At North Rowan High School, majorettes and dancers were a thing of the past. Now North Rowan High’s Dazzling Emeralds Dance Team and Baton Twirling Majorettes have begun a legacy of performance for students who are passionate about entertaining.
The dance team, which is supported by North Rowan Communities In Schools, is the regional winner of the Fever Production Cheer Dance Competition of South Carolina. The team brought home the director’s choice award, first place high school senior Dance Division as well as first Overall Dance Champions.
Earlier in the fall, the team was awarded Best Overall Parade Entry for the Livingstone Homecoming Parade. When the team is not competing, they support their fellow Cavaliers by performing at both football and basketball games. The Dazzling Emeralds also give back to the community by mentoring young girls through the Dazzlette Dance Diva Program. The Dazzlettes is a group of girls between the ages of 4 and 12 who have a love dance and performing.
The Dazzlettes have the opportunity to learn the basics of jazz and ballet and perform at one of the varsity Cavalier games. The team is sponsored by Julia Marie’s Boutique and Steppin’ Out Dance Studio. The coach is Krystal Stukes, Communities In Schools Site Coordinator.
Landis Elementary Citizens of the Month for December:
Kindergarten — Xavier Jackson, Catherine Hasenmayer, Edwin Gonzalez and Kinley Kelch.
First grade — Anissa Galarza, Haley Frazer, Tayler Fleeman, Alexa Poole and Zachary Meadows.
Second grade — Ava Schleyer, Kadence Bailey, Jamyrah Cherry and Audrey Rockstad.
Third grade — Mackenzie Chabala, Sarah Kennedy, Diego Trujillo Ballard and Sophia Hopkins.
Fourth grade — MacKenzie Collins, Serenity Thornton, Angel Daniels and Emma Howard.
Fifth grade — Carleigh Tadlock, Savannah Finley, Asheton Wilhelm and Leighann Harris.
The Good Citizens for December at Hurley Elementary School are as follows:
Kindergarten — Dylan Carter, Vamala Jabateh, Marili Aguilar-Garcia, Stella Smeltzer and Daniela Salazar-Sola.
First grade — Melony Lucas-Perez, Azaiyah Stinson, Melissa Rodriguez Sanchez, Evan Kennedy and Damien Sherrill.
Second grade — Hannah Waddell, Lillian Trail, Tania Ramirez-Cortes and Jasmine French.
Third grade — Chris Melgar Soto, Tori Evans, Katherine Burton and Harmony Perez.
Fourth grade — Jenna Wheeler, Layla Galloway, Alyssa Huff and Jewelle Thompson.
Fifth grade — Jude Smeltzer, Gabrielle McDaniel, Muye Hunt and Megan Grubb.
Kannapolis Fire Department visited Kannapolis Intermediate School on Dec. 11 to surprise the Fire Prevention Week art contest winner Blanca Murillo, a fifth grade student at KIS. She was taken out of class briefly to see her artwork displayed on the back of the department’s new Fire Safety Simulator.
Murillo participated in the art contest in September along with other fifth-graders from KIS. Her poster, one of seven finalists, received the highest number of votes by the community at the annual Fire Prevention Week Open House in October. Murillo’s poster teaches the importance of keeping small children away from matches and lighters which is an important safety message in our community.
This is the first year that Kannapolis Fire Department held a Fire Prevention Week art contest. The department plans to make the contest an annual event.
Lynn Bradley, a teacher at West Rowan Middle School, applied for and was awarded a grant in the amount of $1,999 from EnergyUnited. Her project was titled Giving S.T.E.M. Steam. The project will allow students to bring engineering to life. Students will invent, design, implement and build a 3-D prototype of an object. Once complete, they will create a business plan and display their work.
The Bright Ideas education grant program is part of EnergyUnited’s and other North Carolina electric cooperatives’ ongoing commitment to North Carolina communities. North Carolina’s electric cooperatives serve more than 2.5 million people in 93 of the state’s 100 counties. Since 1994, the Bright Ideas program has awarded more than $8.5 million to teachers across the state for 8,300 projects benefiting more than 1.5 million North Carolina students. EnergyUnited will award nearly $40,000 in Bright Ideas education program grants this year.
Knowledge@Wharton High School (KWHS) has announced the attendance of West Rowan High School personal finance and career management teacher Gail Funderburke at the third PwC-KWHS Seminar for High School Educators on Business and Financial Responsibility. The intensive three-day professional-development seminar brought together nearly 150 high school educators and administrators from across the country and was held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Oct. 25-27.
Although 13 states mandate personal finance coursework as a high school graduation requirement, teachers often lack the skills and resources necessary to teach the subject. In fact, only one in five teachers feels prepared to teach personal finance. In order to fill this knowledge gap, both PwC and KWHS provide free financial and business-related curricula and tools to equip high school teachers with training and resources that help them provide students the ability to make well-informed and responsible financial decisions. The PwC-KWHS Seminar for High School Educators is a natural extension of this mission.
Funderburke thanked PwC and KWHS for “affording educators the opportunity to attend an extensive weekend training on business ethics and financial literacy.” She added, “I’m amazed at all of the resources available to us that will help me provide my students with the tools they need to become more financially literate at an early age. I love that you have lesson plans that are aligned with the common core standards.”
The seminar, which has now trained more than 400 teachers, featured customized training sessions, panels and discussions from Wharton faculty and PwC executives, as well as leaders in business and economics.