Jill Aho

The Advocate

Bud Khuth became the Associated Student Government president because he seizes opportunity. 

Over the summer he was approached to lead the student government. Khuth says, “It was almost like a fairy tale come true,” to be asked to fill the position. When he was asked to join the team, he said, “I would have to think about it, but more than likely my answer is going to be yes, being a person who takes advantage of opportunity.”

Khuth was active on campus all last year. “Last year, I was doing so much stuff through Rho Theta, but not just Rho Theta. I was helping out the SAB a lot, and all their activities, and I was helping the student government.” Even though Khuth was not a member of either the Student Activities Board or the ASG, he said he just likes to help out. “I am a community service-oriented man.”

It was because of this involvement and Khuth’s willingness to take the lead that landed him the opportunity to lead the student body. He gives credit to the MHCC international honor society, Rho Theta. “Rho Theta was the biggest opportunity of my life. Before I came here it was just school and home. I would just do my homework and that’s all. All I saw college to be was, just go to school, be in class, get good attendance, do your homework, and do well on tests and that’s it.  I didn’t see the other side of community college.” 

The other side of community college is there is plenty to become involved with. “There’s tons of clubs out there that I didn’t even know before I joined Rho Theta,” said Khuth. “Once I got going into the functions of the college I was like, wow, this is what the college has to offer. From there it was just opportunity after opportunity.” 

Khuth encourages other students to do the same. “Just go out and see what is available. We have something for everyone. Explore the possibilities is what I say, look where it lead me. “

With Khuth’s many duties, he still finds time for Rho Theta. He is involved as much as his time will allow. “I’ve been doing a lot of work with College Project. The library is trying to become an accredited college library so they need a certain amount of books from this index of books called ‘books for college libraries.’ We go to the card catalog and see which books are in this. That was the first step, just going through the computer and updating which books are actually in this ‘books for college libraries.’ The second stage was actually going through the books to see which books are actually in there; the catalog doesn’t always match up to what they have in inventory. We just go through and check and write BCL in the actual book. It’s simple but it’s long, arduous and takes a lot of work. I’m trying to do it as often as possible. I try to devote at least an hour a week.”

The benefit for the library is money, according to Khuth. “I think it has to do with funding and getting more books. MHCC is in the process of updating the library which should be going on next year.”

Besides still helping out, Khuth has ambitions that involve Rho Theta and his future. “After here I want to explore my options with the honor society we have here; it’s an international thing. I’m thinking of running for an international office this April. But that’s only if I have enough time to organize a campaign.” 
Khuth’s enthusiasm shows. “It’s huge, there are over 3,500 people that come to these things. It would be a huge undertaking should I decide to campaign for an international office. “I want to run for the International Vice President for Division 4, which is pretty much everything west of Wyoming. What the duties actually entail, I’m not too sure. A lot of leadership programs, moderating debates, and being at international and regional events.”

In order to run for an office Khuth would have to “Make a poster board, make a flyer, write an essay on what I’ve done, not so much why I should be picked, but what brought me to where I am today, a speech if I make it to the next step, and be in Texas when it happens. I’m not sure if I will have the time to do this or not, but if I do, it’s an opportunity I don’t want to pass up.”

Khuth’s worry over time constraints is understandable. “With everything I have going on, it’s a huge thing to put together, and then there’s this side project I have going, too. I went to the Honors Institute, which is another international gathering for Phi Theta Kappa down in L.A. I met a bunch of people from around the states and they just wanted pictures of Portland from my eyes, so I’ve been working on this project. I’ve been taking a bunch of pictures of Portland and writing a short narrative on each one. I’m still working on that project. If I can’t get that done, I won’t run.  People won’t have a reason to vote for me. I want to put out something that says, I still care about you guys and I still have you in my heart. So this is my way of showing that they are still there.”

Khuth is enrolled in five credits this term, which frees up time for him to keep up with his presidential duties. “My schedule for the week is usually just meetings after meetings. I am the ASG and student representative to the Joint Leadership Council where all the leaders on campus, president, vice president, the person in charge of media relations, people in charge of staffing, you know all the bigwigs, get together to talk about what’s going on. I go to Safety Council meetings once a month to discuss issues on campus that involve safety (such as) accidents on the job or break-ins and theft or speeding on campus. That’s a huge issue.”

Public Safety recently acquired a radar gun. “I was just out with one of the public safety officers and we got six [speeders] in one hour. That’s an average of one every 10 minutes, which is pretty amazing. That added to his total count of 18 for the day, and that was only halfway through his day,” said Khuth.
Fines are $15 each, but according to Khuth, “It doesn’t go to public safety or anything. It goes to the general fund for the students. It’s not like they’re out there to hunt you down or anything. They are just doing their job to promote public safety is all it is. They are just trying to get people to be more considerate of pedestrians and all that.”

Some of Khuth’s other responsibilities are to “facilitate the meetings for the ASG, (and) the executive meeting where we just discuss what is going on in for each of our respective offices. We discuss our plans and goals for the future and anything that needs to be taken care of.” Also, “I represent Mt. Hood at OCCSA, which is the Oregon Community College Student Association. There are representatives from the 17 community colleges in Oregon that come together to create a plan that will ultimately affect all the students of Oregon. Our last mission was to vote smart, or get out and vote. We had a goal of 30,000 (registered voters) and we came in at about 31,000; 775 were from our campus.”

To describe his duties in a nutshell, Khuth said, “I’m basically just a liaison of information from up above to here. I can’t sum it all into one paragraph.”
Khuth’s goals for his presidency for this term are “just to catch myself up on everything I don’t know. My goal is to make sure my group remains efficient and how I’m going to go about doing that is just learning what everyone else does and what I do and how I fit in the whole picture, and just be support to them. I’m just learning the ropes. It’s been hard for me to try to grasp everything because I didn’t receive any training beforehand.”

Khuth’s unusual circumstances have made it difficult for him to get caught up. “I was just thrown into this position, for lack of a better word. Without training, you’re basically learning as you go along. So that’s what I’ve been doing, just learning as I go along.”

Devoting so much time to the school, it’s a wonder that Khuth has time for anything else. He does hold a part-time job at Fred Meyer. “I work in the photo electronic department. I’m the nighttime PIC.” A PIC is a “person in charge,” not a job title. Khuth likes working for Fred Meyer because there is “family environment between departments.”

Khuth grew up in Portland and graduated from Reynolds High School. He was involved in track and tae kwon do. He mentioned that he, like anyone, has made some mistakes. “I messed up my junior year.”

Khuth thinks that his past mistakes won’t hurt him in the future. “It’s better you mess up early on in life, rather than making mistakes when it really matters and not having time to deal with it. That’s how I see it. I am glad I messed up in high school so that I can be more focused and know what I want in life and what not to mess around with.”

When Khuth graduated high school he wanted to join the Air Force, “But I am deaf in my right ear, so I got shot down.” He spent a month in Cambodia, and “when I came back I didn’t know where I belonged in life. So, I spent a couple of months in hibernation from the world, trying to figure stuff out, figure myself out.”

Khuth came to Mt. Hood in the winter term of 2001. He was drawn to MHCC because of the cheap tuition. “I didn’t want to go to a university and pay university rates. Now-a-days we are almost up to university rates, but back then we were paying pretty good rates, $42 a credit.”

No matter what the circumstances behind Khuth’s presidency, he seems determined to work hard for the student body. “It’s part of our job as student government that we have to discern what’s important for the whole, but everybody’s problems are important. I want to hear about them.”