"The Airport"

EVIT aviation student Dakota Holbrooks made a video for his class that is reminiscent of the opening theme for "The Office." Check it out!

Reserve your seat for EVIT's Mystery Chef Dinner

Enjoy a good mystery?

Then you should join the EVIT culinary department for its annual Mystery Chef Dinner on March 11.

The food will be amazing -- that's no mystery. But you won't know exactly who will be cooking for you until you arrive. Twelve well-known Valley chefs will be on hand to whip up some amazing culinary concoctions, all based around this year's theme: cheese.

Past chefs who have participated include Mark Tarbell of Tarbell's, Beau MacMillan of Elements, and Richard Dupere of The Ritz-Carlton, Phoenix.

Tickets are $65, and every dollar of that goes toward culinary student scholarships. The dinner will be held in the EVIT culinary department's banquet room. Hors d'oeuvres will be served during a silent auction, which begins at 6 p.m.; dinner starts at 7 p.m. To make reservations, call Tricia Guerrero at (480) 461-4139.

Last year's theme was chocolate. Check out photos from that event here.

Two radio students honored by Rotary

Two radio broadcasting students were honored at last night's governing board meeting as the Mesa East Rotary Club's Students of the Month.


Breanna Bullis (left) and Nicole Bird are both second-year students in Steve Grosz's radio broadcasting program. He describes them both as shining stars who are an example to other students.

Breanna and Nicole put on a bit of a show at the board meeting, challenging the board president, Garry Hays, and superintendent Dr. Sally Downey to a game of "Truth or Trash." The girls gave a "fact," and the two had to figure out whether it was a true statement.

For example: "Ashley is the most popular name in the world (trash)" or "Men have better vision than women (truth)."

Dr. Downey won.

But Breanna and Nicole also had a chance to tell board members what EVIT has meant to them.

Breanna said when she first started at EVIT, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do after high school, and she liked the flexibility and variety of the school's programs.

"EVIT has really prepared me for the future," she said.

And Nicole said that EVIT helped her get over her natural shyness and taught her a better balance of work and fun in class.

Congrats to both girls for being top notch students!

EVIT staff holds rip-roaring Chili Cookoff

EVIT staffers had a little fun today with our annual Chili Cookoff.

There were 17 different kinds of chili of all types: traditional, vegetarian, turkey, mild, spicy, red, white. You name it, we ate it. Note, the aftermath:


The overall winner was the "Sally's Boys" team, led by Team Leader Chris Williams. But Kona, my lovely co-worker across the hall, brought home a win for the Building 3 team. Her chili was voted "Best Use of Spices." In other words, it was very very hot.

Gnomon school visits EVIT 3D Animation classes

A representative from the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles visited EVIT 3D Animation students on Monday to talk about the animation industry and education.

The school first opened its doors in October of 1997 and offers programs in entertainment design, digital production for entertainment, and entertainment design and digital production. Students can also choose to take individual classes on topics they are most interested in, as well as online classes and master classes.

The presenter stressed that there are several potential careers within the industry -- not just animation. Other options include working in design, modeling, texturing, and lighting.

Students also got to ask questions after the presentation. One student asked what they could be doing right now to distinguish themselves from other students and professionals in the field. The answer? Draw every day, network, and stretch your horizons to learn as much as you can about anything and everything.

A fresh new look

You may have noticed the top of our EVIT News blog looks a little different today. That's because I have swapped out the old photo with a great new photographic collage.

I wish I could say I managed to design that myself. But I'm not that good. Instead, I called on one of EVIT's stellar multimedia technologies students to help me out.

I found Elise through a Google alert, which notifies me when someone posts something about EVIT on the Internet. Elise is a very talented photographer, and she keeps a photo blog in which she occasionally mentions projects she is working on for EVIT. When I first clicked on her blog, the second thing I noticed (after her amazing photographs) was that she had designed a blog header that was JUST like what I wanted to make for the EVIT blog. (To see her blog, and you should really check it out, click here.)

We began exchanging e-mails. I sent her some photos I had taken around campus, and she came up with several blog header versions (all for free, bless her heart). We met to discuss which ones I liked the best, she tweaked them a little more, and voila! New blog header!

Thank you, Elise. Your talents have made this blog look so much better.

We hope you enjoyed Tech Fest!

Thanks to everyone who visited EVIT for Tech Fest! It was great to see so many of our EVIT families on campus, as well as many new faces!

It was our most successful Tech Fest ever -- our parking lot was FULL from 9:30 a.m. throughout the afternoon. There was so much to see and do.

Here are just a few snapshots of what was going on around campus:







At the end of the day, our new Mister and Miss EVITs were crowned! Congratulations to Monica Leftwich and Cruz Olguin in PM and Marc Reidhead and Charity Fuller in AM! And a big thank you to all the candidates -- all together, you raised about $1,000 for the Mesa United Way. Great job!


To see more photos from the event, visit our Tech Fest album on Flickr.