Commencement Brings Joy and Celebration to SFSC Graduates

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 12, 2025 – For the South Florida State College (SFSC) graduates who gathered in the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, Dec. 11, the Fall 2025 Commencement ceremony was a time to celebrate.

Student Commencement speaker Lacie Hershberger, who received her Associate in Arts, congratulated fellow classmates on persevering through their studies to graduation. She offered advice from lessons learned through her own life. Hershberger graduated from high school 23 years ago. She had a dream of attending Florida Gulf Coast University and becoming a broadcast journalist. However, before the end of her second semester at the university, she returned home, feeling overwhelmed. Through the years, she married, had children, and held several jobs managing offices and teaching at private schools. The desire to earn a college degree never left her. With the support and urging of her husband, friends, and her current employer, she enrolled at SFSC. “To anyone sitting in the audience thinking, ‘Maybe it’s too late for me,’ I am living proof that delay doesn’t mean defeat,” she said. “I truly believe that sometimes the best stories are the ones that take a little longer to write.”

Approximately 349 students met the SFSC requirements by fall Commencement. Of these, 10 received their Bachelor of Science in Supervision and Management (BAS-SM), nine received their Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), 97 received their Associate in Arts, 55 received their Associate in Science, 45 received their State of Florida High School Diploma, 38 received their College Credit Certificate (CCC), and 115 received Career Technical Certificates. Students participating in the Commencement ceremony totaled 171.

Early in the program, SFSC District Board of Trustees chair, Terry Atchley, welcomed guests and addressed the new graduates: “Commencement is a celebration of the journey you’ve completed and the limitless future that lies ahead. Your time at SFSC has equipped you with more than just knowledge— it has prepared you to lead, to innovate, to serve, and to make a meaningful impact in the communities you call home. Wherever life takes you, carry the spirit of Panther Pride with you, and never stop learning, growing, and striving.”

Special guest speaker, Kathryn Hebda, who serves as chancellor of the Florida College System at the Florida Department of Education, encouraged the graduates: “You chose higher education not because it was easy, but because you believed in its promise and its power to make your life better and, in many cases, the lives of your loved ones. You step now into your future. Take the knowledge, the skills and experiences, and the memories you’ve gained here and use them boldly and generously. In the words of Dr. Seuss, ‘Oh, the places you’ll go.’ Now go, strengthen your families. Go, elevate your communities. Go, make a meaningful difference in the world around you. Be courageous, curious, creative — and even alliterative! Your future awaits.”

Mace bearer and chief marshal for Commencement is Garrett Lee, and marshals are Marlene Cruz, Kelly Fairfield Dec, Tina Gottus, Courtney Green, Robert Hampton, Candy Jones, Michelle Macbeth, Tanna Markel, Micah Montague, Sofia Ochoa, Lena Phelps, and Andrew Polk.

Dec. 15, 2025 – Multiplatinum singer-songwriter Deana Carter, known for her worldwide, chart-topping smash “Strawberry Wine,” performs at the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts at South Florida State College (SFSC) in Avon Park on Saturday, Jan. 10 at 7 p.m. “Deana Carter is a Grammy-nominated country artist that is known for her heartfelt performances,” said Cindy Garren, director of cultural programs at SFSC. “She inspires her fans with her authenticity and heartfelt performances, and it’s her first appearance in Central Florida.”

Carter’s breakthrough came in 1996 with the release of her debut album, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” which went multiplatinum in the United States. Three hit singles, “Strawberry Wine,” “We Danced Anyway,” and “How Do I Get There?” all reached number one on the Billboard country charts. “Strawberry Wine” won the Country Music Association Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1997.

Following her debut, she released 14 albums, solidifying her status in the country music scene. Carter, whose music helped define an era of ‘90s country with its emotional depth and relatable honesty, continues to resonate with audiences of all ages. “I’m incredibly grateful for the journey my music has taken me on,” said Carter. “This new season is all about celebrating the fans who have supported me from the beginning and finding fresh ways to share stories from the heart.”

Four-time Josie Music Award winner, Blackbird Anthem, will open the show for Carter. Led by Adam Martin, Blackbird Anthem is a veteran-led Americana band that blends grit-soaked vocals and earnest songwriting into a fusion of country, rock, and Southern swagger.

Sheila’s Mobile Pub is now serving beer and wine at the Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts prior to performances and throughout intermission.

