Travis and Krystal Overvig are a couple who will leave a mark at Linn-Benton Community College. Travis is the student president of the Student Leadership Council (SLC), while Krystal is the chieftain of events. The two are in their last year at LBCC, and they sat down with The Commuter to talk about their personal journeys, the SLC, and what it’s like to go to school (and work!) with their spouse.
Travis Overvig
What is your major, year, and what brought you to LBCC?
I’m a bit of a nontraditional student, so I didn’t go to college right out of high school. So, I’m 32 years old. I’ve been going to LBCC for the last… I think I’m on my seventh term now. I started kind of part time. I was working at the Target distribution center but I just felt like I didn’t see much of a chance of moving up there with my opportunities, with just a high school diploma. I’ve always wanted to go get a college degree, and I felt like LBCC would be a great place to do it.
My degree is business administration. After I graduate from LBCC, which will be this upcoming spring term, so three terms left, my plan is to do either finance or accounting at university.
How did you get involved with the Student Leadership Council?
So my wife [Krystal Overvig] used to work in the office. Well, I guess she still does, but the Student Union office is the Student Life and Leadership office, so they’re kind of housed in the same spot. But she heard that there was [a position] available to apply for. I was working at Target at the time. She’s like, “Hey, why don’t you go and apply, and if you get a full time position, you can go ahead and maybe leave Target.” So I applied, and I was able to get the vice president position, which helped me pay for all of my credits while I was going to school. And that’s kind of where I started. And I’m serving as president now, so I campaigned for that one.
What’s the process for becoming president, and then once you got there, what are your duties?
When you apply for it, it’s open to anyone, any student can do it. … There are certain academic requirements and stuff. It’s nothing too extensive or whatnot. Basically, you just apply to get your name on the ballot, and then we always try to find multiple candidates so it’s not just one person and they’re a shoe-in for it. But yeah, we then open up the election cycle [begins winter term], and during that we not only have the ballots for the president and the VP position, but then we also survey the students and see, okay, what are their biggest needs? We try to gameplan our events and our schedule, as the Student Leadership Council, around those.
Some of the biggest that we got from our surveys were housing, which, unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about that, but we have some things in the works. But there’s also food insecurity. So we are planning to tackle that through film and food events. We’re going to do one a month for eight months. Basically, we’ll show a free film, fully free to students. We’ll have popcorn and snacks available. Then after the film, we’ll be doing a free dinner, so it’s fully available for students. And then every single week, we also have our events. We always have food, be it pizza or whatnot, for our events to help with food insecurity. … So we’re kicking off fall with a couple horror movies, like Scream. Hoping it’ll be fun – it’s our first year doing it. We’re hoping we get a lot of attendance from students. You know, the more that attend, the more funds we can put into it.
What’s it like being a part of the SLC and being able to go to LB with your wife, Krystal?
It’s been a great journey. We’re both almost done. We’re both going to graduate this upcoming spring. We’re both nontraditional students, so honestly, for a while there, we didn’t expect to ever go to college. So it’s been nice going and hopefully it’s all worth it for us. In the end, we were able to find good jobs in a good career field. But it’s been great. LBCC has been great.
There are a lot of different resources here on campus. I feel like getting connected through Student Leadership is one that has definitely opened some doors through networking for myself, my wife, and actually a lot of people on our team. So I always recommend, like, hey, if there’s a spot, go for it. There are a lot of things that Student Leadership does to help develop your leadership skills, develop you in so many different ways.
We’re currently hiring. We’re looking to hire a couple of event planners, which pays six credits per term. We’re looking to hire a bunch of interns, and that pays three credits per term, and then everything always opens up during that whole election cycle. So everyone can apply for anything, regardless of whether someone’s in it currently or not. So it’s a great spot to be on campus.
How can interested students apply?
For any students that are currently interested in a position, they can either email myself or our advisor, Rob Camp. He manages and advises the Student Leadership Council, so they can reach out to me or Rob, and we can always schedule an interview with them.
It’s usually a really relaxed environment. Just come in, chat, see how school’s going for them, see if they’d be able to make SLC work and all that kind of stuff. So it’s not like sitting down to grill you with questions. It’s a really relaxed vibe. It’s really nice how we handle it. Honestly, I don’t think that we’ve ever had a student come in for an interview and not get a position. It’s been extremely rare. So usually, if you come in, you show that kind of interest level, we’ll find a spot for you.
