of 374 students tested positive, 209 tested negative and 538 were quarantined after exposure.
“I could not sing the praises of Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center, doctors Montgomery and Dye, and the Health Department enough because it was with this partnership that we got through this,” he said. “Added to that, our nursing department did a number of vaccine clinics throughout the area and literally vaccinated thousands of people over time and that was in cooperation with the partnership and others coming along as well.”
TRC coaches wrapped up the 2022-2023 season with a recap of their teams and a look into the future.
Baseball coach Tyler Smith said the Raiders ended the season with 26 wins, tying with 2007 for most wins in one season.
He also noted hosting games at the Raiders field has allowed TRC to show off its facilities outside the community. However, planned updates to the team’s clubhouse have been delayed by inflation.
“The remodel hasn’t started, I think we’re still working on prices and inflation and everything. It needs worked on, it needs fixed, but it hasn’t gotten finished yet,” he said.
Softball coach Jeff Null praised the Lady Raiders even though they were knocked out of regionals.
“Had a great regular season and didn’t quite finish the way we wanted to in the regional tournament,” he summarized, “But we’ve got to play well at the right time and we didn’t do that, and we got sent home.”
On the bright side, many players maintained 4.0 GPAs.
Women’s basketball carried on strong, according to coach Alex Wiggs.
“We ended the season 22-6, made our third trip in a row to the national tournament this past year,” he said.
Several players were also tapped for All-Region, All-Conference and All-American teams.
Meanwhile, rodeo coach Chad Phipps explained, “I’ve been looking forward to next year all year. It was a rough one.”
One of the biggest problems was retaining walk-on players, who he said do not necessarily arrive with much experience or a competitive mindset. However, the team continued its tradition of reaching the college finals.
Phipps is optimistic for next year since the team has promising recruits coming in.
Esports coach Alex Jameson ended the recap on a positive note. The team is losing two team members but gaining seven in the fall, and all are eagerly awaiting an announcement of two new competition titles from the National Junior College Athletic Association’s Esports division.
“All in all things are going very well, very positive,” Jameson said. “We’re making a very positive public image so far. And we’re looking to expand on that soon with opening a Facebook page to get our streams up and running, so that you can see our matches online....we’re excited to get out and be in the public eye.”
Professors Cynthia and Buddy White had more good things to report while discussing the student production of “The Pajama Game” which ran at the end of April. The Whites said 473 people attended the show.
“It is a student-led production. We don’t have any outside help. It’s a collaboration entirely between the faculty and students,” Cynthia White said. “...It was a really good show, it was solid. I would put this and the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee up again anything SEMO has. They did a fantastic job.”