Olive Drive Elementary School's Hannah Contois put herself into character, picking the right piece of literature and theme, to earn one of the first place awards at the 37th annual Kern County Oral Language Festival held Feb. 23 at Standard School District in Bakersfield. As it turned out, Contois' choice in the 4th-6th grade Serious Solo Interpretation category was kind of a mirror of the way she approaches making decisions in her life. It was about a girl who sacrificed money saved for a graduation dress so her mother could pay to have her brother's broken arm fixed. Last year Contois finished third in the same category, but it did not deter her from trying again this year. “How did I prepare for it,” Contois asked. “I just put myself in the position of the character I portrayed and imagined what it would feel like. As soon as I was her, it all fell into place, and I knew I could do it.” The 192 students in grades 4-8 who competed in the Oral Language Festival came from 21 school districts and 47 schools in Kern County, representing approximately 38,000 of their classmates. Each performance had to be an original interpretation of a literary work. The literature had to be a published work available to all students. More

What motivates 16 engineering businesses, colleges and trade schools to spend most of the day at a Bakersfield museum with hundreds of high school students? The reason for them being there comes down to one word, "need." That was the word most spoken by industry representatives who gathered for Engineering Career Day 2008 on Feb. 21 at the Kern County Museum. Surprisingly, one of the most outspoken about the need for trained engineers in all fields was David Herrera, who is himself an engineering student at Bakersfield College (BC). Herrera was helping out at the BC Engineer's Club table. A large crowd of high school students gathered around as Herrera demonstrated miniature computerized robotic vehicles he designed to perform practical applications in the oilfields. "I wrote a laptop program of actions which guides this unmanned mini-crane through the use of sensors to a specific location to find and pick up a designated target object," Herrera told his audience. " More