L’view board honors spelling bee champ

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The Lincolnview Local Board of Education honored a two-time county spelling bee winner, as well as this year’s winner of the Van Wert Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Contest during its March meeting on Wednesday.

The board recognized Una VanWynsberghe, a seventh-grader at Lincolnview Junior High School, for winning the county spelling bee for the second year in a row.

VanWynsberghe will now move on to the regional contest this coming Saturday at the Indiana University-Purdue University regional campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The seventh-grader also won the regional competition last year, prior to finishing as a semifinalist in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

For her part, VanWynsberghe gave board members and administrators some “homework,” a list of 50 extremely difficult vocabulary questions she had to answer correctly to become a semifinalist in last year’s national spelling bee.

Una’s father, Dewey, said her spelling success is a “byproduct” of her love of reading.

“It’s a pretty awesome thing that we have Una representing Lincolnview, and I definitely wanted to take a minute here and honor her,” said Lincolnview Principal Brad Mendenhall.

Also honored was McKenzie Davis, winner of the Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Contest. Davis also performed a portion of her speech for board members about the importance of using the Four-Way Test (Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good will and better friendships? and Will it be beneficial to all concerned?) in everyday life.

Lincolnview Treasurer Troy Bowersock noted that tax revenues are up a bit during his report to the board, while Superintendent Jeff Snyder gave an update on the district community center project.

The superintendent said the district is currently seeking an architect to design the multi-million-dollar project, which will be constructed using existing school district funds.

Mendenhall and Elementary Principal Nita McKinney both talked about upcoming testing, while McKinney also noted that Lincolnview elementary students collected 400 pounds of plastic caps to be recycled by an organization in Fort Wayne into a “buddy bench” to be placed on school grounds prior to the 2017-18 school year.

McKinney noted that students collected so many caps they were able to donate some to Van Wert City Schools so students there could also have a buddy bench made.

Mendenhall also spoke of a career fair being held at Lincolnview on Thursday, April 6, to provide students with information on career options. A number of area business people will be involved in the fair, Mendenhall said.

“It will be an exciting day,” he added.

Legislative liaison Eric Germann also spoke briefly about the state biennial budget process, as well as legislation that would require teachers to do externships.

In other action, the board:

• Approved the 2017-18 school calendar, which will start and end at approximately the same times as the current school year.
• Employed Keith Hill as a substitute bus driver and Sharon Brincefield and Whitney Bigham as 21st Century bus drivers.
• Appointed McKinney as the district homeless liaison for next school year.
• Authorized depositing $201,525.50 in wind energy funds into a number of funds, including the General Fund and permanent improvement fund.
• Authorized retroactively an overnight trip for a Lincolnview wrestler and coaches to attend the Division III district wrestling tournament in Troy this past weekend, and an overnight trip by FFA members to the State FFA Convention in Columbus on May 4-5.
• Issued a supplemental contract to Ashley Miller as an assistant varsity softball coach, and also approved Steve Bollenbacher as a volunteer junior high softball coach.
• Accepted the resignation of vocational agriculture teacher Krista Seibert after three years in that position, effective the end of the current school year.

The next meeting of the Lincolnview Local Board of Education will be at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Neubrecht Lecture Hall.