LB President Rita Cavin passes baton
The CommuterSunday, January 31, 2010
Rita Cavin wrapped up her tenure as LBCC’s president on Friday.
In an e-mail to staff, Cavin wrote:
Dear LBCC,
Thank you for all that you do for our students and community. You are brave, you are an inspiration, you are amazing. It’s been a privilege to work with you, Keep your light shining brightly…. Rita
Cavin will be succeeded by Gregory Hamann, who had served as president of Clatsop Community College in Astoria since 2003.
In honor of Cavin, LBCC’s poet laureate, Amy Earls, composed this tribute:
If Rita Were a Poem
“I see,” you said.
“I see poetry covering campus like a warm blanket,
floating words throughout the air like tossed confetti,
students catching them like snowflakes on their tongues,
dancing to musical words,
breathing in perfumed words,
swallowing chocolate-dipped words, then asking for more.”
“A poet,” you laughed.
“We need a poet. A student poet.”
So, your team scouted campus,
searching for someone to bring words to people,
to stir up the stagnant-watered words of past and future poets,
and in finding a poet,
you found the answer.
“The answer,” you exclaimed.
“We need the answer to words.”
Those words were waiting
for your permission
to take flight.
They were there, but you set them free.
You set poems free.
“I know,” we say.
“I know we will forever be affected by your dream.”
We think of poems floating and dancing
in our minds. We think of catching poems,
breathing poems, swallowing poems, then sharing more.
Then we think of you.
And know that you, Rita, you were the answer.
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
