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February 2020

ACROSS THE DISTRICT A SUPER DEBUT: Lexington Two became the first Lexington County public school district to go all-in for this year’s Souper Bowl of Giving. All schools and the district office participated, collecting 5,240 food items. The largest collections by school were Pine Ridge Middle (bottom right), Northside Middle, Riverbank Elementary, Springdale Elementary and Brookland-Cayce High. At press time, the total pounds of food and meals provided were still being calculated. Stay tuned!

As part of the Souper Bowl effort, Airport High and Brookland-Cayce High both sent teams to pack food boxes at the annual Hudson’s He-roes event (top right).

HONOR BAND: Ten Lexington Two musicians have been selected to the South Carolina Band Direc-tors Association Region 2 Honor Band. Students, who were selected by audition, will participate in a Re-gion Band Clinic Feb. 21-22, con-cluding with a concert on the final day. Students will work with distin-guished clinicians including Lorrie Turner, Kevin Hebert, Connie Gran-tham, Vince Clayton, and BJ Diden. Lexington Two students se-lected for the Region 2 Honor Band include: Airport High Steven Humphries, Bassoon

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Ashley Robinson, Clarinet Ethan Jeffcoat, Trumpet Dillon Mayfield, Trumpet Tracy Nelson, Tuba

(Michael Rooker, band di-rector) Brookland-Cayce High Maximus Fernandez, Alto Saxophone

(Steve McGinnis, band di-rector) Busbee Creative Arts Academy

Julian Velez, Clarinet (Hunter Reese, band direc-tor) Fulmer Middle Kelby Kenner, Trumpet (John Richardson, band director) Northside Middle Sawyer Redd, Alto Saxophone

Josue Soriano Cruz, Tuba

(Kevin E. Sweatt, band director)

MYRDIS WALKER SCHOLARS: Fifty-eight Lexington Two students will be inducted into the Myrdis Walker Scholars program in February. The program recognizes African-American students in eighth through 12th grades who have demonstrated academic ex-cellence. Eligible students must be identified as gifted, according to the South Carolina criteria, or have acquired a class rank in the top 15 percent of their high school class. An additional goal of the program is to establish a peer support group of out-standing African-American student scholars in the district. The program is named for Myrdis Walker, who taught for many years at the former R. Earle Davis Elementary School in Lexington Two. An induction ceremony is set for 7 p.m. February 18 at the Lexington Two Innovation Center. Inductees include: Airport High: Lillie Brady, Tavaras Holmes, Shania Mims

Brookland-Cayce High: Tamia Barden, Te’Killa Jones, Melanie Owens, Olivia Warren

Busbee Creative Arts Academy: Devak Asberry, Cameron Boyd, Ajarea Brooks, Cassidy Calla-han, Noah Chambers, Peri’yaun General, Nayana Glover, Timothy Graham, Tirzah Graham, Am-arren Hopkins, Denaji James, DaVaun Johnson, La’tresa Middleton, Rayvan Murphy, Maurianna Richardson, Hope Riley, Ciara Simms, Audrey Williams

Northside Middle: Brianna Armstrong-Jenkins, Ava Butts, Martin Charles, Paris Beaty, Giovanni Smith, Azirus Williams

Pine Ridge Middle: Faith Agutu, Marcus Davis, Casey Duncan, Sandria Larkin, Madalyn Miller, Kayla Whitfield

Fulmer Middle: Aaron Clyburn, Jaylin Conyers, Chise Corbitt, Londyn Couch, Sydney Edmond, Laila Elliott, Omarion Fladger, Elijah Gaymon, Jalen Graham, Elias Guest-

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McCray, Trissta Hale, Tanija Israel, Gloria Jacobs, Micah Jamison, Ta’Leesha Jones, Iyanna King, Paige Moore, Anthony Muller, Jayla Westbrook, Isabella Whetzel, Lewis Wider

FLOCK LOVES TEACHERS: Three Lexington Two teachers were surprised in their class-rooms earlier this month with Amazon gift cards and much-deserved recognition as part of the House of Raeford Farms FLOCK Loves Teachers program. This month's winners: Kelsey Callahan, Northside Middle School (top); Anne Marie Cleary, Cyril B. Busbee Creative Arts Academy (bottom left); and JoAnne Boulware, Cayce Elementary.

