SAFE Student of the Month
2023-2024
April |
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AJ Rivas
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Nominated by: Amy Brucker AJ exemplifies safe driving practices and leads the charge for seat belt and distracted driving education in our school and community. As a freshman, he was passionate about the SAFE program. He applied and was accepted to this year's SAFE Student Board. Over the summer, he advertised and offered to provide a safe trip home from a 4th of July party as a designated driver. AJ is quiet until he sees someone not buckled up; then he drives home the message. He leads by example and continues to enrich our HS SAFE team with his ideas and efforts. |
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March |
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Ava Doyle
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Nominated by: Ryan Tarletsky Ava Doyle collaborated with our district health and safety officials to create an effective public safety announcement video. The video exemplified the importance of avoiding distractions while driving. Our district unfortunately experienced multiple accidents to begin the school year, so this video was a priority of our productions class. The video showed the effects of distracted driving, and then focuses on ways to avoid distracted driving as well. |
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February |
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Vina Truong
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw Vina Truong chose to step up and become a volunteer leader for our school in her sophomore year. She served as our group’s outstanding president in junior year, leading SAFE events with care and commitment. Now a senior, she serves as vice president of the National Honor Society and mentors peers and younger students, helping involve them in traffic-safety and mental-health activities. Vina has proven herself a dedicated young leader who leads through her truly outstanding example. |
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January |
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Ashlyn Van
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw A powerhouse volunteer in SAFE’s outreach activities and school blood drives, Ashlyn Van puts in the hours to staff tables and get others involved. Last spring, she led our efforts to compete in SAFE’s Buckle-Up Bracket competition and represented us before our school district’s board of education, speaking about the importance of student health, service, and safety projects. She’s an awesome SAFE role model who now also serves as the elected president of our chapter of the National Honor Society. |
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December |
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Kate Quinton
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw Kate Quinton is a stand-out! Since middle school, she has actively sought out volunteering opportunities. For two years, she has led our traffic counts and SAFE tables, carried out Random Acts of Kindness, and worked to educate our school. Kate delights in creating eye-catching window messages and encouraging others to work for safety. As a senior, Kate is president of our group and constantly looks for new ways we can communicate the SAFE message of making good decisions. |
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November |
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Carsen Starr
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Nominated by: Jenni O'Crowley Carsen is my officer again this year, and every day he comes to my room to find me to see what he can do for SADD/SAFE, he has helped to create toilet tabloids, and is leading our pedestrian safety unit. |
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October |
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Sutton O'Crowley
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Nominated by: Jenni O'Crowley Sutton jumped in with both feet as a freshmen and was a driving force to bring our group back from the dead. Their constant promotion and participation is one of the factors that has doubled the size of our group this year. We are pushing 50 members and last year we had just over 20. Being the youngest officer they have worked with seamlessly with the other SAFFICERS (SADD/SAFE Officers) to come up with a very robust schedule of activities for our student body. They also attended the summer planning meetings for our pilot program with the state of Kansas, Every 15 minutes,meeting with heads of every Emergency department in our county as well as maintains their GPA in the High Honor Roll, and being involved in 3 other clubs, and 3 teams. They spend what little free time they have making our toilet tabloids, and posters for the halls. They also mysteriously seems to be conscripted into the rare event that they didn't already sign up to work because their mother is the sponsor! |
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September |
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Sofiya Florio
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw In her second year as a dedicated SAFE member, Sofiya Florio brings the MOST enthusiasm to our early-morning seatbelt counts! She was a driving force in planning for and volunteering during our school’s first-ever SAFE Spirit Week last spring. As a senior program leader this year, Sofiya shows her devotion to reaching more students by creating fun, informative, and engaging themes for each day of this year's Spirit Week: she aims to grab people’s attention and educate them on traffic safety! |
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2022-2023
April |
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Danielle Murphy
