SGA travels to Capitol

By: Pablo Sanchez
Staff Writer

On Feb. 13, the Hutchinson Community College Student Government Association took a trip to Topeka to visit the State Capitol and to watch the process behind how the House of Representative passes bills.

Lane Wiens, sophomore at Hutchinson Community College and President of the Student Government Association, is involved in many clubs in addition to SGA, such as chess and Collegiate 4-H.

“SGA is kind of the go-between between faculty and staff and students,” Wiens said.

SGA members act as the mouthpiece to the student population for many of the college administrators and leaders Wiens said.

“We also work with different organizations on campus each campus has come to us some point in their time has an organization and had been sanctioned and charted by the college and it’s a big thing we do and we process budget and funding request for the organization for the events”

has come to HutchCC waiting to be sanctioned and charted,” Wiens said.

“There’s an organization for everybody here on campus.”

The SGA has a big list of organizations on Dragon Zone to help students out, and draw them toward it and have it matched, with their major of what they are interested in.

“Every year, two sports sponsorships – one in the spring and one in the fall – they hand out Blue Dragon apparel to students who come out and support the sports team,” Wiens said. “Last semester, they sponsored a volleyball game and gave out flip-flops, and this spring they plan on sponsoring a baseball game and plan on giving out hats.”

SGA has an annual blood drive, and it was right at the end of January,­­­­­­­­­ ­­­­­­and two other organizations which are on campus that had their other blood drives as well.

It was Wiens’ second time going to Topeka, and he said it was really eye opening, even though SGA went last year.

“It’s crazy to think that … each county and district in Kansas elected those people and they have the job of representing their constituents’ county and district,” Wiens said.

It’s more of an idea on how they can be better voices for SGA, and how they represent at HutchCC for the faculty and staff.

“When we got there, it was about 10 o’clock, I believe that was the House of Representatives just getting started, stayed in there, watched a little bit of their business processing bills, things like that,” Wiens said “And we met with State Senator Ed Berger who is the senator from the Reno County district, Kingman County I believe, and asked him questions on what his job is and how he got from being the president of (HutchCC) to being a senator.”

Wiens got in on some action on a bill that was being processed. They had private sessions as well as Caucasus of what bill they were processing.

Wiens is a biology major, and once he graduates this spring, he plans on going up to Kansas State and majoring in Horticulture Science.

“Hutch is great place to start your education, great place to meet friends, get involved on campus, there are organizations for everybody, it’s just taking the time and finding it and work forth it,” Wiens said.

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