Featured Graduates

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Macey Wright

BC3’s Class of 2020 will eclipse 560 graduates for a fourth consecutive year, and features a 61-year-old disabled veteran, an entrepreneurial 17-year old, justice- and beauty-minded aspirants with two associate degrees and one certificate, and a woman who four years after experimenting with her mother’s camera applied skills she learned at BC3 @ Cranberry to establish a business.

Macey Wright, of Mars, is shown Feb. 28, 2020, in a photography studio at BC3 @ Cranberry in Cranberry Township. The 19-year-old, who began experimenting with her mother’s camera five years ago and started her own business in 2019, will graduate debt-free this month from BC3 @ Cranberry with an associate degree in photography.

Earning the first of what she expects to be two associate degrees in career programs is Macey Wright, 19, who ascribes the popularity of her self-named home photography studio in Mars to talents she’s gained through learning editing software and honing equipment skills at BC3 @ Cranberry, and to the faculty’s preparation of students to enter the workforce.

“There are certain things I would not know if I did not have the BC3 education,” said Wright, who began taking portraits as a 14-year-old of her friends, and of siblings Abbi, Jake, Alli, Noah, Mitchell, Eli and Evan by using her mother Julie’s digital camera. Instructors “prepare you for every possible scenario in the professional world.”

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Carlee Benedict

Carlee, 19, of Hermitage, thrived at BC3 @ LindenPointe, where she was recognized for academic achievements while serving in three of the college’s clubs or organizations and working 24 hours each weekend in a department store.

Benedict as a Girl Scout sold cookies as a member of Troop 30359. As a Sharpsville school district choir soprano, candy bars. As a Sharpsville High club member, metal tumblers. And she herself was sold on attending BC3 @ LindenPointe because of its accessibility, quality of education and affordability.

BC3’s additional location in Hermitage appealed to her because it was “five minutes from my house,” has “a great selection of programs” and represented the possibility of graduating debt-free – which was “a big factor,” said Benedict, who this month will receive an associate degree in BC3’s general studies program.

It was BC3’s small class sizes that sealed the deal, she said.

“I chose BC3 because of the (15:1) student-to-faculty ratio,” Benedict said. “I feel like that gives you a more personalized experience and it encourages more active participation with the teachers versus just being like a number, in a sense.”

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Mikala Henry

Mikala, 20, is a BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing student who says she has always been interested in the law – and in law-breakers.

“I grew up watching all the crime shows,” said Henry, who this month will receive from BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing an associate degree in criminology, among the top five programs pursued by students in BC3’s Class of 2020. “I’ve always had an interest in it.”

There is one U.S. marshal for each of the nation’s 94 federal district courts, and more than 3,500 deputy marshals and criminal investigators nationwide in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. An average of 361 fugitives are arrested in each of 250 operational days annually, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

“A hard-core job,” Henry said. “It is very dangerous, but then again, it is also exciting to me, with the adrenaline and the rush.”

While she has thought about her future – she plans to attend the University of Pittsburgh to pursue a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and find a position in law enforcement to gain the necessary hours to qualify for the U.S. Marshals Service Basic Training Academy in Glynco, Ga. – she hasn’t thought about that first capture of a fugitive.

“But I imagine it will be different and pretty exciting,” Henry said.

As is, she says, becoming the first member of her immediate family to graduate from college – which includes three siblings and her parents – and being among of the 70 percent of BC3 graduates who are debt-free.

“I feel very accomplished,” she said. “My parents are very proud of me.”

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Saylee Grinnen

A teenager from Ellwood City in 2019 became the youngest graduate in at least 20 years at Butler County Community College when 17-year-old Mikayla Beachem received a BC3 workplace certificate in entrepreneurship.

A teenager from Ellwood City in 2020 has tied Beachem in age to the day.

Saylee Grinnen completed the same Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program as did Beachem and became BC3’s youngest graduate in its Class of 2020.

Both achieved certificates from BC3 on their 6,474th day in age.

