Interact Club brings home awards

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

BRATCHER

To say the least, the Warren County High School Interact Club is busy. During the past year, club members have volunteered thousands of hours and completed close to 40 community and international projects.

From Share A Christmas Dinner to helping villages in Uganda fund wells with safe drinking water, these high school students exemplify the Rotary motto “Service Above Self.”

The local club was rewarded materially for these projects and more last weekend as they brought home a plethora of awards from the District 6780 Interact Conference in Pigeon Forge. The conference attracted over 600 students from 10 states, largely because of the presence of Rotary International president Jonathan Majiyagbe.

Share A Christmas Dinner, the holiday project the club co-sponsors with the Standard that provides holiday meals for those who might otherwise go without, won the club a first place finish in the Best Community Project category.

The club also captured first place in the Best International Project category for a book-writing contest they initiated at county elementary schools. This project had the young children write and illustrate their own original stories. The resulting books were then bound with construction paper and hard covers and given to Majiyagbe, who will distribute them to children in his native Nigeria.

A second-place finish was had by the club in the Best Interclub Project category for the recent Kids Around the World children’s health and cultural awareness fair which was co-sponsored with the Boyd Interact Club.

The high school club picked up third-place finishes in the Club of the Year and Large Group Talent categories.

In other convention highlights, club president and Class of 2004 co-valedictorian Dustin Dowell was awarded one of three $1,200 James L. Bomar Scholarships, which are based on leadership, academics and extracurricular activities. Club sponsor Peggy Bratcher was honored with the Eagle Award, which is given for outstanding dedication to and leadership of an Interact Club.

In an Interact first, Majiyagbe named the 2003-2004 district officers of District 6780 Paul Harris Fellows.

Local honorees include district secretary Kendra Savage and district member-at-large Courtney Martin. Donations of $1,000 will be made in their names to the Rotary Foundation.

Before the conference concluded new district officers were announced. During the upcoming Interact year Warren County will be represented by high school student Caitlin Llewelyn and Boyd student Nicholas Gulick, both of whom will be district members-at-large.