Tickets for Deana Carter and Blackbird Anthem start at $30. The performance is sponsored by MidFlorida Credit Union and the SFSC Foundation and co-presented by Sun Events. Tickets are available online at sfscARTS.org, by phone at 863-784-7178, or by visiting the SFSC Box Office located on campus at 600 West College Drive in Avon Park.

The SFSC Box Office is closed Dec. 13 through Jan. 4, reopening on Monday, Jan. 5. The Box Office is open Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 10, 2025 – South Florida State College (SFSC) honored 30 Associate in Science in Nursing (ADN) students in a traditional pinning ceremony on Monday, Dec. 8 at the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for Performing Arts at the SFSC Highlands Campus in Avon Park.  

The graduates are Emma Campbell, Erika Coggins, Elizabeth Conant, Shannah Cutcher, Natalia Garcia, Marissa Giancola, Brianna Gibson-Schaefer, Perla Gomez Gonzalez, Carrie Grenier, Mariah Hodge, Iris Jones, Catricia Jeanlouis, Brenda Martinez Bautista, Edwin Martin-Martin, Ciera McCartney, Stephanie Myrthil, Tanesia Nugent, Maria Perada, Shauna Quinn, Brooke Regeon, Veronica Rivera, Aiden Roe, Alma Sanchez- Reyes, Brittany Santos Cruz, Ashley Schrader, Victoria Simpson, Annalise Terrell, Amanda Torres, Griselda Vasquez, Janell Wiley, and Yailin Wong.

Guest speaker for the ceremony was Candy Jones, SFSC Nursing instructor.

Each year, Nursing graduates award the Golden D.U.C.K. to someone who has served as a mentor to the students in the program. The D.U.C.K. acronym represents the foundational elements of the mentoring arrangement: Developing, Understanding, Compassion, and Knowledge.

The Nursing graduates presented the 2025 Golden D.U.C.K. Award to Tammy Jordan-Thelen, staff assistant for SFSC’s Division of Health Sciences. Student presenter, Victoria Simpson, lauded Jordan-Thelen: “She is often the first welcoming face we encounter as we walk through the doors, and she is unfailingly the person we seek when clarity, direction, or reassurance is needed. Though some of her acts of kindness seem small, they provide moments of comfort, encouragement, and renewed energy during some of our most demanding days. They remind us that compassion is found not only in grand moments, but in the quiet, everyday ways we care for others.”

Two Nursing graduates received special honors. Elizabeth Conant was presented the Thakkar Academic Excellence Award and Amanda Torres was presented the Thakkar Clinical Excellence Award.

During the ceremony, the graduates’ loved ones presented them with their individual nursing pins. The graduates, then, passed the flame of a lamp, one to another, before reciting the Nightingale Pledge.

The pinning we know today originated in the 1850s at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Having been awarded the Red Cross of St. George for her selfless service to the injured and dying during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale chose to extend this offer to her most outstanding graduating nurses by presenting each of them with a medal of excellence. The presentation of the lamp is a symbol of the caring devotion nurses administer to the sick and injured in the practice of nursing. After nurses were pinned, Nightingale would light a lamp and pass the flame to each nurse as they recited the pledge. The passing of the flame represents a formal welcoming of new nurses to the profession.

Graduates of the ADN program become registered nurses by passing the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). SFSC Nursing graduates are usually fully employed in nursing within a few months of graduation.

SFSC offers an online Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), a two-year generic Associate in Science in Nursing, a 13-month transition licensed practical nurse to registered nurse Associate in Science in Nursing, and an 11-month Practical Nursing (PN) Career Certificate. For more information about SFSC’s Nursing programs, contact Danielle Ochoa, Health Sciences advisor, at 863-784-7027 or by email at healthsciences@southflorida.edu.

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 9, 2025 – “I was so afraid to mess up, to get a bad grade, to fall behind, that I just gave up instead of letting myself fail, stand up, brush myself off, and keep going,” said Lacie Hershberger, student speaker for South Florida State College’s Fall Commencement, commenting on her first foray into college. “I wish that I had just powered through.”

The 41-year-old Arcadia resident can now look back on her younger self and be gratified that, with the support of friends and loved ones, she will earn her Associate in Arts during the SFSC’s Commencement ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m. at the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts on the SFSC Highlands Campus in Avon Park. Hershberger was selected to be the graduation keynote speaker.