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Nominated by: SRO Steve Bundy Danielle keeps our SAFE program alive through her belief in its value. Today's students have so many options for their time; sports, clubs, work and more which she participates in all but always finds or makes time to be a leader on campus safety for us. Danielle does all that locally and also serves SAFE at the state level. She gives it her all and should be recognized for her selfless effort. |
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March |
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Dylan Klaassen
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Nominated by: Jodi Janzen Dylan Klaassen has been a valuable part of our SAFE team at Remington for the past two years, so I wanted to nominate him for SAFE student of the month. He always does anything we need and is more than willing to take on new tasks. Dylan worked hard to help our team implement the Boosters to Belts program in our elementary this year. He also continues to spread the word of the importance of wearing a seatbelt and not texting while driving by posting to our Instagram page. |
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February |
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Vanessa Carey
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw Vanessa became a dedicated SAFE volunteer last year, braving cold count days with a smile. This year, she has stepped up to lead the group: she helps plan new activities and imagine ways to grow the program, including sidewalk-chalk messages, start-of-school donut giveaways, and pledge sign-ups at evening sports events. A stalwart tabler, she works to organize supplies, orient newer members to their tasks, and even share her tricks for constructing and wearing a duct-tape seatbelt! |
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January |
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Cole Brogden
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Nominated by: Dana Desjardins Alex is a new member of Maize High School SAFE. He is also in Maize Broadcasting, where he has worked tirelessly making SAFE videos to be shown to anyone in the Maize School District. Alex's hard work has helped us to reach people outside of Maize High School making our roads safer for all. By the way, his sister was a SAFE Member. He has followed in her footsteps. |
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December |
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Alex Caldwell
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Nominated by: Dana Desjardins Cole is a student at Maize South High School. He takes a broadcasting class at Maize Career Academy/Maize High School. Cole approached SAFE when the school year started. Cole wanted to use his broadcasting class to promote safe teen driving in Maize and the surrounding communities. He did so by creating a PSA addressing the dangers of texting and driving. He also covered the MHS SAFE club activities in the One Maize Magazine reaching so many people in the Maize and Wichita area. Even though Cole is attending another high school in our district, his passion for teens driving safe has no boundaries. |
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November |
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Bridget Johnson
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Nominated by: Mark Bradshaw Bridget, a star student journalist, has led our SAFE team’s survey days for two years. This year, she has planned multiple events for Teen Driver Safety Week, including pledge signings before school and during all lunch times. Her efforts have gone above and beyond: creating custom banners and backdrops for our pledge tables, prepping flyers and giveaways, and arriving extra early on testing days to distribute SAFE pencils and candy as encouraging reminders to students. |
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October |
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Nakaela O'Hair
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Nominated by: SRO David Long Nakaela joined our safe team at the beginning of the 2021/2022 school year as a junior and is very much respected among her teachers and pears. During the year she showed natural leadership, helping out with many SAFE activities, including assisting with a presentation at the middle school promoting SAFE to this years incoming freshman, causing me to ask her to co-lead the SAFE team for the 2022/2023 school year. Nakaela is her senior class president, FCCLA treasurer, key club secretary, stucco spirit chair, a member of the National Honor Society, as well as a participant in school musicals, fca, site council, volleyball, basketball, power lifting, track and last years state champion in pole vault for Kansas 2A schools. Nakaela had a great month in October starting with welcoming Miss Kansas Ayanna Hensley, leading our baseline seatbelt survey and created a 54X39 poster with SAFE across the top followed by “seatbelts are for everyone” The poster then shows a police officer with a wildcat head, and promotes the Elkhart Police Department on the bottom. Nakaela is an outstanding student and a great candidate for SAFE student of the month. |
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September |
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Evyn Lyle
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Nominated by: SRO David Long Evyn impressed me so much on last year’s SAFE team I decided to ask her to be a co-leader this year. Evyn does an excellent job coordinating events, doing announcements and promoting the SAFE team within the student body. Evyn is very well respected among her teachers, peers and in the community. In addition to being a SAFE team leader Evyn is the student council president, senior class treasurer, national honor society treasurer, key club historian, FCCLA vice president, a member of the site council, salt committee, Joe Coles leadership committee, high school play, the year book editor, all while participating on the softball, and volleyballs teams and being a captain on the cheer team. Evyn is a great student in the class room and maintains a very high GPA. |
