Tasia Johnson keeps an eye on her reptilian friend, Cherokee, a green iguana, during her holiday break from classes. The Tabor College junior is the caretaker for some 20-plus critters that have a home in the Loewen Natural Science Center. Jenny Terrell / Free Press
Surrounded by reptiles and loving every minute of it, Tasia Johnson is the caretaker of the animals living in the atrium of the science building at Tabor College.
Johnson, a junior from New Orleans majoring in biology, has been working as caretaker in the Solomon L. Loewen Natural Science Center since January 2008. She got the job when one of the science professors, Jeffrey Henderson, mentioned to another science prof, Karrie Rathbone, that Johnson could do it as a work study. Before then, Johnson just went in and did the job anyway.
Maybe you’ve seen them around Hillsboro. A lone cat roaming downtown, rummaging in dumpsters behind restaurants, or even packs of cats traveling from yard to yard on your street.
A small army of volunteers, including members of the Tabor College men’s and women’s basketball teams, were on hand Sunday to unload the truck load of pumpkins for the FMC Pumpkin Patch. In bucket-brigade fashion, the pumpkins came off the truck (left photo), were tossed to Kelly Linnens and then to Drew Maddox (lower left photo) and down a row of TC athletes until it got to men’s coach Micah Ratzlaff for display placement.
Logging 265 volunteer hours in a congregation of a little more than 100 people is no easy task, but First Mennonite Church in Hillsboro expects to do just that during the first FMC Pumpkin Patch that started Oct. 1.
