grade selection. They were introduced and presented the prestigious award by two Kansas students. In their acceptance speeches, they both told of their childhoods and the important influence books and reading had on their lives. Lisa Harkrader thanked the kids for their votes and mak-ing her third grade dream of becoming a

‘famous’ author come true. Recognition of individual schools and students, along with the announcement of the poster contest and school-spirit winners, wrapped up the event. Jeff West

6th grader, Kayla Davis, received a certificate for h e r a c h i e v e -ment of reading all the titles on both the 3rd-5th grade and the 6th-8th grade lists last year. Quentin Guerra, 4th grade, won second place in the poster con-test for his 3-D representation of the 3rd-5th grade nominee title, “Let Them

Play.” He received a T-shirt imprinted with the official William Allen White Award medallion. And even though we did not officially win the ‘school-spirit award’ this year, we felt we upheld the tradition started with our school’s winning of the first, An-nual School-Spirit Award ever given.

Tiger TalkNews & Highlights of USD 340 ■ Vol. 11, No. 4 November 2008

Postal Patron

Jefferson West U.S.D. 340P.O. Box 267Meriden, Kansas 66512ECRWSS

NON-PROFITORGANIZATIONU.S. POSTAGE

P A I DPermit No. 2

Meriden, KS 66512

Marching in a parade on a beautiful ‘Indian summer’ fall day with 35 spirited Jeff West Kids improvising cheers (“Read ‘em up, Tigers!”) and enjoying the help of 13 wonderful parent sponsors, was a highlight of this year’s 56th Annual William Allen White Children’s Book Awards Ceremonies. Following a morning of on-campus ac-tivities, meeting the 2008 winning au-thors at their book signing, & eating pizza in the gazebo overlooking Woost-er Lake at Emporia State University, we participated in the parade down-town to the civic center. When we arrived, students viewed and voted on their favorite posters represent-ing a book on the 2007-2008 WAW nominee lists, which had been submitted earlier by students across Kansas and displayed in the auditorium. Skits by Emporia students, depicting scenes from the winning titles kicked off the

award ceremony. Ann M. Martin’s “A Dog’s Life: The Autobiography of a Stray” was voted by Kansas students as their favorite book on the 3rd-5th grade nominee list for 2008 and Kansas’s own, L.D Harkrader, of Tonganoxie, won with her first novel, “Airball: My Life in Briefs” for the 6th-8th

School Spirit on Parade

Photo by Jessica Martin

Homecoming 2008 Royalty is Crowned Homecoming royalty were Hilary Mumaw and Kyle Sanders. We would like to give special recognition to our 2008 Homecoming Parade Grand Marshal, Donald Kresie. Mr. Kresie was a member of the 1937 graduating class of Meri-den High School. A special thanks to Leslie Anderson and the Alumni Association for assistance with the selection of the earliest Jeff West graduate.

Second grade students visited Gary’s Berries Pumpkin Patch to enjoy a hayride to the pumpkin patch, pick out their own pumpkin, and then an apple cider slushie to cool down! We had a great time and fol-lowed up by doing pumpkin estimations/observations with Mr. Frank Sayles.

Calendar changes• Blooddriveatthehighschoolchanged

from Nov. 11 to Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

• Nov.3–MSGirls’BasketballagainstSt. Marys listed as away but is a home game.

Friday and Saturday, Nov. 21 and 22 at 7 p.m., the curtain will rise on another Jeff West High School musical, The Fantasticks, music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. The Fantasticks is the longest running musical (or play for that matter) in theatre history. It opened off Broadway at the Sul-livan Street Playhouse on May 3, 1960 and had its final show there on January 13, 2002. The Fantasticks closed after 17,162 performances and ran through the terms of 10 U.S. Presidents, spanning almost 42 years. In 2006 the musical was revived in New York and is currently doing eight shows a week, performing over 794 shows to date. (October 15, 2008) The Fantasticks has played in every state, in more than 11,103 U.S. productions in over 2,000 cit-ies and towns. Internationally, more than 700 productions have been staged in 67 nations and it has been translated into

many languages including Pashto, Dari, French, German, Danish, Finnish, Icelan-dic, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Czech, Slovac, Faris, Irish, Italian, Magyar, Thai, and Mandarin. The story deals with two parents who put up a wall between their houses to en-sure that their children fall in love, because they know that children always do what their parents forbid. The parents must end the “false” feud with the help of El Gallo and his troupe of misfit actors, staging a fake abduction of the girl so that the boy can come to her rescue and the two be able to fall in love. After the children do fall in love, they discover their parents’ plot and separate, going off to experience the world on their own. They return to each other and the love they had, having learned that the world can be “a not so nice place” and that the grass is not always greener on the other

The Fantasticks to play at JW in November

See Fantasticks Page 2

Pumpkin Patch is More Than Just

Pumpkins!