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2021-2022
April |
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Nakaela O'Hair
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Nominated by: SRO David Long Nakaela joined our SAFE team at the beginning of the 2021/2022 school year as a junior. |
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March |
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Jacey Parker
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Nominated by: David Long Jacey first joined our Elkhart High School’s SAFE program last year as a Junior. She Immediately impressed me with her dedication to the safety of her fellow students. Because of Jacey’s dedication to the SAFE program and her excellence as a student and citizen in our community, I requested she co-lead the SAFE program for the 2021-2022 school year. Jacey has done a great job recruiting fellow students for the program as well as encouraging others to stay safe by wearing their seatbelts, and is available to do whatever I ask of her in order to promote the SAFE program. |
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February |
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Jenna Johnson
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Nominated by: David Long Jenna Johnson first became a SAFE team member last year as a Junior. I was very so impressed by her willingness to help out on the SAFE team and do whatever was asked of her. I decided to ask her to be this years SAFE team co-captain this year. Throughout the year Jenna has done a great job of promoting SAFE. She has excellent talent at communicating with her fellow team members, and is very good at coordinating activities. |
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January |
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Owen Zafuta
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Nominated by: Anni Beasley Owen has done an amazing job as president of the SAFE Team this year. Owen is a model student for seatbelt safety, and is also a member of the volunteer firefighters. Despite all of his many diverse extra-curricular activities, Owen is continuously the first to volunteer for any duty. Not only does he get to school extra early to get everyone set up for seatbelt surveys, he has given up his lunch time for pledge card signing on several occasions. Owen is the ideal leader for this student-lead organization; he is driven, accountable, and always brings a positive attitude to any situation. |
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December |
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Hannah Newell
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Nominated by: Debbie Harshaw Hannah recently organized and facilitated our SAFE Santa Pledge Event and is currently planning our second semester events including her own take on SAFE March Madness. She has been a go-to senior for all of our activities this year. She is also a member of the State SAFE board. Very proud of her initiative! |
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November |
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Mariana Escobar
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Nominated by: Denise Miller Mariana is an incredible young woman who gives generously of her time and talents to the SAFE program, Red Ribbon Week, and so many other activities. She has diligently worked on our seatbelt surveys and monthly pledge signings for three years. Not only is Mariana an excellent student, but she readily volunteers to help in any way possible. Miss Escobar is such an asset to Thunder Ridge in many ways. |
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October |
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Emma Schulz
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Nominated by: Laurali Masterson Emma is very helpful, responsible and caring. She is very involved in SAFE at Hill City High School. She has done pledge cards, DoNut text and drive, and other activities. |
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September |
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Grant Younie
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Nominated by: Michelle Popovich Grant has served on our school's SAFE committee for three years. This is his second year as the head of our SAFE committee. As the chair of the committee he is responsible for the organizing and recruiting for our activities for SAFE. As the sponsor I have been able to let him lead with very little input from me. He works very well with his peers organizing them and keeping everyone involved. |
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2020-2021
May |
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Regan Nave
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Nominated by: SRO David Long Regan is one of two seniors to be a team leader for our SAFE program in Elkhart this year. Regan was on the SAFE team last year and when asked if she would help lead the team this year was very excited to do so. Not only has Regan been a great leader she has led recruiting for the team causing us to almost double in size, going from last year's team of 8 to a team of 15. She very actively recruited her fellow students to be on the team. Each month, Regan announces the winner of our gift cards, and the kicks off of next month's drawing. Additionally, she does whatever else is needed and requested for our program. Recently, in our mid-year survey, our seatbelt usage went up 27%. I attribute this to our great leadership from Regan as well as other team members encouraging their fellow students to wear their seatbelts. While we still have work to do with parents dropping off their kids on campus, almost every single high school student is now wearing their seatbelt. |
