Seniors Molly Nelson and Sammie Walker gave their high school an early Christmas gift.

The $2,500 gift all started with a paper airplane.

The N.C. School Board Association, representing 115 school boards, was in its second year of sponsorship for a video contest to promote public schools, and there were 52 entries.
Nelson and Walker, representing Polk County High School, were notified on Nov. 1 that their video was one of the top three finalists.

On Nov. 13th video journalism teacher Stan Coss drove his two students and their mothers, Carol Walker and Maria Nelson, in a school van to the NCSBA conference in Greensboro.

In the massive Guilford Banquet Hall, the Polk County group was glad to claim their second prize trophy and check, but there was no banquet. Polk County School Board Chairman Geoffrey Tennant took the prize winners out to their choice of restaurant, the nearby Olive Garden.

The $2,500 check was especially welcome as several computers and camcorders for the video journalism classroom were in need of an upgrade.

Nelson and Walker had only three days notice to do the video; other schools may well have been planning their projects from much earlier in the year because prizes would have been publicized from the previous year.

The PCHS entry had a paper airplane in flight throughout the school, with the question on takeoff, “What do you like about public education?”

In the course of five landings, students penciled in their own responses, from unity to friendship to opportunity, before the plane spiraled past the flag flying at the front of the school.

The tune and lyrics from Black Eyed Peas’ “One Tribe” resonates in the stop animation piece, which can be found on the home page of the class’s website: www.trackstradition.shutterfly.com.

– article written by Stan Cross