The Central Queensland University STEPS (Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies) program will celebrate 20 years of success at a Rockhampton event this Friday, November 3.

CQU has been inviting back all past STEPS graduates and their families to a celebratory evening at each of the STEPS sites.

The Rockhampton event will be held from 5.30pm, initially in Building 32/1.28 and then later in the Engineering courtyard.

STEPS graduate Simone Ganter will be among more than 300 STEPS graduates attending the event.

Ms Ganter turned to STEPS when she was 25-years-old after thinking about the things she could have done since leaving school.

“I found myself reminiscing about winning a high school basketball competition. Sadly, that is what was the most recent triumph,” she explained.

After being urged by her mother to try STEPS, Simone found herself at the testing day and later received a letter confirming her successful admission to the program. From that day her life was to change.

It was at her STEPS classes she found like-minded people who also had been “rowing the same boat in the wrong direction for far too long”.

In the end it was the staff to whom Simone attributes her STEPS success.

“I would like to say that the staff at STEPS were gentle, but that would be misleading. Behind their caring exteriors, it was a take-no-prisoners attitude...” “I was dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line only to find that they were all there, standing to the side, cheering me home\".

So now with the skills in hand to achieve at a university degree, Simone enrolled in CQU’s Bachelor of Learning Management degree in the hope of one day becoming a teacher.

“I had looked at other education programs, but I just wanted to do the BLM,” Ms Ganter said.

Simone has this month completed her degree and has been appointed a position through Catholic Education at St Joseph’s School Park Avenue where she will begin her teaching career in 2007.

Simone’s STEPS story \'Kicking and Screaming\' has been recorded in a new book and DVD published for the STEPS 20th Anniversary. The book gives details of the remarkable achievements of STEPS and includes inspiring student stories.

Photos: Simone Ganter, no longer kicking and screaming ... and with fellow \'learning managers\' Stephen Hunt and Elizabeth Browning.