Mr. Matlick Kisses A Donkey

Student Council is a great program for every school district and has been for many years. The Student Council at Chester Boren Middle School in Centralia, MO, is sponsored by Donna Simkins, middle school special education teacher. Simkins has been involved with the program for three years, and this is her first year as STUCO chairperson. Sixth grade teachers Mary Hutton and Kelly Blackwell also help out with the program.

Over the years, STUCO has been a popular club and has averaged about 40 members every year. This year is different--STUCO's membership set an all-time high at 140 members! Simkins stated, "I was very excited about the amount of students who were participating in the Student Council this year.  With that many students participating, I knew we were going to do some great things. Many students who did not sign up came up to me and asked to join later in the year."  Simkins just hopes to continue to maintain a high number of members in the future.

Just like every program/club, there are leadership roles. The middle school Student Council has three officers. This year's president is 7th grader Carter Simkins. Vice-President is 7th grader Ashley Fuller, and the secretary is 8th grader Mary Kate Sullivan. These officers hold STUCO meetings the first and third Wednesday of every month at 7:45 a.m. in the library.

Student Council is all about activities, having good times, doing good deeds for the school and community and making dreams come true. Some of the traits students should possess to become a member include participation, school spirit, personal time, hard work and, most importantly, dedication. Student Council members usually tend to have strong character.

To be a member, there are no specific qualifications that have to be met other than coming to all of the meetings and participating in the projects. Character Tuesday is an outstanding activity in which STUCO participates. Student Council distributes certificates called "Character Cash" to students who are caught showing good character traits during the school day. On Character Tuesdays, every student who was picked for showing good character on display has his or her name put into a drawing to have the chance to win a certificate that gets them one item at the snack bar at lunch.

Other activities that are held by the Student Council include dances and spirit days. Student Council sponsors two dances every year, one being the "Back to School" dance and the fall dance. Money earned from these dances is put toward various items the students pick and vote on at the beginning of the year. This year the students voted on getting banners for all of the various types of sports played at their school. These banners were used at games and parades, but they can usually be found in the gym. Also, leftover money from the dances, along with money from the CBMS Builders Club, will be put toward wood to build picnic tables for the CBMS school grounds.

CBMS Stu-Co 2013 Kick-off

Another CBMS Student Council activity is the food drive for the Central and Northeast Missouri Food Bank. This year CBMS was named the "2013 Make A Difference Day Middle School Champions." CBMS received a traveling trophy, raising 12.51 pounds of food per student, beating out Smithton School who had been undefeated  four years in a row! CBMS has about 300 participants, when Smithton has about 1,000. This was a very impressive win for CBMS students.  Students donated more than 660 food items and more than $800 in cash. The money for the donations was raised by community donations and student creativity.  Brytan Webb, a sixth grader, raised $145 by holding a 50/50 raffle at a campground picnic. Also, members of the CBMS staff participated in an activity call "Kiss the Donkey" competition. The "loser" who raised the most money would have to kiss a donkey at a morning assembly. Students voted on their candidate by putting money in jars to select staff members for the donkey kiss. The staff members who participated were Brandon Kinkead, Leah Rolfson, Tim Motley, Mike Adkisson, Mary Hutton, Vince Matlick, and Tyler Forsee. The first place winner of the competition was Vince Matlick, who had to kiss the donkey for 20 seconds! In second place, was Mary Hutton. She had to sit on the donkey. The third place winner was Brandon Kinkead, who had to kiss the donkey on the cheek.

Simkins stated, "One activity I really enjoyed was the STUCO Spirit Night at the Knights of Columbus park." The KOC donated all the food and beverages.  They made a bonfire, and all the students sang karaoke.  "It was great bonding time for the kids, and they had tons of fun," said Simkins.

The Student Council is also involved in the "Pack with Panthers," which includes putting up posters throughout the school to encourage students to participate in activities. Students also lined the halls with flags before the Veterans Day assembly to make the veterans feel welcome. Each veteran was given a flag to show the school's appreciation. They called it the "Value our Veterans" activity.

STUCO also has appreciation days.  These days include giving gifts to all the staff members at CBMS. Some appreciation days at CBMS include Cook's Day, Counselor's Day, Custodian's Day, Administrator's Day, Secretary's Day, Nurse's Day and Teacher's Day.

During the holidays, STUCO is a busy club. During the fall, STUCO participated in  a community project called "Trick or Treat Street."  During this activity, students donated candy and dressed up in their costumes. Over 100 children received candy from STUCO members and were entertained by dressed-up members. During the month of December, STUCO is involved in two activities:  Secret Santa and Santa Workshop. The students act as secret Santas for the staff at CBMS. During the workshop this year, 25 eighth grade members helped out at Santa's Workshop at CHS, which was on December 7. They told stories, made crafts, had a treat table and played games with the children third grade and younger.

Additionally, the middle school  STUCO had a big heart during the "Giving Tree" activity, which was very heartwarming. The kids at CBMS raised money on their own time to help feed 26 underprivileged families a holiday meal. Each meal included a ham or turkey, rolls, potatoes, stuffing, apple or pumpkin pie, oranges or apples and canned vegetables.

Projects that the CBMS STUCO members look forward to in the future are "Panther Shop," a field trip to the Missouri State Penitentiary, a trip to Bonkers, a talent show, and Situational Awareness.

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Katie Patton, CHS World History teacher and Student Council sponsor, is a creative teacher who thinks of new and exciting ways to teach her students about other countries. On April 1 and 2, Patton had her students pick out a unique recipe of food from the list of countries they were studying, create the dish, and bring it to class to share with their classmates.

Patton is a big traveler, and she likes to try the different types of food wherever she goes.  She said, "Since I cannot take my students to all the countries we study, I thought we'd bring the countries to Centralia."

When describing how she thought this project would benefit her students, Patton explained, "I feel this project allows the students to try different things, getting a taste of the world. I usually find we have some amazing chefs among us. Exposure to other countries is always important and finding different ways to be exposed to the outside world can be a challenge, but I think food is a pretty universal language. It allows the students to see where some of our own food derives from and how other countries are not so different from ourselves."

When they brought in the food, students were asked to give a background about what they made by answering the following questions: What is the food called? Where is it from? When is it traditionally eaten? What are the ingredients? How did you make it?

Food examples included Baklava from both Albania and Greece; Tortilla Espanola from Spain; Italian cookies; Margherita Pizza from Italy; Jam Kolaches from Poland; Birchermuesli from Switzerland; sweet bread from Portugal; Cannoli from Italy; Italian meat sauce and Italian Alfredo sauce; Bruschetta from Italy; German potato salad; layered apple cake (Yabluchnyk) from the Ukraine; potato dumplings from Norway; Raderkuchen from Germany; and much more.

After presenting information about the various types of food, students were then given a sample of each recipe to try for themselves.