New to the faculty this year is Chandler Kirkhart. Kirkhart is the new coordinator of admissions and marketing. He attended Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, where he got his Masters degree in business. This is Kirkhart’s first year working at Seward.

“I was on vacation with my family and we were looking on coming back this way for family support and my wife [wanted] to open a running company in this area to do fun little 5k, 10k events since there wasn’t anything in this area. Having both of us gained our Masters’ degree in business; I wanted to use my major. I was told about this position by Celeste and Deb… and I jumped on it. It is exactly as I was hoping to find and so it just kind of fell in my lap. I am still trying to get around to learning the ropes but it has been fun so far,” Kirkhart said.

Celeste Donovan, Dean of Student Services, said “He is fresh out of college so I think he can relate to students just entering college. He is from this area, he is from Turpin, so he comes from a little farm community [and] can identify with a lot of the smaller communities around here and really sell why a student should choose to come to Seward County Community College.”

Kirkhart lived in Minneola, Kansas, until he was six and then moved to Turpin, Oklahoma, where he lived until he left to college. In college, Kirkhart ran Track and Field where he was named All-American Track Athlete. He also placed 4th in Nationals in the 4×100 relay in 2012.

Kirkhart is recently married and will celebrate his one-year anniversary on 14th of September. He also has a brother who is 23 years old and attends Oklahoma Panhandle State University. He also has a younger sister who is 17 years old and attends Turpin High School. Kirkhart said, “They are both pretty artsy. He is an Art Major [in OPSU]; he does photo shoots for weddings and graduations. My sister is also really artsy but she is really good at sports and she is just concentrating on that right now.”

During his free time, Kirkhart enjoys a variety of things. “I love music, all types of music I’m pretty eclectic in that regard. I write and sing country music, first and foremost. That’s been my passion for about the last 7 years. Other than that I love to travel. I have driven the entire length of interstate 40 from ocean to ocean. My wife and I are hoping to hit all the states pretty early in our relationship,” Kirkhart said. Currently, Kirkhart is not in a band but will continue to pursue his musical goals. Kirkhart said, “I am still writing and singing country music, I don’t ever plan on quitting that. I plan on starting a band and I want to start doing live shows around the area on the weekends on my free time.” He already has experience doing live shows for medium to big size crowds. Kirkhart, along with his band, opened for Gloriana at the first annual Rib-Fest in Wichita, Kansas, at the Intrust Bank Arena. Kirkhart said, “That was a few years ago, I think it was my senior year. We were asked by the radio station that was putting it on two weeks before the show. We were pretty nervous but we were pretty excited about it. I got all of my band members together, they thought I was joking, but we had a great time practicing and performing for it.”

“I would love to still be in it with them, but some just got out of med school, some are in Malaysia, and one is in Nashville doing pretty good for himself,” he said.

Kirkhart also enjoys activities other than music. Some interesting facts about him is that he can do a Rubiks cube in under a minute. More Kirkhart trivia: “I can say the alphabet backwards in the Greek alphabet faster than you can say the regular alphabet forward.”

Currently, Kirkhart is working on projects to get more students to consider enrolling in SCCC. Donov­­­­an said, “We are looking at how can we expand our social media to engage more students and try to use it more effectively for recruitment. We are also updating all of our brochures so that they have a nice, crisp marketing look to them. But I’m sure that the longer he is here, he can bring more ideas as to what are some other things that we can improve… so that we can show confidence to the faculty that look to us to help recruit students for their programs.” As Kirkhart continues to follow his passion for writing and singing country music, he will also be working to make SCCC more appealing to future students.