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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2008)
plackamas Print______________ Wednesday, May 7, 2008 _______________________________ Feature D tudent crowned Miss Clackamas ca Burris has \dy won locally. she will compete diss Oregon in ide gan Koler lr in Chief s’s beauty and she’s brains, and tyle and she’s grace - she’s Miss mas Count\! Miss Clack a n ias County pageant, a anch of the national Miss America was won this year by Clackamas unity College’s very own graduate, !cBurris. been an interesting adventure,” said. “I wouldn’t have said I was nt person. I am kind of more anti- - got into this because, when I de, I was always watching Miss 2 a with my mom and grandma,” lained^ “so it’s always been like a iadition.” prospects c business major, who :o attend University of Oregon, o consider pageant competition as is means to fund her studies, actually Must wanted to give it a he said, j‘I was like, ‘You know ... ing; I can do what I want. I’ll just is a try’.” ig 6-foot-2-inches didn’t hurt, M :ause I lam so tall, I’ve always raid of fascinated by modeling, but i wanted Ito get into it as a career,” id. stereotypes and atmosphere of the ig world and pageant competition concern as Burris began to explore S America organization. :!? first thing I did was get a hold of el director here for Clackamas, and disked her a lot of questions,” she asked, ‘Is this a shallow pageant? ike what I see on TV with Donald and Miss USA?’” id Miss USA pageant is a beauty J owned toy Donald Trump - who vns the Miss Universe Pageant wards the winner with a modeling ;re are more catty girls, I would say, in that (pageant),” Burris said. “They don’t have a talent portion, and I don’t believe they have as much stress on com munity service and more philanthropic things.” Burris maintains that although Miss America seems like a beauty pageant, it is more of a community service award. “You have to do this big interview,” she said. “It’s 10 minutes long in front of a panel of six judges that are all business owners in the Clackamas area. They bom bard you with questions about the politics and the election right now, as well as your plat form.” Each contestant is required to have a project or platform, usually a Jessica Burris charity, Miss Clackamas to accom pany his or her campaign. Burris’ platform is music education. “They want to know what you do, and what I do is teach children music lessons,” she said. “Because I’m a teacher, I am passionate about seeing my students suc ceed in life, and created my platform on after-school music education so I could help inspire more kids in Clackamas County to pursue music as a hobby or career.” “After my friend’s death this winter, playing on the bass and piano helped me sort out my own emotions as I dealt with my loss,” she added. “I know having mu sical skills would have giv en him an outlet for his emotional frustrations, rather than turning to sui cide.” Burris believes that the overall message of the competition is community service and awareness. However, it always has and probably will have, in the foreseeable future, an “I wouldn ’t have said I was a pageant person. I am kind of more anti-pageant.” apparently superficial side. “Of course, because we’re women, they’re like, ‘OK, well, you look gorgeous, so let’s have you in a swimsuit and make you a sex sym bol,”’ she said. “That’s how they’re market ing it, but they’re try ing to get away from that and more into ‘real people.’” “Some of the girls who win, they’re not stick-thin,” she added. “But they reward you on how fit you are, like any sport.” They also reward women for their involvement in a wide array of activi ties, which the local Clackamas director, or coach, of the Miss America pageant, Linda Brume, thinks is Burris’ best feature. “All my girls are great, but Jessy is just really well-rounded,” Brume said. “She is very smart and very ambitious with her career and education goals, but she also has plenty of interests outside of school.” “She is what the Miss America system is all about,” Brume added. Burris will compete for the Miss Oregon title June 23 through 28 at the Seaside Convention Center, in Seaside, Ore. Anyone interested in compet ing or sponsoring Burris can e-mail her at jessy.burris@yahoo.com or Brume at tapdancer60@yahoo. com. For more information about the Miss Clackamas pageant, visit MySpace.com/ missclackamaspageant. _________________________________ Contributed TOP: Student Jessica Burris talks with oth ers in Rook Hall. ABOVE: Burris sits with her piano students. 'deo games get the spotlight, proving they are more than just a game glish ¿¡ass offers lifferent look at the ieo-gdme world iss Sheppard Print ® easy ft) be skeptical about idea of ing games, espe- ' video es, as a medium , but English r Dodge has found a ________ ive way to do so in ass Games and Literature. According to Dodge, toe rican culture is a society in ph “we have ancient texts that also in the same backpacks ame Boys and PSPs and cell es.” What this course tries to do is take some of those things out dually ask big questions about l!ter than go, ‘Oh, it’s fun,’” he ined BT ne specific piece his students squired to read and analyze is mo” by Dante Alighieri. t sa^ on the first level, of weird to talk about Dante’s -mo,’ this grand poem in the ______ J western canon of literature, and then have someone associate that to ‘Devil May Cry,”’ he said. “That’s a discussion point that can only go so far as far as that particular game is concerned but it does offer a larger cultural critique to study.” Dodge chose “The Inferno” spe cifically because it is, among other reasons, an easier piece to break down into sections than some of the similar works used, such as John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” “I chose ‘The Inferno' because, well, one, it’s really sexy,” lie said. ‘It’s so visual, too. It’s really incred ible what Dante is able to do with language.” Another, more contemporary, writer being observed in the course is H.P. Lovecraft “A lot of the way people are dis covering his work is through gam ing,” Dodge said “That’s how I discovered it when I was in college. I’d never read a lick of Lovecraft, and there were some friends of mine who were in the dorm (and) were playing this game, and exposure to him, for me, came through gam ing” Dodge plans to hold a tabletop session from the “Call of Cthulu” series later in the course. But what do H. P. Lovecraft, Dante Alleghiri and the video game “Devil May Cry” have in com mon? They are all, essentially, epic poems, Dodge said During toe course of a single Tuesday, Dodge spoke heavily on the similarities between modem games and toe traditional epic poem of ancient Greece. “That’s how it gets its literary traction,” he said “The feet that I can teach it in my department it’s gonna have to have those things toft.” With that thought in mind, how can games-particularly RPGs- not be compared to such classics as Homer’s “The Odyssey”? The class not only draws on the epic poem in its original form, but also examines its evolution from an oral tradition to its re-imaging as a novel and finally, as a game in today’s world Of course, a certain level of chal lenge is involved in managing a classroom fiill of gaming enthusi asts. ‘1 thought we’d be able to play more games in class,” admitted stu dent Jamie Kemp, “but otherwise, toe class is really interesting.” Dodge is well aware of toe feet that, of the indi viduals enrolled in the course, “almost everyone ... has a favorite video game.” “You can hear it in the discussion,” he said “Part of toe trick of teaching the class is trying to steer toe conversa tion off of toe rails of video-gaming, because it’s such an immediate and pow erfill medium.” Games and Literature is only offered spring term, but as of last spring, it is now a perma nent class. “As long as I’m here, and as long as it meets enroll ment, I plan to teach it every spring,” Dodge said John Shufelt Clackamas Print Games and Literature Instructor Trevor Dodge teaches a class through video games and classics such as “The Odyssey” and Dante’s “The Inferno.”
