A Portrait of Heidi Zmick
It was a cold February day when I hiked down the hill to the Dickinson building. My subject, Heidi Zmick, had sent me an email just a few minutes before, and I had been wanting to interview her for weeks, so I was determined to brave the cold. When I got to the Dickinson building, Heidi was sitting with her mother, discussing transfer options to her preferred college.
“I think it’s really nice how a lot of the professors, even though they’re like, you know, at a community college… they’re here because they want to be, and they could be at UVA or something, but they chose to be here,” said Zmick. Originally, she was interested in PVCC because it offered French classes, but she just “kept going” after that. A homeschooler who started college at the age of 14, Zmick is the president of the new History Club, and she shared some of her plans with me, along with the story of “the war of the bucket,” on Feb. 27.
Started in the 2019 fall semester, the History Club met on Wednesdays from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Betty Sue Jessup Library study room C. It was a place people who loved history could go to talk about history, watch videos about history, and plan events… about history.
“History is something I really like, and I really want to share that with students,” said Zmick. And while the History Club could be a place for history geeks, it was also for the curious or unfamiliar. “I kind of want to show that history is more than just names and dates and stuff and that it can be fun and interesting, and that it’s really just a big story of people and humans,” she said.
In addition to being the president of PVCC’s new History Club, Heidi Zmick is also a member of the Shire of Isenfir. Unfortunately, this does not mean she is sheriff over a county, but it does mean she re-enacts medieval dances with her group, which can be found here. When I talked to her in February, Zmick expressed her wish to stage a “demo” at PVCC with her re-enactment group, but as of April, the demo is cancelled.
Although the History Club will not be present at International Food Day this year, Zmick is still passionate about history. When asked for final words, she told me, “You should come.” So, here’s to hoping more events, dances, and wars over buckets are on the horizon for the History Club.
