School News – April 3

Children’s camp raises money for police dogs

Columbus East High School student Faith Plummer has planned for her senior project the Junior Paw Patrol Bootcamp, for children ages 6 to 10, in order to raise money for the Columbus Police Department’s K-9 police dogs.

Participants will get to see demonstrations from a K-9, a school resource officer, a detective and more.

The event is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The cost is $20 per child and includes lunch.

To register or for more information, send an email to Plummer at [email protected].

Money raised will be used to purchase training collars for the police department’s K-9 unit.

Columbus exchange students tour Statehouse

State Rep. Milo Smith, R-Columbus, recently welcomed seven Columbus exchange students as student pages to the Statehouse.

As a House page, these participants toured government offices, helped staff with daily duties and joined Smith on the House floor during the legislative session. The students were:

Zuenal Deniz, from Columbus Signature Academy — New Tech High School

Yunging Fu, Columbus North High School

Anna Gray, Columbus North High School

Eunseok Lee, Columbus East High School

Ahmad Mohiuddin, Columbus Signature Academy — New Tech

Hassathorn Phongam, Columbus East High School

Lina Schaefer, Columbus North High School

For more information about the program visit, indianahouserepublicans.com/page-program.

Senator welcomes students to Statehouse

Six students from Columbus were invited by state Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, as student pages to the Indiana Statehouse in January and February, where they spent a day touring the building, observing debates from the Senate floor and interacting with state senators.

The following Columbus students served as pages:

Zachary Gladden, from Central Middle School

Amelia Jones, home-school student

Shania-Naje Omega, home-school student

Drew Riordan, Columbus North High School

Grace Riordan, St. Peter’s Lutheran School

Kate Riordan, Columbus North High School

Students in Grades 6 through 12 participate in the page program on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays during the legislative session.

For more information visit indianasenaterepublicans.com/page-program.

Hauser senior in farmer conference

Dyland Smith, a Hauser High School senior and Hope FFA member, was recently selected to participate in the New Century Farmer Conference July 16-22 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The conference provides students with the opportunity to advance their skills in entrepreneurial leadership, global perspective, practical knowledge and more in order to develop their careers in production agriculture.

Smith is the first Hope FFA member to be selected and was one of two individuals in Indiana and 50 nationwide to be selected for this all expenses-paid conference.

He will attend workshops focused on creating a vision for the farming operation, finance and business, interactive learning about the latest in agriculture technology and tours of local farming and business operations.

After high school, Smith plans to farm full time. He currently owns D&B Lawn Care, which he plans to expand with more services and availability. Smith also will assist Hatton Seed Sales on their busy seasons.

FFA is a student organization for Grades 7-12 for those who are enrolled in an agriculture class or who are involved in agriculture.

Columbus robotics team statebound

Columbus robotics team No. 4926, also known as GalacTech, has qualified for the Indiana FIRST state competition, which is Thursday through Saturday at Huntington North High School.

GalacTech competed March 24 and 25 at Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis in a district competition that served as a state qualifier.

Although the event went well, said Rick Lewis, primary design mentor for GalacTech, the team didn’t earn the district title.

“We finished the qualification rounds in 16th with a 6-6 record. We had a bad string of luck for a few matches but the robot was in top shape,” said Lewis.

In elimination rounds, the team was knocked out in the quarterfinals. However, the team did not leave empty-handed.

GalacTech received the Underwriters Laboratory Safety Award for its safety culture, both at the event and at home. This is not the first time the team has been recognized for safety efforts.

The team went into the competition ranked 11th out of 48 teams and left ranked 13th.