Tell us a bit about yourself outside of LBCC.
Yeah, actually, I’m a bit of a metalhead, so I go to metal concerts with my wife, rock and metal. So we just saw – I’m not sure who will know this at The Commuter – but we’ve seen Gojira, Mastodon, Lamb of God. I just saw Megadeth. We’ll see Iron Maiden in October. We just saw KALEO and Greta Van Fleet recently. I’m a big metalhead. I also like just hanging out with our kids, so we spent a lot of time together, going to the park or doing board games or whatever at home, like movies.
There was an SLC advertisement a few months ago that mentioned that you co-founded a trucking company with your brother at one point. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Yeah, before I went to college, I owned a trucking company with my brother. We delivered auto parts, so that was a pretty good business for us. We were able to make a decent living doing that. But then COVID came and shut our doors, essentially. I mean, our business just completely shut down. There just wasn’t enough business for those first six months from around March to September. So unfortunately, we had to close the business and sell the routes that we were working. And that’s kind of what kickstarted me into thinking about going to college and this whole journey. Unfortunately that door closed, but with Student Leadership and going to college, the door is hopefully opening up for me.
For life after LB, are there any four-year universities that you’re eyeing?
I mean, Oregon State’s right there. But I do have a sister-in-law who’s working on her master’s up at Portland State. She’s doing accounting for her master’s. So we’re also thinking of PSU. We have a couple people that we know up there as well, so we’re leaning there. I mean, I’m kind of open to different universities, honestly.
Is there anything else that you’d like to tell our readers?
Honestly, I would just recommend everyone to come to our events. We try to do an event every single week. We try to make it as fun as possible and as engaging as possible. We’ll do laser tag. We’ll do bowling. We always try to make sure there’s food there. What we’re trying to do is not only have a good time for students, because we have a pretty heavy workload or school load or whatever we’ve got going on in life, but try to find a way for us to relax and hang out with each other, maybe make new friends.
But we can also engage with them and say, “Hey, what’s going on? What can we do to make LBCC a better place for you? What kind of resources can we have that we don’t have?” You know? What can we do to help make it a little bit easier for you in your educational journey? So we’re definitely trying to do our best to reach out to students. A lot of students don’t even know what the SLC is, what we do. … So we’re trying to get the word out as much as possible. We’re always trying to do that.
And I would say if you have an interest in joining Student Leadership and growing your leadership skills, developing your network because that can always take you places in life, be it a job or whatnot, go ahead and apply. There’s usually a position available. Again, we’re currently looking for event planners and interns and a couple of other roles. So if you’re interested, go ahead and reach out to me or Rob, or anyone else on the team, and we’ll try to get you in for an interview and see if you’re a good fit.
Krystal Overvig
Tell me a bit about yourself and where you’re from.
I’m originally from Medford, Oregon, and I started going to Linn-Benton back in fall of 2022. Finding jobs down in Medford was hard because of the whole COVID pandemic, so we took an opportunity to move up here for some better jobs. Which then led me to go to school and eventually my husband [Travis Overvig] followed behind me. My major is business administration. It’s obviously had its struggles because we have four kids, but with almost being done with our associates, it’s been a great journey at Linn-Benton. We’re excited for where it’s taking us so far and the opportunities we’ve had, and looking forward to university life. I still have this year to go and then I’ll be graduating next spring.
Why did you decide to study business administration?
You know, I was starting in fall of 2022. It’s taken me a while and part of that was dabbling around in different majors. I considered economics at one point and liberal arts degrees, but I settled on business because I felt like it was more transferable. If I wanted to pursue my passion as a photographer, a business degree could help with that. If I want to work an office job it could be transferable there too. So it just felt like something I could get that could open up more doors without being so concentrated on one specific area. I’ve also settled on accounting because it is also universal. You can work in any kind of industry with accounting; every company needs an accountant, so it opens more of those doors of where to go for work.
What are your plans for after LB?
I’m planning on going to Western Governors University. It is an online school and the first question everyone asks is, “Oh, is it accredited?” But yeah, it’s accredited and I know people who have gone there. It’s actually pretty great because the tuition price is roughly on par with LBCC so you can’t beat that, especially with the flexibility that it offers while I also have four kids at home.
How do you balance work, school, and family life?
