In the Spotlight
From the Executive Board:

Meet Darry Voigt -- President Elect, RMASFAA
Darry is also the Director of Student Financial Assistance, Casper College, Casper, Wyoming

I must say I am a little uncomfortable writing a "Spotlight" feature on myself. What would be interesting and or important? I'm not sure but let me start at the beginning.

As is the case with most of us in the financial aid profession, financial aid isn't what I started out to do. I had received a Masters Degree in Sports Medicine and was planning to get Athletic Trainers established at the community colleges in Wyoming. I was lucky that I had a brother living in a town with a college and that he was willing to let me live with his family. My annual salary for that first year was a whopping $400 coaching stipend. The next year, the college hired me to be the Facilities Coordinator as well as their Athletic Trainer. This was a little more lucrative and I was able to get my own one room apartment. That summer, the Financial Aid Director at the college decided to relocate and the Dean of Students, apparently amused at my persistence, asked me if I would be interested in that position. She told me how I would get to make a lot of people happy by giving them money and that I could continue being the Trainer as well. I responded with "I don't know anything about financial aid". To which she replied, "Not a problem. We can send you to this 'Summer Institute' and they will teach you everything you need to know." How could I resist a free trip to Rapid City and the opportunity to make lots of people happy? Well that was 22 years ago.

Times have changed a little since then. I used to keep track of all my students on little cards with holes all around the outside edge. You would assign meaning to specific holes, like BEOG recipient, and if the student received a BEOG, you would punch the card so that hole was opened up. When it came time to do the Ficsal Operations report and you needed a count of BEOG recipients you would run a long needle thru the BEOG hole and shake the stack. All those punched out would fall out of the deck and you would have your count. Then you would stack them back up and run the needle thru the next data field you needed. It actually worked pretty well for the small population of students I had then. Now we all need to be computer experts and not on one system but on several. I sometimes think I have as many passwords to remember as I had punch cards in the old days.

Since then I have worked at a couple of other institutions and along the way the athletic training duties fell by the wayside but other duties have taken their place. I learned that my old Dean was wrong, but then again right, we do make a number of students happy each year but we don't often see them in the office. They pick up their funds, go to class and then graduate. I learned that it is necessary to walk around every now and then and look into the classrooms and see all the students you don't know on a first name basis and realize that they are probably some of the happy ones. Look at the list of graduates and see how many of the names you recognize but with which you can't really put a face. And then look at those who graduate that you know quite well and you know that your, and their, persistence has made them happy whether they realize it or not.

One of the things that hasn't changed is the importance of RMASFAA and WyASFAA to me. Being active in these associations helps keep me up to date and sane (or semi sane anyway). They have provided me with many friends and many opportunities. Let's see, I have been President of our state association twice and secretary treasurer once, for RMASFAA I have chaired several committees (Conference Planning, Membership, Corporate Development and now Nominations and Elections), served on the Board as State Delegate for 4 years and now the latest opportunity as President-Elect. What an honor.

Somewhere in this I should have mentioned that I am married and that I have two fantastic daughters. (I am a very proud papa.) My oldest, Amanda, is a junior in college and Allison, my youngest, is a junior in high school. They are smart, multi talented and good-looking. Nothing at all like their old man.