Education notebook: Area students earn berths in Intel competition

Wed., March 28, 2018

By Rachel Baker rachelb@spokesman.com (509) 459-5583

Four high school students will be going to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh after excelling in the Eastern Washington Regional Science and Engineering Fair.

Aislin Gamon of Mead High School, Lexie Smith of Ferris High School, Cyndi Marshall of North Central High School and Alicia Johnson of Wilbur High School in Wilbur, Washington, will receive a paid flight, expense coverage and a chaperone for their travels to the international competition.

Other finalists include, Sydney Nessan of Mead and McKenna Trogdon and Erica Shelby, both of Lewis and Clark High School.

Several scholarships and awards were also given to students. Steven Patrick of North Central received a $1,000 scholarship from Community Colleges of Spokane. Saige Forbush of Ferris received $9,000 to the Washington State University College of Sciences.

In addition to being a finalist, Johnson received the American Meteorological Society Award and the NASA Earth Systems Science Award.

Emily Hahn and Karee Kampmann received the American Psychological Association Award.

Ethan Daines of Spokane Valley Tech received the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award.

Peter Yu of Pullman High School received the Mu Alpha Theta Award for mathematics.

Trogdon and Shelby received the NOAA Pulse of the Planet Award.

Silas Chapman, Ryan Olsen and Mariesa Sjober, all of North Central, received the Stockholm Junior Water Prize.

Madison Martin of Spokane Valley Tech received the Yale Science and Engineering Award.

The competition was open to any students in grades 9-12. The overall attendees included around 200 high school and 100 middle school students in Eastern Washington.

Cheney teacher honored in his fields

Allen Skoog, Agricultural Education teacher at Cheney High School, was recently named the Outstanding Agricultural Education Teacher and the Outstanding Agriscience Teacher for District 5 by his peers and the Washington Association of Agricultural Educators.

Skoog will be honored at the WAAE conference in June. Skoog was chosen to receive this award, one of the WAAE’s highest honors, for his work in the implementation of an Agriscience program at the high school. Additionally, he will be teaching a class for the National Association of Agricultural Educators at Oregon State University.

Cheney student was ‘senator for a day’

Senior and school board student advisor at Cheney High School, Kali McCormick, served as “senator for a day” with the 6th Legislative District Sen. Michael Baumgartner on March 2.

He visited the Senate Floor and the chance to speak with Baumgartner about his experience in Olympia.

McCormick also attended intern classes with the hopes of someday returning as an intern and eventually holding office. He is interested in studying international relations and diplomacy in college.

Two qualify for national food competition

Two Medical Lake High School students, Kaylee Thompson and Calvin Ross, have qualified for nationals in the Food Innovations Star Event hosted by Family, Career and Community Leaders of America.

The competition challenged each team to create a vegan main dish with 15 grams of protein marketed towards teens. Thompson and Ross created a red quinoa vegan chili accompanied with presentations of packaging, survey data and pricing.

FCCLA is a nonprofit organization that promotes personal and leadership development through education in Family and Consumer Sciences.

Millwood Kindergarten custodian honored

Joe Bodey was recognized for his dedicated work as the most recent recipient of the Above and Beyond Award. Bodey is a custodian for the Millwood Kindergarten Center.

This award is the district’s highest honor given to staff, community members or volunteers.

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