Pensacola State College’s volleyball student-athletes churned their legs in the soft white sand of the intramural volleyball court on the Pensacola campus. It was the middle of the day, and the early fall temperature wasn’t quite dog-days hot, but it was still warm enough for sweat to pour.

Normally, the team would be practicing inside the gymnasium that is the centerpiece of the Louis A. Ross Health and Sports Center. But the roof over the facility was damaged by Hurricane Sally and needs to be replaced. The gymnasium is off limits for three weeks, forcing the three teams that would be using the courts now – men and women’s basketball and volleyball – to find alternative practice areas while a new roof is installed.

Michelle Schulte gestures toward the floor-to-ceiling sheets of plastic tarp covering the walls, art works and furniture in the Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts as she guides a visitor through the corridors.

“It looks like a Christo installation,” she says, referring to the late artist, who was known to wrap buildings and public parks and other large things.

Schulte, the gallery director and chief curator of the Switzer Center, has been working steadily alongside her Visual Arts Department colleagues to help clean the damage inflicted on the Center by Hurricane Sally and prepare it for re-opening.

With Krist Lien, Visual Arts department head, she steps into one of the Center’s unique pentagonal “pods,” now emptied of furniture and lined top to bottom with plastic. Gesturing toward the water damage and mold along parts of the ceiling, she says, “Pretty much everything in the older parts of the complex was damaged. Fortunately, the newer construction was spared from damage,” she says, referring to the brand-new Switzer Gallery and Charles W. Lamar Studio.

2020 has been a banner year for Pensacola State College’s SkillsUSA chapter.

Three Pensacola State staff members ─ Sonja McCall-Strehlow, Rebecca Gunter and Jennifer Ponson ─ were recognized for their service to the College and the organization. The College also received a SkillsUSA Gold Chapter of Distinction Award.

In this edition, we introduce you to McCall-Strehlow who received the SkillsUSA Region 1 Adviser of the Year Award. She is the coordinator of the College’s massage therapy program and facial specialty program and has worked here for more than 19 years.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll speak with Gunter, who received the SkillsUSA Honorary Life Award and Ponson, recipient of the SkillsUSA Champion of the Year Award. We also will focus on the Chapter of Distinction Award and what it means to the College.

Sonja McCall-Strehlow likes to refer to herself as “a girl from Century, Florida.”

However, McCall-Strehlow is so much more. A business entrepreneur, coordinator for Pensacola State College’s massage therapy program and facial specialty program, a champion for her students, and most recently, the 2020 SkillsUSA Region 1 Adviser of the Year.

In 2018, one of her students – Katherine Schweitzer – won gold in the customer service category at the National SkillsUSA Conference held annually in Louisville, Kentucky.

A SkillsUSA adviser since 2007, McCall-Strehlow has taught Facial Specialty students to gold medals at the SkillsUSA Florida State Leadership and Skills Conference and to competition at the national level twice. 

While attending the Florida Therapeutic Massage School in Pensacola, McCall-Strehlow met her lifelong mentor – Geraldine Vauigard.

McCall-Strehlow and her husband, Les, have two children. Lillie, 16, is a dual enrollee on the PSC Milton campus and a student at Central High School. Their son, Seth, 31, is a disabled veteran who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan. The family lives in Milton.

-- Mary Mabins

Hurricane Sally kind of threw us off our schedule, and COVID-19 has more than thrown us off our routine, so we did not have the opportunity to properly celebrate the first birthday of this very publication. On Sept. 11, 2019, we published the first edition of "The Pirate," PSC's digital magazine/newsletter.

Formerly known as "Pirate Briefs," the monthly newsletter was a simple collection of headlines, linking readers to features on the PSC website.

In the current digital age, however, as various platforms and devices battle for the eyes and attention of busy readers, we wanted to do more for the faculty, staff, students and friends of PSC than simply present lists of links and calendar items. We wanted to present readers with a magazine, a new way for PSC citizens to learn about themselves and the school they attend.

We launched “The Pirate” on its original monthly schedule, but soon went to biweekly and then, eventually, weekly. We've packed the magazine with dozens of great interviews, articles and crucial information about the College, most recently about the COVID-19 dilemma and our recovery from Hurricane Sally.

We hope you've enjoyed the coverage so far. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions or criticisms, please send them to thepirate@pensacolastate.edu.

And remember that we maintain a complete archive of past issues of "The Pirate" on the PSC website. Access those previous issues by clicking here.

Wear your masks, keep them on, maintain social distancing (6 feet apart), don’t congregate in groups, wash your hands frequently, and please stay home if you are sick. Special thanks to our student athletes for helping with this important message. L-R: Vernisha Robin, Amaya Bazemore, Dexter McKenzie, Jorja Barrett and Bryan Scribner.