• Nov.18–MSGirls’BasketballagainstRossville listed as away but is a home game.

• December11&13–Big7MSGirls’Basketball League Tournament. 8th graders will play at Sabetha and 7th Graders will play in Hiawatha

On Tuesday Sept. 23, Jeff West Stuco hosted a Regional Student Council Conference for KSHAA. 22 schools from the surrounding area sent students and sponsors for a day of leadership training. Keynote speaker Rob Miller from Proactive Coaching, spoke on sevenwaystolead–BeFirst...BeLast. 1. Be first to lead by example and be last to violate team standards. 2. Be first to be a lifeline of communication and be last to withhold information. 3. Be first to praise others and be last to brag or draw at-tention to yourself. 4. Be first to protect and defend and last to criticize. 5. Be first to confront viola-tions of team standards and last to ignore problems. 6. Be first to encourage and last to become discouraged. 7. Be first to serve and last to be served. The day was an overwhelming success supported by many facets of Jeff West High School. Coach Johnson generously gave up his classroom for the day. JWHS Lakeside Singers wowed the crowd performing a variety of songs. Booster Club hosted the hospital-ity room for the sponsors providing delicious munchies. JWHS Kitchen Staff provided the cookies they are becoming famous for. And last, but not least, the Student Council did an excellent job of organizing and running the conference. Although it was the first time Stuco had taken on such a large challenge, it certainly won’t be the last.

and John Riley, AD, hosted a media event/school assem-bly in honor of the award. The Dairy Council provide chocolate milk for all! Here at Jeff West, alumni

to future tigers,

from our kids

to our coaches, we proudly proclaim that we’ve

“Got Milk!”

Thanks to a suggestion made by Board Member Dreana McClurg

and the fast action of our boys basket-ball team,

the 2008 Shoot for Three/Got Milk cam-paign hosted by the Jeff West Health Committee and Stuco received national recognition. For the community effort promoting adding three dairy products to your diet everyday they received $1,000 for our athletic department and $1,000 for Addidas products for our bas-ketball team. National representatives from Refuel: Body by Milk, Principal Rhonda Frakes,

Ladies and Gentlemen:Start Your Leadership!

Photo by Adrienne Bell

Tiger Talk■ Page 2News & Highlights of USD 340

Cheryl Harness Has it Right! “History is NOT boring!” Cheryl Harness has “10 Big Fat Reasons for Studying His-tory!” to share with us during her author visit Nov. 3. Believing that “history is our in-heritance,” she will share her love of history in her usual lively style to persuade us it is worthwhile and interesting to read about people who are ‘long gone.’ This remarkable author from Independence, Missouri, will be visiting with our K-5 students, combin-ing history and humor with her peppy presentation as she talks about her writing and illustrating career, demonstrates her drawing (we are hoping for a picture of our founding father for the library,) and maybe even plays her harmonica for us. Cheryl writes about exciting times in America and the men and women who rose to great achievement during those times. She wants students to know they, too, can achieve if

they involve themselves in the process of learning. She wants the kids to remember the words of President Calvin Coolidge, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.” In the past 20+ years, Ms. Harness has had a bountiful harvest of books on impor-tant events and personalities in American history. Varied illustrating styles and differ-ent techniques for presenting her in-depth research make each book a unique feast of fact and fancy. Cheryl says her ‘fun’ is what she gets to do for her living. In her words, “If someone had told my 10-year-old self that I would get to stay home and read, write, and draw all day. I’d have said, “Oh thank you! thank you, Fairy Godmother!” She promises an interesting and educa-tional experience that will engage our kids’ imaginations. I feel sure she will deliver

side of the fence. Music from the show includes the favorites, “Try To Remember,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” “Much More”, and “I Can See It.” These songs also went on to be recorded by Barbra Streisand for one of her Grammy winning albums. The cast for The Fantasticks include Josh Fritz as El Gallo, Britany Morgan as Luisa, Ethan Donovan as Matt, Amanda Welsh as Matt’s Parent, Clara Kuenne as Luisa’s Par-ent, Chris Welsh as Henry the old actor, Ginny Johnson as Mortimer the Indian, Holly Reed as The Mute, and Stage Manager for the produc-tion is Chris Baker.

Fantasticks(continued from page 1)

Students at the Fair to Earn FareHave you seen any of these Jeff West physics students dressed in medieval garb and working at the turkey booth at the Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs? Front row, from left: Megan Strube, Lydia Clark, Ivy Bruton, Ashley Eckhart. Back row: Lucas Shenk, Matt Debus, Angel Benton, Trey Bruton. Physics students work to earn money toward an April trip to Fermilab and Chicago.

Body by Milk National Award goes to Jeff West!

Jefferson West Kin-dergarteners visited the Rock Creek Fire Station in Meriden on Thursday, Oct. 9.

