Camp Beyond provided a minicollege experience for 60 high school students

Gabriela Meza will always remember the week she spent at Camp Beyond, a sleep-away camp held at Midwestern State University that ended June 19.

It's a camp about college.

It was here she had her "Aha!" moment, that magical convergence of desire and possibility of which dreams ù and careers ù are made.

As part of the camp, Gabriela, 17, toured Vernon College Wednesday and learned that a medical profession like surgical technology was within her reach with just one year of specialized training.

"Doing something in the medical field had scared me because I thought it would take five or six years," she said. "But I learned that I can go for one year and actually do something I want to do."

She learned the required courses were already on her list to take in her final year of high school ù a neat fit.

Gabriela was one of 60 students taking advantage of Camp Beyond's weeklong wealth of resources provided without charge to high school students from districts throughout Region 9, many whose parents ù like Gabriela's ù never went to high school, much less college. The outreach by the P-16 Council of Region 9 is one phase of an elaborate strategy designed to share the secrets of the college-going culture ù and unlock the game book on how it's done.

Activities included field trips to local colleges, presentations on financial aid, and details on how to fill out a FAFSA financial aid application, map out personal goals and make a good first impression. Introspective activities designed to help students discover their own inner workings and match them to job possibilities were interspersed with games of dodge ball, basketball, movies, rec room play ù after all, that's part of college and dorm life too.

By the end of the week, students have experienced a minicollege, complete with dorm stay ù all paid for by various state grants designed to catapult more students to college who otherwise wouldn't go.

But it hasn't been easy.

Although hundreds were invited to this free, minicollege week ù and 160 signed up to come ù only 70 came.

When Camp Beyond Coordinator Deb Cornelius phoned each missing student, she heard stories that only underscored for her the importance of the camp.

"They had to help with the wheat crop. They had to help farm. One said, æI don't have a baby sitter for my child.' Some gave Faith Mission phone numbers because they didn't have their own. It was humbling to make all the phone calls," Cornelius said.

Abel Rivas, 17, was the only student from Iowa Park High School who attended, causing him a little nervousness that first day. "I dreaded it at first. I'd have to meet new people," he said. But by the week's end, he'd met so many friends and had so much fun that he was glad he came.

It was worth a week, he said. "It was a little miniexperience of college. They covered a lot of material."

His parents have a sixth-grade education, and none of his older brothers or sisters have gone to college. "I'll be the first ù I WANT to be the first one to go to college," he said with a grin.

The financial information, specifically the how-tos on filling out a FAFSA student loan form, were most helpful. "I knew about scholarships, but I didn't know about grants," Abel said.

"We want to bring them on campus for a week, and expose them to a college environment, where they can touch it and feel it and see it's not beyond their reach," said Camp Beyond instructor Dr. David Barbosa, an MSU professor.

When Hirschi High School graduate Jovanna Zavala, 17, moved to Texas four years ago from Mexico and didn't know a word of English, college was merely a dream. Still remembering what it was like not to even be able to say "hi" in English, she's decided to become a bilingual teacher. "People at school got Spanish-English dictionaries to be able to talk with me," she said of those early days. She learned at Camp Beyond that MSU will pay any bilingual education student $3,000 a year to pursue their career.

She enjoyed the camp's unity, since it brought together students from different races, cultures and countries like Venezuela and Colombia. "We got to know each other and had the same purpose. We have the same ù I don't know how to say ù interest in careers."

Zahnela Claxton, 25, mentored students at the camp, sharing her testimony of how she overcame hurdles to graduate from college. "We tell them everybody has obstacles, but there are opportunities out there."

Education reporter Ann Work can be reached at (940) 763-7538 or by e-mail at worka(at)TimesRecord News.com.