It’s definitely hard. Sometimes I just have to learn to let certain things go, like if a load of dishes don’t get done for the day I can’t let that bother me. Sometimes just spending time with my kids is more important than worrying about small, mundane things like that. As far as taking care of my kids while I’m going to school, we’re fortunate enough to get the ERDC [Employment Related Day Care] from the state of Oregon so it kind of helps pay for our childcare cost. And also just the help that my husband and I give each other in helping with the kids as well.
What are some of your hobbies and interests?
When I’m not busy with school or Student Leadership, my top priority is spending time with my family. With four kids, this often means quality time at home playing board games, taking walks to the park, or enjoying a movie at our favorite theater, the Whiteside. My husband and I also love to enjoy some kid-free time by going to concerts, which has been easier now that we live closer to Portland compared to when we lived in Medford. I just bought tickets for our sixth concert this year! So far, my favorite concerts have been Gojira/Mastodon last April, followed by Greta Van Fleet in August. For much-needed alone time, I love diving into a great book—my favorite is probably “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn—or watching one of my favorite shows, which can range from Breaking Bad to Gilmore Girls to Z Nation.
Could you tell me about your role with the SLC?
My first year with the SLC I was specifically the Campus Outreach Director, which did the marketing for the Student Leadership Council. At first I didn’t know if I was going to return for a second year, but I decided that it was definitely worth the time and effort and I put in to proceed with my second year. So now I run the Event Task Force team. I oversee the event planners and the whole team and make sure things are running smoothly so we can make sure we’re putting on events. While it’s kind of commonly known that the SLC provides food for students, the events that we put on are also a big part in letting the students know that we do exist. Sometimes just with that knowledge of knowing that we exist, they’ll find out about the resources that we have. In the past we would help with the Linn-Benton Lunch Box, with providing food resources. So just definitely getting the word out there about who we are, how we help students, and where their student fees are going is really important, even if it is through events.
What have been some of the benefits and highlights of working with the SLC?
One benefit is definitely just getting my 12 credits paid for. Beyond that, I just love working with the team. I feel like, now being on the team since May of 2023, it’s nice seeing the growth that I’ve seen in myself because I would have never led a team before. So now seeing that growth in myself, to know I can grow into that leadership role that I never thought I could do before gives me more confidence, especially with taking my degree into the workforce. Also, seeing the growth in my husband as well. He went from vice president to president. I also love seeing growth in other people who continued at the SLC their second year. I love seeing their journeys.
Could you describe a few of the classes you’ve taken for business?
I’ve actually taken all my business classes online so far. I’ll be taking my first in-person one this fall. Some of the struggles with them are because all of my business classes are working on a group project throughout the term, so just one of the struggles is when the instructors randomly assign groups. In another class he allowed us to choose our groups, so we were able to pick people who aligned with our schedules. As far as the course content, I feel like it’s been pretty valuable what I’ve been learning so far. Back in spring term, I took an entrepreneurship class called Small Business in Entrepreneurship and that was really informative. Even though my husband had owned a business before, there was still more wealth of knowledge to learn from that class. I remember taking the Excel Sheets class, and I’m pretty well versed in Excel, but still there was more wealth of knowledge of things that I could do in Excel to formulate and organize things in ways I didn’t know about. So I’ve found that even in classes where I know some things, it’s still beneficial to take the classes and expand that knowledge further.
What is the SLC work environment like, and how is it getting to work with your husband?
As far as working with my husband, it’s been great. We actually met by working together. Then it had been a while since we had worked together, and when he decided to come back to college we started at the SLC together. It’s been nice, it’s a perfect dynamic. He’ll help me out with some things even in the chieftan role and sometimes I’ll help him out with things. Just having that cohesion between things is nice. Beyond just us, I feel like our team dynamic for the entire SLC is this great, cohesive balance. I’ll work with my event planners, I’ll know where their skills are at, and I’ll try to help them along in some of the skills they may be lacking. That’s a great part of how I lead the Event Task Force or even how my husband leads the SLC. We really just like helping the SLC members with their growth, building that confidence so that they can do their roles eventually without our help. Everybody within the team is always willing to lend a helping hand, so that makes the SLC a pretty great place to work.
Is there anything else that you’d want students to know about the SLC?
Mostly that we just exist. I didn’t really know much about the SLC until right before I applied for the Campus Outreach the first time. I feel like not a lot of students know we exist or the services that we offer, so if students knew about us or even knew about the fun events we put on for them. That’s the only thing I could ask for is that students knew more about it.
