The Switzerland County School Board held its May meeting on Monday night, and again the school board honored students from each of the four buildings as the “Celebrating Success” winners for the month.
Students are nominated by a teacher in the building; and one winner is then selected from those nominations by the building principal. Students and parents are then invited to the school board meeting; where each student is recognized and receives a pin of appreciation from the school board.
All of this month’s winners were involved in the corporation’s efforts to be more “Green”, including recycling projects and other programs.
This month’s winners include:
– At Jefferson-Craig Elementary, fifth grade students Courtney Gullion, Courtney Hall, Makenzie Mathews, Shelby Cole, Andrew Powers, Lauren Smith, and Charmin Brooks were nominated by instructor Connie Ingels. All of the students are in teacher Konna Padgett’s class; and the nomination was approved by principal Darin Gullion.
In her letter of recommendation, Connie Ingels wrote:
“For the ‘Go Green Celebrating Success’, I would like to nominate the Jefferson-Craig Recycling Team: Courtney Gullion, Courtney Hall, Makenzie Mathews, Shelby Cole, Andrew Powers, Lauren Smith, and Charmin Brooks. Every week these dedicated individuals collect the paper and cans that need to be recycled. These individuals do it with a smile. They are very courteous and timely in the collection of the recycling and encourage others to recycle. They are definitely Jeff-Craig’s ‘Green Team’.
– At Switzerland County Elementary School, this month’s honoree was first grader Logan Bennett. He was nominated by teacher Sally Weales, and principal Mike Jones approved the nomination.
In her letter of nomination, Sally Weales wrote:
“I would like to nominate Logan Bennett for Celebrate Success – Green Division. Logan is a well-mannered, considerate, high achieving student. Logan is a positive role model in the classroom and shows great leadership skills.
“During our ‘Green Week’ kickoff, Logan was very interested in the conservation of our earth. Logan gave positive input during classroom discussions, and his work proved he was performing in the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
“Each day our classroom studied, researched, and compared different ways to conserve the earth and its natural resources. By his own accord, Logan devised a plan to use his newly acquired knowledge to live off the land. Logan also recruited another student to move with him. Soon, my entire classroom was making a vow of conservation.
“Logan’s plan requires a minimalistic view of living without electricity, running water, and a great pension plan. Logan made it perfectly clear to me that he would need little money to implement his plan and make it successful. I am confident Logan will make an impact in this worthy cause of conservation.”
– At Switzerland County Middle School, eighth grade students Emily Bush, Mikayla Sebree, Jami Sebree, and LoriAnn Lozier were nominated by staff members Tony Spoores, Steve Higgins, and Phyllis Weaver; and the nomination was approved by principal Nancy Stearns.
In their letter of recommendation, the staff members wrote:
“Mr. Spoores, Mr. Higgins, and Mrs. Weaver would like to nominate the following eighth grade students to represent our school and the work done with ‘Going Green’ and ‘Earth Day’.
“Emily Bush has been very active and supportive of all our spirit day activities. One Earth Day, Emily was one of the winners for showing the most spirit in our ‘Wearing Green’ contest. Head to toe, she represented recycling and ‘going green’. Emily has also been a winner of other spirit-related days this year.
“Mikayla Sebree, Jami Sebree, and LoriAnn Lozier represent the student council. They have been members of the group for three years, working hard on each of the projects that the council has done. This year at Christmas, the student council decorated two bulletin boards. One was an informational board about recycling; and the other used recycled Christmas Cards to make a tree and wish the school a Merry Christmas. These students decorated the school Christmas Tree with recycled and homemade ornaments as a way of sharing the ‘green’ theme with the entire community.
“In April, these students participated in ‘Earth Day Spirit Day’, helped judge this contest, helped clean the playground, and recycled paper from the locker cleanout. Student council had a letter writing campaign to various companies asking that they only send one catalog to the school, rather than several catalogs to individual teachers.”
– May’s award winners at Switzerland County High School were seniors Elizabeth Abbott, Rachel Gurley, and Emily Lanman. They were nominated by teacher Bonnie Fancher, and the nomination was approved by principal Candis Haskell.
In her letter of recommendation, Bonnie Fancher wrote:
“Elizabeth, Rachel, and Emily are members of the AP Environmental Science class and conservation club. They are also officers of our Switzerland County High School FFA – Beth is District President; Rachel is Chapter President; and Emily is Chapter Treasurer. The students prepared a ‘PowerPoint’ of Switzerland County High School’s ‘Green Projects’ for ‘Rotunda Day’ at the State Capitol Building. They represented our school corporation extremely well. All are excellent students, responsible leaders, and willingly and capably donate their time to worthy causes.”
All of the honorees were presented with special medallions by the school board to commemorate the awards.