CHAMBER RECOGNITION: Two Lexington Two students and a teacher were honored at the recent Cayce-West Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Dinner. They included Lexington Dis-trict Two Teacher of the Year Jennifer Eskridge, Pine Ridge Middle School; Lexington District Two Student of the Year Marcus Gadsden, Airport High School; and Student Volunteer of the Year Jo-seph Buckmaier, Brookland-Cayce High School.

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ARCHERY NEWS: The ar-chery teams from Saluda River Academy of the Arts, Busbee Creative Arts Acade-my and Brookland Cayce High (right) competed in their first of two state qualifiers on Saturday, February 1. Salu-da River Academy of the Arts’ team had an archer place in the top three for ele-mentary at the Gator Shootout. Fifth-grader Caden Hatfield shot a 253 with 5 tens and was the second overall elementary male for the event. Busbee Creative Arts Academy’s team com-peted at the Summerville Qualifier at Northwood Acad-emy. Eighth-grader Ayden Whitney shot a 282 with 16 tens and placed second overall, middle school female. Her teammate, seventh-grader Elizabeth Pittman, shot a 280 with 12 tens and placed third overall, middle school female. Brookland Cayce High’s team also participated in the Summerville Qualifier at Northwood Academy and had two arch-ers reach the podium. Ninth-grader Mason Darazs shot a 276 with 11 tens for first overall high school male and his teammate, ninth-grader Jackson Allen, shot a 273 with eleven tens for third overall high school male. All three teams will compete in one more qualifier in their efforts to receive a State Archery tournament invitation. By the way, Brookland-Cayce’s team is a first-year competi-tive team, SRAA a second-year, and BCAA a fourth-year.

AIRPORT HIGH

TOP HONORS: Airport’s varsity cheerleaders took one of the top spots at the 2nd annual SC High School League Game Day Invita-tional. The Eagles squad won 1st place in Crowd Leading in the 4A Division at the event, held recently at USC-Aiken Convocation Center. Airport High team members who competed in-clude Lena Barrs, Lexi Bertwell, Kelsie Bryant, Syd-ney Evans, Taylor Gooding, Nyra Jenkins, Shy’da Lloyd, Aniyah Nottingham, Ally Phil-lips, Madison Rucker, Janiah Scott, Emerson Senterfeit, Kylie Siedschlag, Sally Skin-ner, Gracie Spires, Emily Sulser, Camryn Turner, Jada Twymon-Pelzer, Cydney Williams and Hannah Williams. Coaches are Beth Ruff and Jenifer Gooding.

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COACHING HONORS: Coach Tim Perry was named one of the 4A/3A South coachese by the SC Baseball Coaches Associa-tion for this year’s all-star baseball games.

REPRESENTING: Christy Wingard (right) recently presented in the Global Lesson exhibition at the Fulbright Symposium in Washington, D.C.

BROOKLAND-CAYCE HIGH

SCHOLARSHIP WINNER: Sophomore Hannah Osmer is one

of 94 students nationwide to win an Honorable Men-tion Award in the Next Gen Personal Finance PAY-BACK Challenge. She received the award from among 900 contest entries across the United States as part of Next Gen’s third annual PAYBACK Chal-lenge. Participants played the award-winning college finance game, then wrote a 250-word essay from a prompt about college finances, which was then judged and narrowed to a group of winners. The Lex-

ington Two student was one of two recipients selected from South Carolina. All Honorable Mention winners will receive a $500 scholarship.

LETTERS OF INTENT: Five Brookland-Cayce High School athletes (below) signed national letters of intent to play football at the college level. They are Drew Weed and Tradd Castles, both declaring with Newberry College; and Brian Mims, KJ Blackmon and Malachi Brown, who de-clared with Erskine Col-lege. The athletes par-ticipated in a ceremony to sign their college let-ters of intent on National Signing Day February 5.

