High School News
Food Drive
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The Aledo Junior and Senior High Schools combined efforts for a two-school food drive. The students received community help and support during the drive. Thank you to everyone for your support! Students started their drive with a two-school assembly at AHS gym on January 20th.
Faculty and students from both schools were teamed together: Blue team -seniors with all staff from both buildings brought in 3,103 items, Pink
team- juniors with 6th graders 1,814 items, Orange team- sophomores with 7th graders brought in 538 items and Red team - freshmen with 8th graders brought in 473 items. Colton Brunnen, a senior at AHS, brought in 996 items himself. Colton received the top prize for the students with a special parking lot space in the teacher lot.
Student council members counted food items daily and each item brought in counted as one point. At the end of the drive the team with the most points who will be receiving a meal provided by the FFA, Mercer Market in Aledo and Hy-Vee, Inc. in Milan is the Blue team. Total items from both schools totaled 6,924 and total cash donations was $705. This was by far, Aledo schools' most successful drive. Rev. Daren Dietmeier was very appreciative by all the students' and staff efforts and all volunteers at the pantry were very excited to be restocking all their shelves for needy families in Mercer County.
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The Aledo Junior and Senior High Schools are combining efforts for a two-school food drive. Both Student Council groups as well as high school’s FFA and Key Club are joining efforts to take part in the what they hope will be the biggest food drive ever for Mercer County. They really want to help the Mercer County Food Pantry restock their shelves after the holidays. The students ask for community help and support during the drive – January 20-30th.
Students will be kicking-off their campaign with a two-school assembly at AHS gym on January 20th at 8:00 AM. Johannes Bus Service is donating buses in order for the junior high students to attend the festivities.
Participants in the assembly include: Mr. Ruggles’ pep band, student council groups from both schools performing skits, and Rev. Dietmeier speaking on behalf of the Mercer County Food Pantry.
Faculty and students from both schools have been teamed together: seniors with all staff from both buildings, juniors with 6th graders, sophomores with 7th graders and freshmen with 8th graders. Student council members will be counting food items daily and each item brought in will count as one point. At the end of the drive the team with the most points will receive a meal provided by the FFA, Mercer Market in Aledo and Hy-Vee, Inc. in Milan.
Representatives from each building will be announcing their own incentives for students to bring in different food items. Some incentives include: high school’s top four students will receive a special month parking pass or two weeks free lunch, 15 cans brought in will receive a free Gatorade and 25 cans a free lunch, and students will receive double points on color days; junior high is offering free dance passes, free t-shirts, early to lunch options, free Gatorade and McDonald’s cards. Prizes may be awarded all week and team totals will be posted daily on the Aledo school website.
Algebra II Students
Students in Kay Hucke's Algebra II classes recently used Legos and string to figure out the equations of Parabolas. The lab was a hands-on look at matrices and finding the equations for quadratic functions, which graph as parabolas.
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Art Students
The following art students were chosen to represent Aledo High School at the 2008 Festival of Trees High School Art Exhibit:
Detailed Exhibit InformationChris Engle Courtney Bennett Molly Reick
Bryson Johnson Bena Islomoski Linsey Lundeen
Krissy Diehl Jackie Bertlesen Justina Harrison
Courtny Beam Austin Korns Jessica Toops
Teague Holmes Katie Colson Cassie Lilly-Watson
Malia Crose Rachael Troop Chris Hedrick
Sam Olson Kylie Price Kolby Smith
Logan Partlow Seajaye Zug Rachel Herrman
Danielle Jones Nicole Frye Evan Carlson
Taylor Bennett Matt Griswold Stephanie Peterson
The Show is held at the River Center in Davenport.
RiverCenter
136 East 3rd Street
Davenport, Iowa 52801
Golf
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Congratulations to both the Girls and Boys Golf teams for a great season. Girls golf advanced to Sectional. With sophomore golfer, Linsey Lundeen qualifying for State. Boys senior golfer, Kyle McKwen, qualified for State.
BattleBot Challenge
Congratulations to Molly Reick and Krissy Deihl on winning this Semester's BattleBot Challenge in Robotics Class. Student's design, build and program robots to solve a variety of problems during this semester class.
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George Pratt Memorial Stadium Project
The Aledo School Board gave initial approval for the development of a plan to significantly upgrade Aledo High School's football and track facilities.
Those of who have been to the stadium know the renovation project is long overdue. Many of the wires running between the poles do not have insulation on them anymore causing them to arc when they touch. A lighting consultant has measured the nighttime light levels on the field to be 8-10 foot candles - they should be 30-50 foot candles. Each summer, the custodians examine all the bleacher boards and replace the "rotten" ones, but despite this, people have still fallen through the bleachers in each of the past two years. The cinder track is in such horrible condition that we don't host high school track meets here anymore. The grass on the practice field and the game field is patchy and in poor condition. Clearly, something must be done to improve the stadium facility.
As always, district finances are tight. The resources we do have need to be channeled into our curriculum needs, staff salaries and maintenance of the buildings. Some community members have expressed an interest to help the district by establishing a community fundraising effort to renovate the stadium facility. Initial committee members include Trisha Hank, Brian Dennison, Alan Boucher, Cullen Welter, Andy Frye, Brett Lee, Jason Potter, Pam Myers and Rusty Ruggles.
Community Projects for Aledo (CPFA), a 501C3 nonprofit organization, will be used to coordinate this fundraising effort. This organization has completed several projects in the past such as the Aledo bandshell, the Northside Park lighting project, and softball field improvements. Each year, CPFA handles Country Bank's charity golf fundraising event and they fund the Aledo Youth Sports Foundation program.
The proposed project would include new lights, an all-weather track, new bleacher boards (aluminum), retaining walls, improved natural grass playing surface, terracing and new fencing around the facility. Preliminary estimates show that the entire project would cost around $750,000.
At Monday's board meeting, Brian Dennison gave a presentation to explain the situation and share some preliminary ideas about how the issue can be addressed. He asked the board for permission to develop a detailed plan, for limited access to the district's architect and engineers, and for permission to look into acquiring the park district land that is adjacent to the south side of the field. The board approved all of Mr. Dennison's requests. The intent is to present a detailed plan of action to the board within the next two months and, if everything is approved, begin renovations this summer.