Fire!Fire!Fire!

on that promise and invite any adults who are free on that Monday to join us for a fun time at the Intermediate School from 10 to 11 a.m. or at the Elementary School, with kindergarten and first graders at 1 p.m. and second and third graders at 2 p.m. Cheryl will offer special pricing and autographs on three of her books at this event. Quotes used and information found at www.cherylharness.com

Eggstravegant plans went into action at the Jeff West Middle school as students in Science Explorations created space crafts to

protect eggs when thrown from the roof of the building. Challenged to create such crafts us-ing only recycled materials, students created some very unique and unusual crafts. The rate of success was high as most “Eggstronauts” survived, while some did end up fried. The exercise was then followed with a little writing as the students wrote “eggcep-

Science Fair is Large and Varied On Friday, Oct. 3, the 4th and 5th grade students participated in the 3rd annual Jeff West Science Day. The students attended four 35 minute sessions that taught lessons based on the local science outcomes and incorporated hands-on activities to reinforce the lesson objec-tive. Some of the lessons included: the forces that change the Earth’s crust, exploring sound and

how different pitches are cre-ated, and how to reduce the use of plastic bags in favor of reusable bags to help protect the environment. T h e students then had the oppor-tunity to spend two 35 minute

sessions in the Exhibit Hall. The Exhibit Hall was housed in the gym and contained different hands-on activities that the students could interact with. Examples of activities in the Exhibit Hall included: explor-ing force and mo-tion using differ-ent sized marbles, edible solar sys-tem models, and whether items will dissolve faster in warm or cold water. T h e e v e n t brought in stu-dents from John Dewey Learning Academy to teach lessons on reducing the use of plastics as well as Jeff West High School students to teach lessons on cells, animals, food chains and food webs. Over 15 parents and community volunteers donated their time to help with activities in the Exhibit Hall. The day was a great success and was fun as well as educational.

Tiger Talk ■ Page 3News & Highlights of USD 340

During the October Board of Education (BoE) meeting, the BoE engaged in a VERY

preliminary dis-cussion of the merits and the demerits of pos-sibly bringing the intermedi-ate and elemen-tary schools to-gether into one building. This topic has been kicked around several times over the years; most recently

the concept came out of the community-based District Strategic Planning Com-mittee work completed during the fall of 2007. That particular time, the concept was dovetailed in with the idea of creating a K-8 attendance center, but the discussion Monday night only concentrated on the idea

Supt. Scott Myers

From the Superintendent

Feedback Desired for Unificationof bringing the K-5 grades together. It is important to stress that absolutely NO decision has been made at this time regarding this, so, of course, there is no real timeline for it either. Along with all of that, the BoE deeply believes that this topic MUST be discussed in as open a man-ner as possible, always looking to glean opinions and information from the greater educational community. Toward that end, the BoE is issuing an open invitation to our patrons to voice their opinions on this issue. Over the next few weeks, we will be eliciting your views on this matter in a variety of ways, so please be on the look out for those opportunities. Immediately, though, you are welcome to contact us with your thoughts by sending comments to Amy Adams-Mitchell, the Clerk of the Board, (amy.adams-mitchell@usd340.org). The comments will ultimately be compiled and then reported to the BoE during the DECEMBER BoE meeting. The extended deadline is being used to allow ample op-

You’re Invited!Please come!

Who: Families Interested in Hosting German StudentsWhat: An Informational MeetingWhen: 6 p.m., Wednesday, November 19, 2008Where: USD 340 Board Office 601 E. Wyandotte Meriden, KansasWhy: 15 German Students will visit JWHS from April 18-29, 2009

Front row left to right: Nicci Feyh, Katie Ricklefs, Josey Sands, Kelly St. John, Carrie Finson, and Krista Revelle. Back row: Coach Jackson, Crystal Chambers, mgr. Tabatha Bell, Marci Greene, Jennifer Harvey, Heather Ice, and Nikole Perine.

The Jefferson West Freshmen Volleyball Team won the Big 7 League championship at Nemaha Valley Saturday, Sept. 27. After coming out of their pool in 2nd place with a loss to Sabetha and wins against Hiawatha and Royal Valley, the Lady Tigers defeated

Jeff West Freshmen win Big 7 TournamentHolton in the semi-final round to face Sa-betha again in the Championship Round. They finished the tournament by beating Sabetha 25-14, 26-24 to take home the gold medals.

