MENTONE – Tippecanoe Valley School Board Monday night heard about a new program at the high school and that the middle school’s Spell Bowl team is headed to state competition. Superintendent Brett Boggs said the Youth Health Service Corps is new to Tippecanoe Valley this year. It was brought to Valley by the North Central Indiana Area Health Education Center, based in Fulton County. Its mission is to increase the number of diverse high school students “who matriculate into post-secondary healthcare education programs,” he said. Stephanie Anglin, TVHS senior counselor, introduced the program’s coordinator, Janiece Stover. “Janiece has been a big blessing to our school and the students involved,” Anglin stated. Stover told the board that YHSC has a three-fold mission. They want to recruit students to the health field, train them in the health field and get them to stay and work in their community. They especially are targeting communities that have a shortage of medical providers. The program was developed around school and state standards as well as National Health standards, Stover said. In the program, she said first students are provided training. Students then do a community profile and come up with a program they want to run and do the service project. After the service project is completed, the students review it and determine if they reached their goals, and why or why not. There are 18 students registered for YHSC at the high school. They’re a mix of juniors and seniors. Jonah Mikel, junior, said that as a football player he wants to make sports his life. He’s hoping YHSC will lead him to an athletic training career. “I joined YHSC because I thought it would give me an early advantage in a career,” Mikel stated. Senior Juan Baca said his tentative idea is to study pre-med and become a family physician to work in the Tippecanoe Valley community. He also can speak English and Spanish, so that will be an asset. “I like it that it’s not a class and you don’t get a grade,” Baca said of the program. “We learn stuff and we get a taste of what we’re going to do in the future.” After the presentation, Board President Bryan Murphy said, “It sounds like a good program.” Middle School Principal Blaine Conley announced the Spell Bowl team was heading to state at Purdue University Saturday. It’s the second consecutive year the middle school has advanced to state competition. “This group has done an outstanding job of preparing,” Conley indicated. On Oct. 15, the team tied for first place with Manchester in a conference Spell Bowl. Through the tie-breaker process, Manchester was given the win, but Conley said TVMS students “did great.” A week later, on Oct. 22, Valley hosted the Indiana Academic Spell Bowl Junior Division. With 43 correctly spelled words, Valley advanced to this weekend’s state contest. The middle school already has a banner hanging up for the 2012 state run. Conley said they will hang another one up after this weekend.
