‘There’s more to the Army’

The U.S. Army recruiting office in Fallon has reached out to local students for the second consecutive year to design posters promoting career specialties.

“It’s a recruiting tool for us and to become engaged in the classroom,” said Capt. Stefan Wilson, commander of the Reno recruiting office that also serves most of Northern Nevada and Susanville, Calif. “The Army has a lot of different jobs that many people don’t know about.”

Students designed posters touting specific military professions such as medical, veterinarian medicine, etc. The idea for the project occurred two years ago when Staff Sgt. Jonathan Serna, a Fallon Army recruiter, saw class-generated posters hanging in the hallway of Churchill County High School and was impressed with them.

Last year, students recreated recruiting posters, and this year specialty posters show a different side of the Army.

“This is a public service — this is a positive project,” said teacher Dan Combo. “This is a more promotional poster for the different fields.”

Both Serna and Combo praised the top three students and their posters and said the finished products are just as good — if not better — than those designed in a professional graphic artist’s studio. Serna said he wanted the students to come up with ideas, especially if “something caught their eye.”

“We definitely wanted posters that were different from a soldier holding an M-16 and crouching,” he said.

Serna said the posters will be placed at the recruiting station or the schools.

“They are outstanding,” Wilson said of the posters and the amount of time that was devoted to each.

Declan Bernard, a sophomore, said he focused away from the “boots on the ground” concept.

“I wanted to feature other fields in the Army,” he said. “I decided medical was a real interesting project. There’s more to the Army, My first draft took two to three days. I had revision after revision, fixing little things I saw. I wanted to make it better.”

Tallon Amezquita said he took the class to learn more about graphics and was excited to work with the newest technology. The Fallon junior said there’s satisfaction seeing the posters out in public.

“I like the feeling of recognition,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Another sophomore, Shelby Chard, said last year’s posters inspired her.

“Mr. Combo asked me if I would like to do this project, and I said yes,” Chard added.

Wilson, who gave each student a certificate and Army coin — a symbol for a job well done —commended the CCHS students again.

“Your projects are an outstanding tool for us,” he said.