Jess Barnes

Environmental Science and Business, Class of 2018

I was on a service trip with Heidelberg in June for the Honors Program in McAllen, Texas. We were doing work with the families and kids down there. It was during the NBA Finals.

I’m from Middleburg Heights, right by Berea, so I’m a huge Cleveland sports fan. We made friends with some of the volunteers and they were all Golden State fans, so we all wanted to watch the game after we were done for the day. We had to find the cable and get it to work with this little TV. It was rough. It took us like 30 minutes to get the game on, and we missed the first quarter.

At the end of the game, the Cavs were letting them back in it. It was like everything you wanted as a fan was about to go away, then LeBron made the block and just saved everything. I wish I could see it for the first time again and again. When they won, I was jumping on the bed and freaking out. My mom called me from home, “Are you watching this?! Do you have cable?!” All the casual watchers were just rolling their eyes at me. I didn’t care. I was so excited.

So, yeah, I watched my team win a championship on a small TV on the Texas-Mexico border. I was a little upset I didn’t get to be in Cleveland for the parade but, shake it off, I had a great time in Texas helping the kids and families plus the Cavs won. It was great.

Why Heidelberg?

I really liked the small school experience. I thought it was a beautiful campus. It just seemed like a place where I could see myself.

Jess is a resident assistant in Talmage Hall and a geology teaching assistant here at Heidelberg. She is a member of the Biology Honor Society Tri-Beta and the Business honorary Tau Pi Phi. She aspires to one day attend law school and study environmental law. As a double major in environmental science and business, she will graduate in 2018.