A few SEMO students take nontraditional path to graduation

After varied careers in business and law enforcement, two Southeast Missouri State University spring graduates are looking forward to the next chapters in their lives.

Mary Ann Farmer, a businesswoman, will obtain a master's degree in mental health counseling, and Cameron H. McConnell, who spent 20 years in law enforcement and corrections, is graduating with bachelor's degrees in global studies with an anthropology focus and philosophy with a minor in religion.

The two will be among 1,412 graduates participating in the university's commencement ceremony, set for 2 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center.

Life goes on

Farmer's first degree was in business education, but instead of teaching, she entered the business world. She was president and CEO of Magna-Tel Inc. in Cape Girardeau, a promotional products manufacturing company, and is co-owner of Trax Edge Motors & Collison Center in Scott City.

Cameron McConnell poses for a portrait Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University. McConnel, a former police and corrections officer who returned to college after nearly 20 years, will graduate Saturday wit a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. (Adam Vogler)

As part of her studies, Farmer is a counseling intern at Southeast Missouri State University Counseling and Disability Services and an eating disorders therapist intern at McCallum Place in Webster Groves and Kirkwood, Missouri. She plans to earn an education specialist in counseling certification next spring.

After she sold her interest in Magna-Tel in 2010, Farmer decided to take time off and find something different to do. Plus, Farmer, who will be married to her husband, Keith, for 37 years this year, has two children and two grandchildren and was tired of traveling.

The Scott City resident, who grew up in Bernie, Missouri, promised herself she would take at least a year off. But six months after she retired, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

"And I thought, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" Farmer said. When her stomach started hurting, she thought, "Now I get an ulcer?" but it didn't turn out to be an ulcer. She had surgery and "everything worked out well."

Deciding she was bored, Farmer took an ethics and orientation counseling class in 2011 at Southeast. That first course turned into a degree program. Going to school the first time was something she felt she had to do to get her life started. This time, it was something she wanted to do.

Although she loved business and was good at it, Farmer said it was more of a skill. Counseling felt more natural to her.

"I knew in management that I loved working with people. I loved that part of it and people would always come to me, ... so I knew how to connect with people. It just seemed like a natural [fit], and it has been ..." Farmer said.

She was hired two and a half years ago at Counseling and Disability Services as a graduate assistant. For two years, she worked with students who had substance abuse and other issues. In January, her stint as a graduate assistant ended.

But in August, she started interning at Counseling and Disability Services. Through a class project, she made a connection with McCallum Place, an eating disorder treatment program, and interns there two days a week.

With her education and experience, Farmer said she would like to provide individual counseling, with eating disorders as one of her specialties. Another possibility would be executive coaching.

Farmer also has worked with suicide prevention and substance abuse and, at the university, relationship problems, depression, anxiety and academic problems.

"I really like working with college students, which was a surprise to me. I really do like that population, and I like working with adults," she said. "I do work with some adolescents at McCallum Place, although I haven't had a lot of experience working in the mental-health capacity with children yet."

The capper

A few months before he was injured by a Southeast Correctional Center inmate trying to kill him, McConnell was thinking about going back to college. A former U.S. Marine, police officer and sheriff's deputy, he acknowledges his first stab at higher education wasn't what it could have been.

"I went to school the first time when I just got out of the service and totally stayed drunk and totally stayed stupid for the first year," McConnell said. He got into law enforcement as a way to pay for college, but realized somewhere along the line "this is not who I am."

The attempt on his life was the capper on his decision to return to school, although he worked for a "good solid year" in corrections afterward. Experiences in his life and career got McConnell interested in conspiracy theories, ethnographies (research methods exploring cultural phenomena) and fringe groups. Lately, McConnell said his focus has been on political science, conspiracy theories and ancient religions.

"I'm hoping to focus on those," he said. "I haven't quite made up my mind whether I'm going to pursue a second master's in religion, as well."

His eventual doctorate will be in anthropology. He will probably want to teach at the university level, but would like to do cultural anthropology as an ethnographer, he said. Cults, alternative religions, counterculture -- "anything that involves a religion mix with a countercultural slant is the kind of thing I'm interested in doing ethnographies on in the future," he said.

One of the first cases McConnell said he examined carefully in law enforcement was a cult involving migrant workers practicing some form of naturistic practices. The concern was how the group was treating their children and whether they were abused. "I ... made it a focus of my career in law enforcement to look into those kind of things, especially dealing with children, and I kept up with it even when I was working in corrections."

"Very quickly I got into a position where I was in charge of offender services, which dealt with a variety of religious beliefs," McConnell said. "I had to facilitate everything from the Moorish Science Temple to Wicca and everything in between. I had to facilitate all these different religious beliefs, and because of that, became kind of a lay expert."

McConnell has three children -- Connor, 10, Phoebe, 4, and Oliver, 1.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

1333 N. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.