A trio of well-chosen verbs spelled quite an accomplishment for two members of the Sierra College campus community.

Shelley Rink, 52, and Alishea Myers, 18, both submitted identical entries for the school’s first-ever “Tag You’re It” contest, which sought to mine the creative juices of students and staff for a new campus motto.

Rink, a Sierra College piano instructor, and Myers, a design student, submitted the inspiration for the tagline – “Dream. Learn. Do.” – independently.

“It’s just a cool coincidence,” Myers, a Lincoln resident, said. “I think it’s unbelievable.”

The staccato statement – which takes over from the slogan, “Start your future here” –stood out instantly to a campus selection committee, Sierra spokeswoman Sue Michaels told attendees at a lunchtime unveiling of the phrase. More than 400 entries were received, she said.

“It was the most amazing committee experience in my entire life,” Michaels said.

The new saying, which will appear on billboards and marketing materials, “embodies a journey every student at Sierra College goes through,” Michaels said.

Officials were looking for a message that was inspiring, applied to any demographic and could have resonance regardless of the course of study, Michaels said.

“It all starts with a dream,” she said. “And to transition your dream into reality you have to go through dream, learn, do.”

And while the end result was the same – both women actually submitted the tagline, “Dream it. Learn it. Do it.” (the pronoun was later excised by committee) – how Rink and Myers got there wasn’t.

For Myers, the phrase came almost instantly when she heard of the contest last month.

“It’s the process I’m going through,” she said.

Meanwhile, Rink brainstormed with her 15-year-old daughter – ad nauseam.

“Everything I came up with she’d say, ‘That’s terrible, that’s terrible,’” she said, adding it beat out an early potential entry, “Now you’re thinking.”

“I thought it would be better if (the middle word, ‘Learn’) started with a ‘D’,” she said, noting the alliterative possibilities. “But I couldn’t think of anything with ‘D.’”

What does the tagline mean to her?

“It means there’s opportunity here,” Rinks said. “Anyone can come in from any background and be a success here.”

Both women will receive a $100 gift card to Barnes & Noble, as well as $100 cash.

Other entrants – even one whose suggestion was “Dude… It’s good, really” – have the college’s thanks.

“All of them were really good,” Michaels said.

Or in Sierra-speak: Job. Well. Done.