On October 8 JWMS FCCLA had 38 members travel to Hiawatha for the Fall Leadership Academy. Over 200 students were in attendance from the 13 schools in the E-West District. The JWMS received several honors as 25 members (100% of those who took the test) received Step One recognition for completing the Web Quest test over FCCLA facts. JWMS was se-

lected to receive recognition this day for the school that had the most paid new FCCLA members who had joined the chapter. The JWMS FCCLA began their new chapter last year and this year recruited 30 new members and retained 11 from last year’s membership of 48. Madison Fangman serves as the only middle school student

who is a member of the district E-West officer team, as only one student from the entire district is selected to this position. Her duties have included attending of-ficer planning meetings and assisting in leading the District Summer Leadership Academy and the District Fall Leadership Academy.

portunity for everyone to voice his or her opinions about this idea. There are a variety of issues for consid-eration regarding the possible bringing of the two buildings together. This informa-tion I am providing is by no means meant to be an all-inclusive list of considerations, but it will serve as a jumping off spot for ev-eryone. In no particular order, the BoE did talk about the following: space constraints, student safety, the emotions associated with this sort of adjustment, the value of not splitting the building principal’s time between two attendance centers, the traffic flow associated with the increase of students at a single building, and the fiscal savings that would be realized by making this move. Like I said previously, I know there are many other aspects for consid-eration regarding the idea of bringing the two attendance centers together, so please do provide us with your feedback. It will be taken very seriously.

Students Attend Leadership Academy

tance” speeches for the returning egg heroes. Those that did not survive wrote endearing eulogies. Students enrolled in the class are given hands on opportunities to extend what is learned in the core science classes. Other activities include water powered rockets, Rube Goldberg machines, bridge building, and CO2 powered race cars. The class is taught by both Mr. Kimberlin and Mr. Sturgeon.

Eggstronauts InvadE JW

Tiger Talk■ Page 4News & Highlights of USD 340

Scott Myers Superintendent Mary Getto, Director of Curriculum & Instruction Amy Adams-Mitchell, Board Clerk/Secretary Marcia Ricklefs, Accounts/Treasurer Dayna Heineken, CentralOfficeSecretary/StudentData

Collections

Tiger Talk

Tiger Talk is brought to you by UnifiedSchoolDistrict#340.Ifyou have suggestions or ques-tions, please contact the central office staff at 601 Wyandotte, Meriden, KS or call (785) 484-3444. The persons listed to the right will serve you in any way they can.

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

PDC Meeting–3:30

MS Girls’ BKB 7B at Effingham– 4 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 8A, 7A at Perry– 4 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 8B at Sabetha– 4 pm

BOE Meeting–7 pm

JV Scholars’ Bowl at Wamego–3:30 pm

MS WR at Holton–4 pm

1st Day Practice Winter Sports–3:30 pm

Fall Play Tech Week–6 pm

Winter Sports Parent Meeting, WR/BKB–7 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 7A,B at Sa-betha– 4 pm

MS Girls BKB 8A,B Sabetha– 4 pm (H)

Fall Play Tech Week–6 pm

FB Sub State

HS Musical “The Fantastics”– 7 pm

MS WR at Silver Lake–8:15 am

MS Girls’ BKB 7A, 8A at Holton– 9 am

Start of Tech Week/Musical– 10 am

MS Girls’ BKB 8A,7A, 7B/8B Rossville–4 pm (H)

MS WR RC/Onaga/St Marys–4:30 (H)

8th Parent Night

Fall Play Tech Week–6 pm

Var Scholars’ Bowl at Wamego–4 pm

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Midquarter Progress Reports Sent Home

PLAN Test–8 am

Fall Blood Drive–9 am

FFA Leadership School at Sabetha–9 am

Big 7 Fall Coaches Sports Meeting/Supper–6:30 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 7B at Effingham– 4 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 8B at Sabetha– 4 pm

SB Meal–5:30 pm

Fall Sports Awards Night–7 pm

FB Sectionals

MS WR at Rossville –8:30 am

HS Musical “The Fantastics”– 7 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 7A,B Hiawatha– 4 pm (H)

MS Girls’ BKB 8A,B at Hiawatha–4 pm

MS WR at Oskie–4 pm

NO SCHOOL & NO KATS—Thanksgiving Break

State FB

30

KSHSAA Buffer Week

FCCLA Cluster Meeting

1st Dry Tech-Musical– 1 pm

ES Country Store

Fall Play Tech Week–6 pm

KSHSAA Buffer Week

2 3 4 5 6 7 8Jostens Graduation

Order Due

Dec. ACT Registration Due

FB Regionals

Dist/State Band/Chorus

Jostens Graduation Meeting– 8:30 am

Dec SAT Registration Due

Skills USA Fruit/Cheese Sales

MS Girls’ BKB 7B/8B, 7A/8A St. Marys–4:30 pm (H)

NHS Induction–7 pm MS Girls’ BKB 7A,B at Holton– 4 pm

MS Girls’ BKB 8A,B Holton– 4 pm (H)

MS WR RV/Hiaw/P. Ridge– 4 pm (H) at HS

4th Grade Music Program– 7 pm

CC State

SAT Test

1 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

Dec SAT Registration Due

Booster Club Meeting at ES– 7 pm