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April |
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Hope Kisner
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Nominated by: Alicia Brungardt Hope has spearheaded our SAFE campaign this year. She has organized monthly pledge card distributions and incorporated SAFE concepts into other activities, including and all-school SAFE breakout game and our Christmas decorating. Hallways were decorated to include reminders to slow down on snow and ice, wear seatbelts, and remain attentive while driving. She worked with a team to organize socially distanced seating that was documented for contact tracing of 600+ students as well as a remote video option for 200 more students to allow for the ThinkFast program to happen in our high school. |
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March |
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Jayna Keller
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Nominated by: Marilyn Workman Jayna is very responsible. She has been in SAFE since her freshman year. She is always asking what she can do, coming up with new plans for our club. She is our co-president this year. Jayna took charge of the fundraiser for LLS, encouraging students to participate in the fundraising. Jayna gives a lot of time to our club, enthusiastically. Our SRO needed a SAFE enforcement poster and she jumped right up to make it for him. Jayna is a great SAFE student! |
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February |
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Hannah Lampe
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Nominated by: Amy Brucker Hannah has been a 3 year member of SAFE. As a senior, she is only one of 2 students who has been on the SAFE team all 3 years the school has participated. Hannah shares her talents and skills with SAFE; She designed and painted a cutout picture prop, manages our SAFE twitter, and periodically writes articles for the local newspaper. She is always the first to volunteer for the seat belt surveys. This year she has researched and provided driving statistics for our December video and January's morning announcements at the school. Hannah is a traffic safety leader and role model for our group, school and community through her words and examples. |
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January |
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Amber Beaumont
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Nominated by: Braden Long Amber is the president of the Southeast of Saline SAFE Club. Amber does a wonderful job with SAFE. She is always willing to help out with any SAFE events. Amber has also done a great job as the only upperclassman in SAFE with helping out the underclass students and teaching them about SAFE and guiding them through the different aspects of SAFE. Amber is also a great student in school and is always willing to help anyone out. Amber is very deserving of this award and I believe she exemplifies what SAFE is all about. Amber takes pride in wearing her seatbelt and talking with students about the importance of safety belt usage. |
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December |
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Chelsie Rose
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Nominated by: Allison Railsback Chelsie has been instrumental in getting our SAFE project started here at Scott Community High School. |
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November |
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Mekenzy Lucas
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Nominated by: Misty DeDonder Mekenzy has happily taken over all SAFE responsibilities this year at Northern Heights High School. So far, she has planned monthly events to get awareness out to the student body, gotten the students prepared to complete the SAFE morning seatbelt checks, helped plan and complete the KTSRO grant for activities through SAFE and is getting other kids excited about it. She has started the Seatbelt Saves competition, and I cannot wait to see what she does with it. Mekenzy is a hard worker, and I love to see the dedication she has to SAFE this year. |
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October |
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Justice Houston
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Nominated by: Marilyn Workman Justice has been active in SAFE for 4 years, co president for 2 years. She looks ahead to what we can do, sets our meetings, designs our tee shirts, and encourages others to drive safe with their seat belts on! Happy to have her directing our team of students! |
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September |
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Rianna Lawler
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Nominated by: Jodi Janzen This is Rianna's second year in our SAFE group and she is always willing to help whenever needed. She has designed our t-shirts the past 2 years and this year she is even designing masks for us! She is also always a positive role model for her peers! |
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2019-2020
April |
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Lilah Serrer
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Nominated by: Martie Helm Lilah, as President of our National Honor Society Chapter, is also helping to head up our SAFE program. I look to Lilah for assistance in organizing our seatbelt check teams, because of her dependability, leadership, and outgoing personality. |
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March |
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Bethany Plake
