Student taps leadership skills

By LYNN FRANEY The Kansas City Star

When Mario Reyes started at Penn Valley Community College, his plan was simple: “I was just going to go to work and go to school.”
But in the past few years, the Lincoln Prep High School graduate has emerged as a student leader.
Funny how young people's lives change when they reach a college campus and learn to trust in their abilities.
He created a Hispanic student organization at the community college in midtown and served as director of the campus' recently formed Student Activities Council.
Besides work and school, he has ended up organizing student events such as film showings and a poker night and has worked to talk to Hispanic friends about going to college.
Outside of school, Reyes, 22, recently was involved in the Latino Civil Rights Summit 2004, held in Kansas City by the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations.
His work has earned him statewide recognition: Reyes received a Student Leadership Award from the Missouri Community Colleges Association last fall.
Now he's getting ready to start classes at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
He's not sure what form his involvement in student activities will take there, but he knows he won't revert to his old image of himself as someone who just would go to school and earn a paycheck.
He's a little anxious about being at the new, bigger school and having to develop new friendships and relationships with administrators, but he's ready.
“I'm very comfortable here,” he said in an interview in late fall at Penn Valley. “But I know it (going to UMKC) is another step I need to take.”
Mindy Johnson, Penn Valley's student activities coordinator, has enjoyed watching Reyes grow into a leader. She began recognizing the Kansas City native's leadership skills when he stepped up to handle conflicts at student meetings.
“He would draw those people together and get them talking about it and then get them refocused on what they were there to do,” Johnson said. “He would help bring them back together.”
Whenever something needed doing to make student life at Penn Valley more exciting, Reyes was there to make it happen.
For example, late in the fall semester, the council was planning a poker night as a charity fund-raiser. The student who had been in charge was unable to see the project through, Johnson said, so Reyes offered to oversee the event.
Before Reyes could emerge as a student leader, he first had to see himself as a college student at all.
When he was a senior at Lincoln, Reyes didn't take the SAT or the ACT.
“A lot of students have it in their head, ‘You can't do it,' ” Reyes recalled. “I had that in my head — I'm not (intended) for college. But it was so not true.”
After graduating from high school, he went to work sorting mail. When he expected a raise, it didn't happen.
“It clicked, like, ‘I'm going to be doing this the rest of my life if I don't get an education,' ” Reyes recalled.
So he enrolled at Penn Valley part time, continuing to work while living with his parents. He took a job in the admissions office and came to enjoy studying sociology, which he's planning to major in at UMKC.
He formed the Student Organization for Hispanic Unity, which has shown the film “Frida,” about Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, and presented a Cinco de Mayo event.
He created the organization to make sure he and other Hispanic students could have a voice in the school, he said. He loves urging friends to go to college.
“He definitely can be inspirational because he has a lot of skills and qualities people can look up to,” Johnson said. “He handles any situation that arises with a calmness that not all students possess. He's able to look at the big picture, rather than just what he would get out of something.”
To reach Lynn Franey,
higher education reporter, call (816) 234-4927 or send e-mail to lfraney@kcstar.com.