Spring Meeting

Conway AGATE
Spring Meeting
Monday, April 6th
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall
(Corner of Prince & Mitchell Sts., across the street from C.H.S. East)
Reception at 6:30 pm • Meeting begins at 7:00 pm

The Conway chapter of Arkansans for Gifted and Talented Education (AGATE) offers parents and educators a chance to discuss and support educational issues that are important to gifted students.

This will be our spring business meeting to elect officers and to plan for the 2009-10 school year. This is a great chance for you to get more information about Conway AGATE. You will have a chance to learn more about programs like Quiz Bowl, Faulkner County Spelling Bee, Destination ImagiNation, History Day and the Chess Tournament.

We will also have a presentation on the Conway Public Schools Foundation, a non-profit that is being established to provide an endowment for the school district.

Summer opportunities

There are a number of summer learning opportunities for our students. Please leave a comment if you can suggest other programs which readers might like to know about.

SLUFY (Summer Laureate University for Youth) is a program run by UALR. Information and applications for it can be found at this website: http://ualr.edu/slufy/index.php/home/slufy-2008/ (or Google SLUFY). This is a non-residential program.

Halberg Ecology Camp is a residential camp (stay at the camp for a week) sponsored by the Arkansas Audubon Society. Information about this camp can be found at this website: http://www.arbirds.org/halberg_ecology_camp.html (or Google Halberg Ecology Camp).

Busy March Weekend

This was a busy weekend for students in our area. Among the opportunities were

Regional Destination ImagiNation

Chess Tournament

Regional History Day competition

It sounds like everything went well on each competition!

Awards from AGATE Conference

A teacher and two students from Conway were recognized with awards at last week's annual AGATE conference in Little Rock.

Melissa Ennis won the 2009 Educator Award for her involvement with Odyssey of the Mind, Quiz Bowl, Chess Club, mentoring future educators from Hendrix College and Holland, and organizing an elementary Kid to Kid conference. Mrs. Ennis is the GT specialist at Marguerite Vann.

Robbie Powell, an 8th grade student at Bob Courtway received the Youth Challenger Award for his work on the "Live 4 Ben" campaign raising money and awareness of NBIA, a degenerative brain disorder that affected his close friend.

Emily Bullington is a 5th grade student at Simon Intermediate who raised over $18,000 for emergency food supplies and to build an orphanage in Africa. She has received money from all over the world by giving away cups of lemonade and accepting donations for her cause.

Congratulations to all three of our award winners!

Junior High State Quiz Bowl finals

The Conway High School East 9th grade Quiz Bowl team, coached by C.H.S. East Pre-AP English teacher Paula McKee, was undefeated at the 7A Junior High State Quiz Bowl finals on Feb. 28, and claimed the first place trophy.

Their captain, Parker West, was the MVP for the tournament. The team has had a great season, placing second in the 7A regional tournament, and 1st in the Fort Smith invitational. The team members work very well together, and Mrs.
McKee is very encouraging and is great at going to bat for them when they need to challenge a decision during play.

Most of these students have played Quiz Bowl together since the 6th grade, and some even as far back as elementary, and they have a great career record:

6th grade - 2nd place in the finals
7th grade - 1st place in the finals
8th grade - 2nd place in the finals
9th grade - 1st place in the finals

Team members are:

Jolyon Larson, Devon Conrad, Eileen Ablondi, Vincent SenCair, Parker West, and coach Paula McKee.