Standage jumps into TVCC board race
By larry meyer - argus observer
Monday, April 30, 2007 12:25 PM PDT
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| Mary Ann Standage, standing at Elks Memorial Field, is a candidate for a seat on the Treasure Valley Community College Board of Directors. |
ONTARIO - After years of watching her students go to Treasure Valley Community College, Mary Ann Standage has decided to become more involved at TVCC and is running for a seat on the college’s board of directors, now held by Patricia Morinaka.
Standage, a retired educator at Vale High School, has not entirely retired.
“I’m still head volleyball coach there (Vale),” she said, commenting she still finds it challenging and rewarding.
She has been coaching volleyball for 32 years and coached track for three years.
“I did basketball for 20 years,” she said. “At one point I did all three.”
Standage grew up on a wheat and cattle operation in central Oregon, in the Maupin area. She came to the Vale area in 1974 after graduating from Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, where she met her husband, Bob Standage.
“When I grew up in central Oregon, I didn’t have an opportunity to go to a community college,” she said.
However, some of the students who she had taught and coached went to TVCC after high school and through them found that TVCC has some excellent programs, such as music, nursing, agriculture, law enforcement. She said it is also a good gateway to enter any four-year program.
“I became avid supporter of Treasure Valley,” Standage said.
She believes college officials have a great vision in the direction they are going, Standage said.
“I would like to keep it going in that direction,” she said. “I’ve had a number student athletes recruited.”
Standage is particularly interested in the opportunities for the non-traditional students — people who may have been away from school awhile, and have come back to start a new career or upgrade their skills.
“I really encourage that,” she said, noting some them are former students of hers. “They have become nurses and law enforcement officers. They have made that step.”
Although they grew up on a cattle ranch, Standage and her siblings all became teachers, but a brother is at home helping their mother with the farming and substitutes on the side.
“We all went to Eastern Oregon University. We all went at the same time,” Standage said.
She has also served in state committees for volleyball and baseball.
“I help on the rodeo board in Vale,” she said, and is in charge of tickets and ticket booths.
She does the same for the Malheur County Fair.
