Cochise College to host youth arts festival; sheriff highlights new driving simulators at college public-safety academy

Cochise College plans a youth arts festival at its Sierra Vista campus from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with 2D and 3D art projects, music performances and make-and-take activities for children, the college's Jen Marie Zalesnick said.

"A lot of fun. A lot of creativity, a lot of imagination, inspiration. We have all different kinds of projects going on from 2 d, 3 d, music performance, a lot of make and take projects," Zalesnick said. She said the event will be held across the library commons, student union and patio and that the Union Cafe will be open.

Separately, Sheriff Mark Danels described a partnership that yielded state-of-the-art driving simulators for the law-enforcement academy at Cochise College. Danels said the county donated three retired Chevrolet Tahoes that a company refurbished into driving simulators, plus simulated police, college and ambulance vehicles and a helicopter simulator.

"They're the coolest state of the art type simulators ... There's an ambulance over there too. So this is like state of the art stuff that we've never seen in driving before for law enforcement," Danels said. He said grant funds helped assemble the simulator suite and that a Canadian company agreed to debut the equipment in Cochise County.

Cochise College staff encouraged families to check the college events page (cochise.edu/events) and the college's Facebook page for details about the youth arts festival.