Sky Club hosts storm chaser Reed Timmer
Kavahn Mansouri
-Editor-in-Chief-
On Wednesday Feb. 20, STLCC-Meramec’s Sky Club hosted “extreme storm chaser” and meteorologist Reed Timmer in the Meramec theater.
Timmer, who starred on Discovery Channel’s “Storm Chasers,” spoke about his experiences as a storm chaser and answered questions from the audience. Timmer’s book “Into the Storm” was also available for purchase and an autograph session was held after the event. The event even caught Fox 2 News’ eye, which covered the event.
Sky Club president Arielle Byington said the club worked hard to spread the word about the event.
“The word really got spread out to the community. We did the best we could trying to get the audience that we wanted to come and we were really pleased with the variation of people coming,” Byington said.
Byington added they tried to promote at any place they could find more attendees.
“We just tried to think of everywhere and anywhere we could think of where people who might be interested in the event would be,” Byington said.
Byington said Timmer was open and personable with the audience.
“He was a really great speaker and he was open to making himself available to the audience. He was just really personable,” Byington said.
Sky Club sponsor and Meramec professor Joe Schneider said the event was a great way to reach out to future students.
“It wasn’t just the student body, it wasn’t just faculty and staff. There were a lot of people who came that were not involved in the Meramec community at all. I think that’s the best way to help to sell this place to future students to show the things we do here,” Schneider said.
Byington said over 300 people were in attendance and that the club donated $1300 to the Young Woman’s Christian Association (YWCA).
“We managed to raise 1300 dollars for the YWCA, so that money has gone to a really good cause. Just recently in newspapers and on television they’ve been talking about the cuts that will be made to the Head Start program for the YWCA, so it feels like this is a really good time to donate that money,” Byington said.
Getting Timmer to speak at Meramec was a challenge in itself according to Byington. Byington said she contacted Timmer’s agent to see if he would be able to speak at the school. Sky Club then earned approval from SGC and scheduled Timmer for the date.
Schneider said Timmer’s celebrity status helped bring out the event’s crowd.
“When Arielle told me she had contacted Reed, and then that there was a possibility of getting Reed to come here and talk to us… well that was the big fish,” Schneider said. “We had some ideas of smaller speakers with out the celebrity status that would have been along the same line but probably wouldn’t have made the same splash. It opened it up to a much larger audience than people who are just interested in weather.”
