Kevin Pflederer knows his way around Kent State’s May 4 Visitors Center and the building that houses it, Taylor Hall.
Blessed with a calm, relaxed demeanor and a ready smile, Pflederer spends two days per week greeting visitors and assisting staffers who give hour-long Flashes 101 tours to students exploring illustrations of the turbulent 60s.
Career and Community Studies students enter a career exploration program in their sophomore year. Pflederer is the only CCS student to work at the May 4 Center, where he operates an electronic tablet that controls the video and sound for an award-winning short film documenting the traumatic events of May 4, 1970.
“It feels pretty good to be the first one,” he said. “I like interacting with co-workers, meeting and bonding with new people and learning about the history of Kent State. People need to realize it was a tragic event and needs to be memorialized,” said Pflederer.
This isn’t Pflederer’s first (work) rodeo. The second-year student comes to Kent State with considerable job experience.
Over the past two summers he worked at Cedar Point Amusement Park’s Forbidden Frontier. Now closed, the attraction featured trails where guests interacted with actors on Adventure Island. Pflederer also worked at the park’s world-famous Raptor rollercoaster, and the train at Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad.
Last year, he participated in Art Club, an academic support lab requirement to get first-year CCS students out of their comfort zone. “It was fun to be creative and interact with people in class,” he said.
Big on athletics, Pflederer is also a member of the dodgeball club and enjoys the excitement of sitting with other students at sporting events on campus.
“I like going to basketball and football games,” he said. “I played trombone in high school, so I like seeing the marching band play.”
His favorite courses are health and wellness, and sports and society, which delve into how athletes are influenced by family, and how they interact with fans, coaches and each other. He’s also considering his options after college.
“I’m thinking about getting involved in sports,” he said. “I would love to help out with the equipment for a basketball or football team.”