HALL OF FAME: The Brookland-Cayce High School Athletic Hall of Fame will induct five new members: BC grad-uates Delaine Hair Brit-ton (class of 2000, tennis), Curtis Wilson (class of 1946, basketball and football), and Wade Roof (class of 1999, baseball); and coaches Richard Lundy (softball) and Ben Killian (baseball). A recep-tion is planned in the arena’s Hall of Fame room at 6 p.m. February 14, with a ceremony during halftime of the home basketball game against Airport High School.

CAYCE ELEMENTARY DANCE MARATHON: Students, working in partnership with the University of South Carolina, raised $1,345 in the dance marathon. Proceeds benefit Children’s Hospital.

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CONGAREE ELEMENTARY GRANT WINNER: Congratulations to fifth grade teacher Jennifer Amick Ray, who was awarded a $1,000 Sports Matter Grant by DICKS Sporting Goods Foundation for additional PE equipment. LOVE OF READING: Congaree Elementary was among district schools to invite volunteers in to read to students in their classrooms (right) to celebrate World Read Aloud Day on February 5.

LEXINGTON TWO INNOVATION CENTER QUARTERLY HONORS: Congratulations to L2IC’s Students of the Quarter: Chris Ward, digital art and design; Liam Barry, chemistry; Bryce Addy, welding; R’Moni Jarvis, Early College; Quincey Ri-ley, building construction; Nathan Jeffcoat, automo-tive technology; Sarah Jones, cosmetology; Samuel Hill, civil engineering and architecture; Robert Wil-liams, electricity; Zachary Miles, computer program-ming; Adiah Anderson, geometry; Aden Blackmon, animation; Kaelyn Singleton, health science; Anya Gayle Elizabeth Robinson, firefighting; Owen Plane, sports medicine; Timothy Pitts, collision repair and finishing.

NEW BRIDGE ACADEMY SHOWING A LITTLE LOVE: Students used the recent Souper Bowl food drive as a learning oppor-

tunity, using math for tracking contri-butions, art to cre-ate posters pro-moting the food drive, and other activities. Here, students created a heart with donated cans of food.

RIVERBANK ELEMENTARY MATH BOWL WINNERS: Riverbank mathletes (right) took home top honors for the second consec-utive year in the annual Academic Math Bowl. Riverbank team members include Eric Floyd, Kasey Quinn, Preston Lord, Evan Church, Addison Adkins

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and Caleigh Holman. The team is coached by Brooke Jones and Brandon Brantly. Riverbank competed against Springdale Elementary on Feb. 5.

SALUDA RIVER ACADEMY FOR THE ARTS

HAPPY 100: SRAA celebrated the 100th day of school with decorated shirts, 100 “year olds” and other activities (top left).

SPRINGDALE ELEMENTARY

CELEBRATING ART: Nearly 100 families recently turned out for “Fall Into POP Art & Escape to Creativity” (top right). This was an evening of fun, teamwork, and creativity as you prepare to break out with a pop! Participants used a Breakout Edu “escape challenge” to gain access to the Pop Art Era. Once complete the children created their own piece of Pop Art.

LITTLE FREE LIBRARY: Springdale has opened its long-awaited Little Free Library (right). It’s a project that Springdale’s SIC decided to spearhead as part of efforts to raise funds to help the school’s media center collection. In partner-ship with the PTO, the fundraiser sold bricks to construct a base for a “Little Free Library.” The fundraising bricks would be used for the Little Free Library, and would help purchase reading material for that library as well as the media center. The addition of a Little Free Library on the school grounds brings aware-ness to the importance of literacy to Springdale students and community mem-bers.

THREE RIVERS

“SENDING SOME LOVE”: The "Sending Some Love" program at the Three Rivers Midlands facility was highlighted as part of Best in Class Academic Highlights in a recent publication of UHC In the News. Thirteen student residents participated in the ini-tiative over the holiday season, recording themselves reading books to send to younger siblings as holiday gifts. The program helped residents stay connected and create per-sonalized gifts for family members. Teacher Candace Kilcoyne led this initiative.

WOOD ELEMENTARY

THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC: The All Star Steel Drum Ensemble from Richland Two ’s Condor Elementary performed for 4th- and 5th-graders earlier this month. The student performers were in first through fifth grades.