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Nominated by Nicole Hinrichsen Bethany goes above and beyond to ensure that SAFE activities are followed through. She is the first one to volunteer to do surveys. Most importantly she is a constant advocate for SAFE not only in her words but her actions. Bethany is involved in many activities but chooses to put SAFE at the top of her priority list and McLouth is grateful to have such a motivated and caring individual on our SAFE team. |
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February |
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Andrea Wilson
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Nominated by: Misty DeDonder Andie Wilson worked hard to complete a mock crash and a mock funeral. She has been in charge of the SAFE program with another FCCLA student, Emily Gilbert. They have been in charge of ensuring kids are aware of the importance of seatbelt safety along with other aspects of distracted driving. Andie and Emily also attended the KTSA workshop in Topeka and shared information with their schoolmates. They also took an FCCLA National Program STAR event to FCCLA district competition and qualified for state in April with their work through the SAFE program. |
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January |
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Vincent Palen
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Nominated by: Stephanie Litton Vincent has been instrumental member in Beloit's SAFE program since its origination. He volunteers for every benchmark and championed adding the SAFE logo to the school's athletic programs. Vincent suggested and participated in the planning/presenting of Booster Rooster at Beloit Elementary for 4 consecutive years. He is a valuable role model to our school community. |
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December |
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Jadyn Meyer
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Nominated by Anni Beasley As a member of the SAFE team for the last two years, Jadyn Meyer has consistently proven her leadership skills. As the president of the Frontenac High School SAFE team this year, Jadyn has taken it upon herself to ensure that activities and events run smoothly. She has also been the only student to work on preparing items for student events at times. I would like to thank Jadyn for her hard work and dedication, and feel she is very deserving of the SAFE Student of the Month Award. |
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November |
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Kaitlyn Geeting (SAFE Student of the Year)
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Nominated by Jim Cera Kaitlyn has been a very strong, vocal leader in our SADD group since the beginning. She has been an advocate for the SAFE and Booster Rooster programs conducting seatbelt surveys, educational opportunities and contests for K-12 grades as well as leading our RESIST and DARE efforts with the other leaders. She has stood up before city council and encouraged her peers to do the same when we made presentations and communicated with law enforcement and state representatives when addressing policies. She has been a great help all around working with her peers and the entire student body taking charge to lead and implement change. |
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October |
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Garett Hinz
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Nominated by: Jodi Janzen Garett Hinz has been the president of our school group called YAACL (Young Adults Advisory Council to the Library) last year when we added SAFE and again this year. Since adding SAFE to our group, Garett has been a terrific role model to all students by sharing information about traffic safety and encouraging all students to wear their seatbelts. He would like to eventually be a police officer after graduation, so being involved in SAFE is a great way to gain experience in traffic safety. |
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2018-2019
April |
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Chloe Gariglietti
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Nominated by: Anni Beasley Chloe has exemplified what it means to be a leader. As the SAFE President this year, she has taken charge to organize events, and make sure all members are in attendance. She is always the first one to volunteer to help out with anything. She also has continually been the first one at school early in the morning with clipboards and vests ready to go for counts. Chloe has been an incredible asset to the SAFE team. |
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March |
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Brionney Bocanegra
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Nominated by: Kristopher T. Casper Brionney is the leader of the SAFE program for the kids at school. She has helped organize events for kids at her school and is just a pretty good kid all around. |
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February |
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Trenton Gordine
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Nominated by: Nicole Hinrichsen Trenton is always the first one to volunteer to help with things. He is a very quiet in the background kind of guy yet willing to assist wherever is needed. He has been on the SAFE team for two years now and also served as a volunteer crossing guard which shows his dedication to other's safety. |
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January |
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Hannah Ballard (SAFE Student of the Year)
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Nominated by: Martie Helm Hannah is a senior member of our SAFE team which is comprised of members of our National Honor Society. Hannah is a leader in our school and community and can always be counted on to get the job done. Hannah has assisted with SAFE seatbelt checks, monthly education, prizes, pledges, and always leads by example. Hannah is also helping to get a school zone and signs installed outside of our school. I constantly hear her encouraging her peers to buckle up and be SAFE. |
