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FROM STAFF REPORTS
SEVIERVILLE — Elementary, middle, and high school students enrolled in TEACH Beta Clubs
attended a regional Beta Leadership Summit, hosted by the National Beta Club at Wilderness at the Smokies on September 23-24 and walked away with several awards.
The mission of the Tri-Cities Education Association for Christian Homeschoolers (TEACH) is to serve as a Christ-centered cooperative learning environment that supports homeschooling families. They equip families to successfully homeschool their children by providing age-appropriate opportunities for educational, social, service, and athletic activities.
The National Beta Club is one of the largest non-profit, independent educational youth organizations in the U.S. For 80+ years, it has operated to “prepare today’s students to be tomorrow’s leaders.”
Beta Leadership Summits are events that consist of group activities, sessions with guest speakers and competitions of team-building events, all focused on developing students into well rounded leaders.
TEACH Elementary, Junior and Senior clubs took home four awards each and qualified to compete at the National Beta Club Summit in three categories. Four awards were received by Elementary (4th-5th graders), Junior (6th-8th graders) and Senior (9th-12th graders) Beta Clubs including National Beta Outstanding Leadership School.
The TEACH Beta Clubs also received National Beta Outstanding Leadership School, National Qualifier Awards for Project Proposal, Collaboration Connection and Lead Outside the Box at the Leadership Summit.
Elementary students Skylar Hendricks, Shanning Hendricks, Berkley Jones, Cole Reece and Mason Townsend received a National Qualifier Award in the Project Proposal challenge. For this challenge, teams of three to five students identified, designed, and created a new service project proposal that addresses at least one real community need. Clubs showcased that community need and highlighted the creative service project proposal in an expo format at the summit.
These students developed a service project entitled “Umpires and Referees Need Love Too,” in which they created and delivered care packages to East Tennessee USSSA Tri-Cities UIC, Stan Ramsey.
Ramsey said, “I always love it when my umpires get recognition and this was super special. “Amazing gestures like this from young people make it worthwhile and that’s why every single one of us is out here……for the kids!”
Junior Beta members created their “Project Proposal” for the planning and development of a Carter County Unity Celebration to be held in January 2022. Participating Junior Beta members were Mira Davis, Trinity Davis, Rowan Gray, Camden Marr, Abigail Marvin, Elizabeth Mindemann, and Carter Reece.
Senior Beta’s “Project Proposal” was for a Prom Promise event to be held in the Spring. Senior participating members were Emma Carpenter, Samantha Kendall, McKenna Marr, and Kaleigh Ramsey.
Additionally, these students received a National Qualifier Award for “Collaboration Connection” in which teams of 5 to 8 students engaged in quick, creative, and critical thinking challenges.
The team members had to think on their feet by applying collaborative leadership skills and making connections to produce a response in a given time frame.
Lastly, students received a National Qualifier Award in the “Lead Outside the Box” challenge. For “Lead Outside the Box,” teams of four students were given a real-world problem at the beginning of the summit. On the second day of the summit, teams gave a two-minute presentation of how they solved the given problem followed by a question and answer segment.
“We are so excited about the awards they won, but we are even more proud of them for the collaboration, responsibility, commitment, and leadership they demonstrated at this event,” said Jilian Reece, TEACH Beta Sponsor.
TEACH Beta Clubs are led by Nicole Kendall, Carter County Drug Prevention Drug-Free Communities Coordinator, and Jilian Reece, Carter County Drug Prevention Executive Director, in partnership with Carter County Drug Prevention’s Youth Leadership Coalition.
“Our youth leadership program allows homeschool students to participate in Beta, 4H and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Clubs which all assist in developing valuable skills to create community leaders,” Reece added.
Learn more about Carter County Drug Prevention at www.CarterCountyDrugPrevention.com and National Beta Club offerings and events at www.betaclub.org.