Top Stories for Tuesday April 10, 2018

Friends Theater
By Cookie Steponaitis
When Americans refer to the ‘movers and shakers’ in society names of scientists, athletes, world leaders and powerful business icons pop up. Yet on occasion you meet a young person equipped with passion, purpose and minds that are already well ahead of their age. Meet Vergennes resident Chance Koenig and his friends.
    Chance was given a book called Drama by Raina Telgemeier for Christmas in 2016 and found himself transported into the drama filled world of Callie, an energetic drama queen with purple hair who takes center stage as a middle school drama department’s premier set designer. When Chance emerged from his reading of the book an idea of life changing proportions began to take place. Chance promptly shared with his parents that he wanted to start a theater company, write and produce plays and create elaborate sets. This would all be accomplished by children and the adults would serve only as mentors when issues presented. They acknowledged their son with the thought that it was just a kid’s idea and that it would blow over quickly; they had no idea what Chance had in mind and what he would set in motion.  [ more ]

Local Students Advance To Finals In Major National Math Competition

A team from Middlebury Union High School headed to NYC as finalists in prestigious MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge. A combination of math smarts and creative thinking has added up to a top spot in a major national math competition for five Middlebury high school seniors.
    The students – Ezra Marks, Laura Whitley, Julian Schmitt, Bastiaan Phair and Janet Barkdoll of Middlebury Union High School – have advanced to the finals in the popular MathWorks Math Modeling (M3) Challenge, the only competition of its kind which this year drew more than 4,175 11th and 12th grade participants from across the nation. The Middlebury team will head to New York City on April 30 to compete against five other finalist teams at Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm.
    Using mathematical modeling, the students had 14 hours in late February to come up with a solution to a real-world issue – food insecurity in the United States. The Challenge problem posited that food wasted in households, cafeterias, restaurants, and grocery stores is not “trash,” but might be thoughtfully repurposed. Teams were ultimately asked for model-based strategies to quantify, reduce and repurpose the most food for the least cost. More than 900 participating teams from across the U.S. submitted papers detailing their recommended solutions.  [ more ]

TaeKwon Do KICKS Break-a-Thon Fundraiser

During the week of March 19th, students of TaeKwon Do KICKS from Hinesburg, Shoreham, Orwell, Middlebury and Vergennes locations participated in a Break-a-Thon Fundraiser.  About 150 students ranging from preschoolers through adults, broke boards to earn their pledges.  KICKS students raised $6500, which is being donated to TJ Duncanson Scholarship, Derick Leroy Benoit Scholarship and to the Kelley Palmer family.  This is an event Master Kellie Thomas (5th degree black belt and owner of KICKS) organizes yearly to help students understand that as TaeKwon Do students they have a greater responsibility to the community and people around them.  Master Thomas likes to remind them that they are "heroes" in their own right and are supposed to protect and take care of people who need help - whether it be on the playground from bullies, from harassment at the work place or home, or raise money to help local charities.  [ more ]

“Food From The Heart” Food Drive Success

26 members of the Middlebury Lions Club completed their annual “Food from the Heart” food drive on the Saturday before Easter.  The food drive is conducted in support of the CVOEO and HOPE food shelves. Once again our community demonstrated their outstanding generosity by donating just over 2.5 tons of food in only 6 hours. One community resident filled an entire shopping cart with goods to donate.  Other community members preferred to quietly donate cash in lieu of goods. 
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