1000 x 90

Banner Elk Chamber Congratulates Essay Winners

Left to Right- Tracy Grit, Katherine Haas, Sarah Gatewood, Emma Blair, Richard McGuire
Left to Right- Tracy Grit, Katherine Haas, Sarah Gatewood, Emma Blair, Richard McGuire

Nov. 14, 2014. Richard McGuire, president of the Banner Elk Chamber of Commerce, congratulated the winners of a short essay contest at the Banner Elk Elementary School. The BE Chamber has a tradition of donating $500 to the elementary school each year for the principal to use and his discretion. This year, a short essay contest was held amongst the students to decide on what the money should fund.

The winner, fourth grader Emma Blair, chose to use the money to purchase additional robot building supplies for Project Lead the Way. Two runners up in the essay contest were: Sarah Gatewood and Katherine Hass.

Banner Elk Elementary School is pleased to be a pilot school for Project Lead the Way, a program dedicated to teaching hands-on science and technology.

Principal Tracy Grit showed the chamber some of the robot building supplies. The donated money was used to purchase two additional sets of supplies so that each team of robot builders will be four children or less; allowing more hands-on participation for each child.

Mr. Grit explained that each group of fourth and fifth graders will follow instructions to build one of these robots, and learn to write code on iPads to control the robot.

The Chamber of Commerce was pleased to be able to support this project.