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November |
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Bailey Coon
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Nominated by: Marilyn Workman Bailey organized SAFE members to go to our two elementary schools and talk about the importance of wearing your seatbelt. She designed the PowerPoint, planned the times to deliver the message, organized the members to present to each classroom and planned the handouts for the students! She spent a lot of her time outside of the regular school day to do this. The students will receive a prize when they bring their seatbelt chart back showing they wore their seatbelt each time they got into the car! |
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October |
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Darryl Rylant
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Nominated by: Jack Pawloski This student is very respectful, makes people enjoy their day and is all about safety. Darryl has been working with traffic safety for 6 years and this student is the reason our school is lock down on seatbelts. |
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September |
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Shiane Wondra
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Nominated by: Wadona Henson I believe Shiane deserves student of the month because she lived the tale in June 2018, and now she spends her time traveling and telling others about why people should put the phone down. Shiane was a lucky one and was wearing her seat belt, though incorrectly, but it saved her life. Shiane is a bright girl whose message is a good one. |
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August |
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Chantel Shaw
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Nominated by: Mitch Shaw Chantel has helped restart our charter here in USD 344 the past four years. She has been an officer for three years. She has testified in front of both the house and senate sub committees to promote seat belt safety and increase fines for not wearing safety belts. She is a living example of how seat belts can save your life. She would not be here after January 3rd, 2017 if she had not decided to buckle up after school that day. She is a top academic student. She has been the drum major of the band for three years. She has been active in STUCO for three years and co-wrote the script for the SAFE crash simulation that was coordinated and performed with all Linn county agencies for an all school assembly. She has also helped present at the SAFE conference in Wichita, KS. |
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2017-2018
April |
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Mable Mestagh (SAFE Student of the Year)
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Nominated by: Nicole Hinrichsen Mable has been on the SAFE team now for two years and this year took SAFE to a new level by increasing its membership, implementing new ideas, and serving as the committee head for SAFE. She is only a part time student this semester but changed her schedule around so she could still work on SAFE items each day. She schedules meetings, writes out agendas, has put together a Kahoot! game for the student body and done a lot of background work on the grim reaper. She is our main contact between law enforcement, DCCCA, and administration. Mable created the application process that we use now for SAFE members and encouraged students to apply at the end of the 16-17 year so our team was ready to hit the ground running in August of 2017. We went from five to eleven members because of Mable's efforts. She attended the KDOT Transportation Safety Conference in 2017 where she brought back several ideas for the chapter including bulletin board displays, the grim reaper, and assembly activities. As committee head she was the face of our SAFE team she entered all our survey data. Mable is very responsible and kept me on track with meetings, emails, and had a schedule for our monthly prize drawings. I was very impressed with her intrinsic initiative to see the SAFE team grow in McLouth this year. Even though she won't be with us next year because she is graduating, she still oversaw the application process for next year and did some training to juniors so we can continue to impact our school with the SAFE message. |
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March |
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Georgette Lugo Olguin
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Nominated by: Bernadette Bayless-Rios Georgette takes great pride in participating in the SAFE program for our school. Always the first one to volunteer for any assignment, Georgette advocates for seat belt safety throughout Washington High School. She encourages others to always wear their seat belts and to stay off their phones while driving. Georgette continues to exemplify what SAFE is. |
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February |
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Grace Needham
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Nominated by: Emma Brunner Grace Needham exemplifies the qualities that drivers of all ages need to have. Not only does she keep her phone out of sight, she also turns down the radio and always keeps her focus on the road. She's that driver that always does a seatbelt check when the car is still in park whether she's driving or not. Grace encourages me to be the best driver that I can be and leave all distractions behind. Overall, she represents what SAFE stands for. |
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