Columbus County Students Participate in 7th Congressional District Youth Summit

Kimley Graham, South Columbus High School, Canyon Gore, South Columbus High School, and Alan Ulrich, Columbus County Christian Academy, join U.S. Representative Mike McIntyre at his 7th District Congressional Youth Summit. Highlights of McIntyre's Youth Summit included: Featured speaker Dr. Holden Thorpe, UNC-Chapel Hill Dean of College of Arts and Sciences; Group discussion/debate on those issues which are affecting our youth today; and an inspirational challenge to the participants by Congressman McIntyre.

Miss South Columbus Pageant

The annual Miss South Columbus High School Scholarship pageant was held recently at SCHS. Click here to link to the South Columbus' website, where you'll find many photos of the event.

Battle of the Books

Congratulations to all of those who participated in Battle of the Books this year. The results were:


1st - Guideway Elementary
2nd - Hallsboro Middle
3rd - Williams Township

Goody's Volunteers Working at Chadbourn Elementary School

As one of the semi-finalists for the Goodies "Good Deeds" grant, Chadbourn Elementary School received 5 hours of volunteer service from a Goodies Employee on April 3, 2008. They worked with students in grades 2-4. Winners of the 10,000 dollar grant will be announced in May.

Columbus County Schools, Southeastern Early College receive National Awards

Columbus County Schools and Southeastern Early College received recognition recently at the American School Board Journal's Magna Awards.

(top photo)
Accepting on of the National Honorable Mention Magna Awards for their Beginning Teacher Support Program - from left to right are Superintendent - Dan Strickland, Licensure Specialist - Linda Gore, Columbus County Board of Education Vice-Chairman - Monte Herring, and Board Members - Norris Ebron and Junior Dew.

(bottom photo)
Pictured above are representatives from Columbus County Schools, Whiteville City Schools, and Southeastern Community College at the recent National School Board Association Conference in Orlando, Florida. Accepting one of the six (6) National Magna Awards for the "Southeastern Early College High School Partnership Program From left to right are: Southeastern Community College Board of Trustee Chairman - Rhone Sasser Southeastern Community College President - Kathy Matlock Southeastern Early College Principal - Laura Davis Whiteville City Board of Education Chairman - Carlton Prince Columbus County Board of Education Vice-Chairman - Monte Herring Columbus County Board of Education Members - Norris Ebron and Junior Dew Whiteville City Schools Superintendent - Randy Shaver Columbus County Schools Superintendent - Dan Strickland

The Magna Awards are given each year by a national committee from the American School Board Journal. Over 1,000 schools and school systems are considered for this most prestigious award.

South Columbus Art Students Create Claymations with Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council

Joy Lewis' advanced art students recently finished a two week long residency with filmmaker and animator John Lemmon of John Lemmon films. The students developed story lines and plot mountains, then created characters using oil based clays. After rehearsing, planning and creating scenery for their stories, the students, using DV cameras and software, created the movies with Mr. Lemmon's assistance. Many of the movies took over 1000 individual shots where the students would move the figure, take a photo, and then move the figure again. After the final product, the students added some simple sound effects. The equipment used in this grant will be used by other teachers to create claymation and traditional 2-d animation. See the films at http://www.jlf.com/socohi/SoCoHi_clayAni.html.

Math Leadership Team Conducts Workshops

Math teachers in grades 6, 7 and 8 took part in a math training session that was conducted by Columbus County Schools Middle School Math Leadership Team recently. The session included an in-depth study of of North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction's Middle Grades Math Support Documents, as well as hands-on activities.

Tabor City Middle , Hallsboro Artesia and Columbus County Schools Receive State Awards

Tabor City Middle and Hallsboro Artesia Elementary School received school "Trailblazer Awards" at a recent meeting of the North Carolina Association of School Administrators recently. Only three such awards were given in each category state-wide. In addition, Columbus County Schools received the only district Trailblazer Award for its progress in the 2006-2007 school year.

Chadbourn Elementary Music Concert

Students at Chadbourn Eleementary School performed for a packed gym recently. Their teacher is Meta Mercer.

Guideway's Beta Club Attends Academic Convention

Guideway Elementary's Jr. Beta Club attended the 16th Annual NC Junior Beta Club Academic Convention held in Greensboro, NC on February 4-5. The students entered numerous competitions and won 2nd place in the state for t-shirt design. Their design will be eligible to compete at the 12th Junior National Convention to be held at Myrtle Beach in June. The club's sponsor is Wanda Brooks.

Chadbourn Elementary Students Perform at Senior Center

Mrs. Ottie Jackson's First Grade and Mrs. Becky McCleney's Fourth Grade performed recently to a delighted audience at the Chadbourn Senior Center. The students are under the direction of Meta Mercer.

Abstinence Until Marriage Workshop

Mike Long, well known author and spokesperson held staff development session regarding how to effectively teach teenagers abstinence, February 13, 2008.

100th Day Celebration at Hallsboro-Artesia

In celebration of the 100th day of school, each student in Lynn Barnes' class created a t-shirt containing 100 items.

Old Dock Students Learn "EGG-cellent" Lesson about Engineering

Byron Tedder's 8th Grade science class conducted an experiment entitled "The Egg Protector".  Participants were instructed to build an egg protector using only rubber bands, paper clips, popsicle sticks, straws, an egg and tape.  The objective was to be able to drop the egg in the egg protector from 3 meters without breaking or cracking the egg.  Students were divided into two teams:  boys vs. girls.  Both egg protectors were successful. Students enjoyed performing the hands-on activity.  It helped illustrate the engineering design process by using the universal systems model which consists of the goal, input, process, output, and feedback.

Representative McIntyre Teaches Lesson at Acme Delco Middle

Representative Mike McIntyre gave students at Acme Delco Middle School a lesson about government recently as part of the Congress in the Classroom program. McIntyre spoke about the separation of powers and the important reasons why all citizens should be involved in electing their leaders. Mr. McIntyre also presented two checks to the Columbus County School Board totaling 3.8 million dollars for reading and technology grants.