Hershberger is a proud member of a family descended from early Florida pioneers, John and Alice Blackshear Platt. Although Hershberger was born in Fort Hood, Texas, her family returned to Florida when she was 2 years old. Her mother’s family has lived in Arcadia, Fla. for several generations.

From an early age, she dreamed of becoming a broadcast journalist. “I was comfortable on stage in front of people,” she said. “I loved to sing and perform, and I participated in pageants from the time I was a toddler through high school. As I grew older, I became fascinated with television broadcaster Katie Couric, who was the ‘It Girl’ at that time. I idolized her and I enjoyed writing.”

Hershberger followed her heart by working on the DeSoto High School newspaper. When she graduated from school, she planned to attend Florida Gulf Coast University and earn a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism. But things didn’t work out as she planned.

“I started at Florida Gulf Coast University in August 2002 and left just before Spring Break 2003,” Hershberger said. “I majored in Broadcast Journalism, but after I got to the university, it was overwhelming.”

A combination of loneliness, home sickness, and the complexity of navigating the college admission, financial aid, and registration processes plagued her.

“First of all, I didn’t know anyone at the university,” she said. “I grew up in a small town, so you pretty much know everyone and they know you. It’s a blessing and a curse. Also, the university was constructing dorms at the time, so I had to live alone at a hotel in Naples, Fla.

“My mother didn’t go to college, so knowing what to do and when was new for me and for her,” she said. “The high school counselors weren’t helpful, I didn’t know the counselors at the university, and financial aid was a difficult process to get through. At the time, financial aid required pages and pages of information and it wasn’t online.”

When Hershberger was a senior in high school, she was crowned Miss DeSoto County. In September 2002, the Turner Agri-Civic Center in Arcadia held a grand opening and, in her official duties as Miss DeSoto County, Hershberger returned to town to participate in the event. There, she met a young man with whom she quickly became smitten.  

“While I was in college, I was building a new relationship and trying to maintain my classes,” she said. “I was doing fantastic in my Oral Communications class, which I loved. But I had a history class in which I struggled and got a ‘D.’ I don’t do ‘Ds.’ And I was taking a microcomputers class that I found boring. I’d just had enough.”

So, she went home to Arcadia. Hershberger and the young man married in 2005. A few months later, Hershberger became pregnant at age 21.

“Having a child around age 21 seems incredibly young now that I have a daughter that’s almost 20,” she said. “My daughter, Kiersten, has a serious boyfriend, but they’re doing things the way I wish I had done it.” Kiersten is also a student at SFSC.

Over the years, Hershberger worked as an office manager for a citrus company, taught at a privately owned preschool, advocated for children through the Florida Guardian Ad Litem program, and ran the office for the University of Florida Extension Office’s 4H program. She had two more children – Alaina, who is 13 years old, and Gracelynne, who is almost 7 years old.

In her second marriage, Hershberger endured an unhealthy relationship. She and the children left their home and Hershberger vowed never to marry again. “I decided that this cycle had to end with me,” she said. “I never want my children to live in that cycle. In all the years involved with children and the Guardian Ad Litem program and the years of training, I learned that it’s highly likely that if you are a mother in an unhealthy relationship, your children would end up in one as well. I decided that day that would not happen to my children. So, I moved out of that home and got an apartment for us. I was adamant that my children were going to have everything they needed and I would provide it for them.”

In 2016, Hershberger took a position with the local public school district, where she started as a substitute teacher, then became a paraprofessional, working one-on-one with children with disabilities. Then the pandemic hit, and eventually the elementary school was able to create a position for her as lead Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Pre-K teacher. She had a classroom of students who had disabilities, most of whom had limited speaking ability.

“I loved it,” Hershberger said. “Years ago, these children would have been pushed to the side or just pushed through. I liked being able to advocate for them and make sure that they were learning, but also that they were learning the life skills they needed at that young age. ‘This is how we sit here, and this is how we put our shoes on,’ and just the little things that they might have missed had they been in any other classroom. And they were able to socialize with other children and adults. We had, at most, 14 students in class.”

However, changes occurred within the school’s administration and Hershberger felt that the children in her class were falling by the wayside. She left the job and began cleaning houses and working as an office manager for her church. Not only did she meet her current husband during this time and change her mind about marriage, but the last house Hershberger ever cleaned was owned by her current employer at Faith Community Christian Academy in Arcadia.

