The Humboldt County School Board of Trustees recognized a bevy of students, school resource officers and community members during the district’s Celebrations at the Nov. 12 meeting.
Assistant Superintendent Dawn Hagness started the recognitions by introducing the trustees to Global Express Coffee Manager Anna Rae Hammond and Assistant Manager Tracy Cramer. “These two have been very gracious in donating gift cards to each of our schools and administrators to each site all year long as their way of saying thank you and supporting education, supporting our educators.” Hagness said Global Express donates 10 gift cards per month to each school site. “We appreciate your donation on behalf of all of our employees in Humboldt County School District and want to make sure the rest of the community knows what you're doing to support our educators.”
School Superintendent Dr. Dave Jensen took up the recognition talking stick to recognize the district’s three School Resources Officers: Officer Dan Shea who is the SRO at French Ford Middle School and Winnemucca Junior High School; Officer Tom Merschel who is the SRO for all rural schools and McDermitt Combined K-12; and Officer Sergio Cabada who is the SRO for Lowry High School.
“I'm going to start with Tom,” Jensen said. “I met with the teacher in Denio Elementary School … and she shared an incident in which two students were having some conflict and the recommendation of the principal was to have Mr. Mershcal come in and engage with those students.” Jensen said the teacher was very nervous about the outcome but when Officer Merschal met with the two students, the teacher said she had to “acknowledge it was the best thing that could have ever happened.”
Jensen then talked about Officer Cabada. “As we know,” Jensen says, “being our largest school, a lot of our issues and incidents are at Lowry High School. As I've visited with the administration at Lowry [Officer Cabada] is so willing to engage our staff and our students and when there's issues. He’s the first one to be there to work to resolve it and so that visibility piece is making a difference and an impact on our students and we can't thank Sergio enough for being there and doing that.”
Jensen praised Officer Shea’s contribution to school safety. “At the junior high school, we start to see more behavior incidents ... kids tend to start trying some new things and engaging in behaviors at times and to have a police officer that is there to immediately provide that support, to support parents and teachers and the administration and to help our students to learn about correct behaviors.”
Hagness continued the celebrations by calling Lowry High School students Sierra Fears, Allyson Aiken, and Ashton Kalkoske who have successfully completed a veterinary assistant certification program through the Texas Veterinary Medical Association. Lowry Agriculture teacher Rebecca Hill described the program to the trustees. “It's a year-long curriculum that was through the Texas A & M as well as supplement curriculum from myself. They also had to spend over 300 hours of their own time working at a veterinary clinic and then they had to pass the examination in order to receive the certificate.”
The final group the trustees recognized were the Future Farmers of America. “Our FFA students just attended nationals in Indianapolis ... I am so impressed by the work that goes into what you do to prepare for an event like this. It was amazing. This group ended up second in the nation in ag issues.” FFA members include Dillon Patterson, Isaac Mori, Brett Ferraro, Alison Aiken, Mick Coleman, Taylie Hoyt.
MICHELLE COOK • The Humboldt Sun
Future Farmers of America members Dillon Patterson, Isaac Mori, Leah Mori, Brett Ferraro, Alison Aiken, Mick Coleman, Taylie Hoyt, Rebecca Hill, Chairwoman Glenda Deputy. The FFA members took second at nationals in agriculture issues.
MICHELLE COOK • The Humboldt Sun
Chairwoman Glenda Deputy presents Global Express Manager Anna Rae Hammond and Assistant Manager Tracy Cramer recognition awards for supporting teachers with gift cards.
MICHELLE COOK • The Humboldt Sun
Chairwoman Glenda Deputy presents Lowry High School students Sierra Fears, Allyson Aiken, and Ashton Kalkoske. These students have successfully completed a veterinary assistant certification program through the Texas Veterinary Medical Association.
MICHELLE COOK • The Humboldt Sun
Officer Dan Shea who is the SRO at French Ford Middle School and Winnemucca Junior High School; Officer Tom Merschel who is the SRO for all rural schools and McDermitt Combined K-12; Chairwoman Glendy Deputy; and Officer Sergio Cabada who is the SRO for Lowry High School.