Like Beachem, Grinnen and her eight Lincoln or Riverside high school classmates in the Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program also received 16 tuition-free, transferable credits in addition to the resume-building BC3 workplace certificate in entrepreneurship.

The Riv-Ell program is a collaborative effort among BC3, the Community College of Beaver County’s nationally distinct high school academy dual enrollment program, and the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce, and blends classroom learning with real-world experience.

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Kathleen Cashaw

Kathleen Cashaw enrolled at BC3 in spring 2016 and earned an associate degree in BC3’s 68-credit medical assistant career program. She is also is 44 years and 17 days more senior than BC3’s youngest graduate in its Class of 2020. Kathleen is also among the 19.5 percent of BC3 graduates in its Class of 2020 who are at least 30 years old.

BC3 “was so accommodating for a nontraditional student,” Cashaw said. “I was older than most students, even the teachers.”

The disabled veteran volunteered at the Butler VA while making the dean’s list twice and president’s list once at BC3. Students with grade-point averages of 3.5 to 3.74 earn dean’s list recognition and those with grade-point averages of 3.75 or higher, president’s list honors.

“BC3 is the best place to go,” Cashaw said. “The classes are small and the teachers are all personable. They want to help you. They want you to succeed. And they mean it. You’re not another number. They actually listen to you. And they kept me encouraged to keep going. It was very uplifting to me.”

Cashaw is one of 31 student-veterans and 563 graduates in BC3’s Class of 2020. She accepted a full-time position with a Pittsburgh healthcare agency and said her education at BC3 has changed her life.

“It has made me more confident,” Cashaw said. “There are things that I can do.”

Her only nephew, Shaquan, of Clarion, son of Cashaw’s younger sister Beverly, and her only niece, Selena, of Ambridge, son of Cashaw’s older brother, David, are proud of their aunt, as would be parents Thomas and Ollie Mae, Cashaw said.

“I knew I had potential,” Cashaw said. “I knew that it was in myself.”

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Allie Park

BC3 @ Brockway represented the “best opportunity” for Park to continue her education, she said, after having met with Dr. Jill Martin Rend, BC3 @ Brockway director. “I got a tour of the school, and she said the staff would be very patient with me, and that I could learn at my own pace,” Park said.

During her studies at BC3 @ Brockway “I went from being skittish or afraid to ask for help to being so open,” Park said. “I mean, these people are great for emotional support, educational support. They will help you with anything. And I couldn’t be more grateful for this school.

“I was able to learn at my own pace. Most kids or most students my age would have graduated maybe a couple of years back. I’m grateful that I was able to take my time and get things done.”

Along the way, her grades improved, from F’s and D’s at BC3 @ Brockway to C’s, B’s and A’s, she said.

“I’ve had to take tutoring from time to time,” Park said, “and I am so grateful that I have so many opportunities opening for me now.”

Those opportunities include working with children whose own schooling future may also include grades of F’s and D’s en route to that light at the end of the tunnel.

“I want to be there for the kids,” Park said. “They don’t always have a voice. I just want to be there to say, ‘Hey, it’s OK. I’ve been there.”

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Ciara Stone

Ciara Stone, 23, earned an associate degree in general studies from BC3 @ Armstrong in May 2019, and has added an associate degree in psychology.

She plans to try to understand the minds of serial killers – “to learn more about their mental state and to determine why they did what they did” – after pursuing a bachelor’s degree online from Maryville University in St. Louis in forensic psychology, a curriculum that focuses on psychology, criminal justice and social science.

“I have always had an interest in working in the field of criminal justice,” said Stone, who attended West Shamokin Junior-Senior High School and graduated in 2015 from Lenape Technical School.

“A criminal psychologist tries to get inside the head of the person who is committing the crime. They try to figure out what the person is doing and it may help you to catch others.”

The median annual wage for detectives and criminal investigators as of May was $86,030, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Stone chose BC3 @ Armstrong because “it was close” and is among the 70 percent of BC3 graduates who are debt-free.