be First

English major and Michigan native Brad Riffee is creating a plan that could lead to the first rooftop gardens across the Fairmont State University campus.

 For Riffee, who has family roots in West Virginia, a summer of high tech gardening was also a way of impacting his community. His inspiration came from Voltaire’s comic novel “Candide,” where the hero establishes a small farm on which he and his friends keep themselves from the three great evils: poverty, vice and boredom.

Liz Boord of Kingmont has no trouble recalling the first moment she decided to apply to Fairmont State University. It was the day she watched her sister, Laura Lombardi, give birth to a son, Joseph. It was Aug. 1, 2009. “The nurses were so cool. When they let me help, that was my ‘wow’ moment,” she said. By August 2010, the wife and mother was taking anatomy and microbiology classes as an FSU undergraduate student pursuing her own Associate of Science degree in Nursing. 

At Fairmont State University, students are the first priority. A new campaign this fall with the theme “be First” helps share that message. The first campaign launch event took place Monday, Aug. 15, at the fall welcome meeting for faculty.