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Rotary offers services to school leaders

The Inter-Mountain photo by Tim MacVean A variety of Randolph County Schools principals were invited to Monday’s Elkins Rotary meeting, where Elkins Rotarian and 40-year Randolph County Schools teacher Pat Schoonover, above, told them about services offered to county schools and libraries by the Elkins Rotary Club.

ELKINS — As Randolph County Schools prepare for the first day of class on Aug. 16, county principals heard about services offered to the schools by the Elkins Rotary Club Monday.

Pat Schoonover, an Elkins Rotary Club member and 40-year Randolph County Schools teacher, said it was an honor to be selected to speak to the principals in attendance as a former instructor.

“This is a real honor to have these principals here with us today because I worked for principals for 40 years, I worked in the classroom for 40 years and I know what they have to look forward to as the school year approaches,” Schoonover said. “They don’t know. There are changes that have occurred in education since I began in 1968, a long time ago, big changes. There are big changes that took place the first few years I taught.”

She added the presentation was a “refresher” about the services offered by the club.

“What we want to talk to you about today is that we at Rotary would like to give you money and we have done this over the years,” Schoonover said.

The first project she explained is that, for the past six or seven years, the club has given every fifth-grade student in the county an atlas to both use at school and take home with them.

“The atlases are non-tech, they are made of paper and every fifth-grader in Randolph County gets a copy of one. We have been very lucky to have the support of the principals and teachers in our schools that allow us to bring these to the kids and, if you haven’t been involved as a Rotarian in giving these out to the kids, you would think you are actually giving them candy,” Schoonover said. “They really enjoy it, really like to look through it and many of them have a chance to travel when given this atlas. It is theirs to keep. It is used in schools and theirs to take home.”

For ninth-grade students, a program called Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA), is offered to teach students about leadership roles.

“For the high schools, we have ninth-graders that we asked to be involved in RYLA. In the spring of the year we have a Rotary Youth Leadership Award that we give out and these ninth-graders are able to participate with other ninth-graders throughout the district and learn many leadership type roles,” Schoonover said.

The third project Elkins Rotary Club does is offer grant monies to schools and libraries throughout the county. Schoonover added she would be sending out grant application forms to the schools in January and funding is awarded in June.

“It gives the schools and libraries an opportunity to really pick and choose where they want to spend this money and they have an ability to get the money they need to be able to do the project, which has worked out really well, I believe,” she said.

Schoonover closed her presentation by urging all schools to apply for funds and noted last year every school and library in the county received some sort of funding.

School officials on hand for the presentation included Chris Hamrick, Elkins High School principal; Alyssa Tallman, Coalton Elementary School principal; Laura Hawkins, Harman School principal; Paul Zickefoose, Beverly Elementary principal; Suzanne Cain, George Ward Elementary principal; Angela Wilson, Elkins Middle School principal; Eric Lucas, Elkins Middle School assistant principal; and Nick Alfred, Elkins Middle School assistant principal.

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