While housecleaning one day, Hershberger received a phone call from Faith Community Christian Academy, telling her that the school had a high school position open. “I said, ‘I don’t teach high school. I teach little people and that’s all I know.’ But when I sat down for the interview, every ounce of me knew, ‘This is where I need to be.’

“I’m now in my fourth year at the school and my daughter, Alaina, is a student at the school” she said. “The first year was teaching ninth grade. This year, I’m teaching what we call vocational students. When they graduate, the students will likely attend a vocational-technical college or go directly to work.”

“I get to work with students who sometimes the world forgets, because they aren’t going to college,” she said. “For me, I relate to that. Years ago, you had two options in a small town like Arcadia — you either get married and have children or you go to college. And they were almost mutually exclusive.  But I like being able to encourage the students to do whatever it is they want to do for their future.”

Hershberger’s decision to return to college in later years was prompted in part by her employer’s desire to have the school accredited. Teachers would be required to have college degrees and teaching certificates. Hershberger’s friend Vickie Penley worked at SFSC in Arcadia and was taking classes through the College. Penley encouraged her to return as did Hershberger’s husband, Anthony. He said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that you can do anything. So, if you want to go back to college, we’ll make it work. We’ll figure it out.”

Hershberger enrolled at SFSC’s DeSoto Campus because she could take classes close to home. “The DeSoto Campus has so many more options than ever before,” she said. “And no one in town has anything bad to say about SFSC.

“I want to have the degree, because it signifies that I finally finished something I started,” Hershberger said. “That’s the main thing that’s driven me, because I found myself moving from here to there with no real goal or purpose. But then I started a job I love at Faith Community Christian Academy and I married a wonderful, supportive man. Now things are settled and I feel safe.”

But Hershberger wants to keep things rolling and transfers to Southeastern University in January. She plans to continue her education by pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Ministerial Leadership with a concentration in Missional Leadership, followed by a Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership.  With a strong background in education and a heart for service, she would like to eventually establish a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to outreach and support for at-risk youth.

She will tell you that if she could speak to her younger self, she would say, “I thought college was hard then. Then life happened and it was way more difficult than passing a history class. Life can be tough and it gets harder before it all evens out. But it does eventually. I just traveled a different road.”

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 4, 2025 – With the thousands of alumni and exceptional graduates that South Florida State College (SFSC) has nurtured since 1965, selecting an outstanding alum for the SFSC Panther Alumni Society Hall of Fame is always a difficult task. SFSC’s most prestigious alumni honor was awarded on Thursday, Dec. 4 to Pamela Karlson, during the SFSC Foundation’s annual Christmas Luncheon at the Hotel Jacaranda in Avon Park. Previous Hall of Fame inductees were Jeff Sikes, Jeffrey Roth, and John Sedlock.

“The SFSC Alumni Association is proud to honor Pamela Karlson of Lake Placid as our 2025 Panther Alumni Society Hall of Fame Honoree,” said Anastasia Fuchser, SFSC Alumni Association coordinator. “Her dedication to her community shines throughout. She has built a strong reputation in her career field that makes us proud to call her a Panther alumna.”

Karlson is the owner and attorney practicing with Karlson Law Group in Lake Placid, Fla. She graduated from Stetson University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, with a focus in Political Science and Russian Studies. She graduated with a Juris Doctor from Samford University School of Law in Birmingham, Ala. in 1994.

Peggy Sueppel, SFSC assessment and accreditation coordinator, nominated Karlson to the Panther Alumni Society Hall of Fame. “Pam has served our community her whole life, including serving as SFSC’s board attorney for many years,” Sueppel said. “She is active in local organizations and generously supports many groups and individuals in our community. She was awarded the Champion for Children award, which alone says a lot about her devotion to the youth of our area. She is well respected and has been a great supporter of South Florida State College.”

Some of Karlson’s activities within Highlands County have been as a volunteer for Ag Venture and with the Florida Rural Legal Services. She is past president of the Greater Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce and past vice president of the Leadership Highlands Class of 2004. She is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Lake Placid.

To view the Panther Alumni Society Hall of Fame, visit southflorida.edu/community/alumni/panther-alumni-society.