Bright Ideas Grants Awarded to Local Educators by Blue Ridge Electric (Ashe)
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Public Relations, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383, Ext. 3213; or E-mail: Renee Whitener
West Jefferson, North Carolina (November 14, 2008) – Grants totaling more than $4,500 were awarded to five educator teams today by Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation during a luncheon ceremony to honor local Bright Ideas grant recipients.
Bright Ideas is an academic grants program sponsored by Blue Ridge Electric in conjunction with the North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation and its 26 other member electric cooperatives. Bright Ideas grants help further traditional academic learning by funding innovative scholastic projects that go beyond available school funding.
Ashe County grant winners are:
Sarah Pyles, of Ashe County High School, for “Lineage and Literacy.” This grant of $860 will benefit 30 students who will choose one of eight books and work collaboratively with the text to create a scrapbook from the perspective of one character. They’ll present projects during a Parent Night where they’ll engage parents in cultural literacy.
Kelly Holleman, Margaret Roland, Martha Edmonds, and Kellie Johnson of Ashe County Middle School, for “Doing it the Wright Way” to benefit 94 students. This grant of $1,032 will integrate a unit involving flight, its mechanics and inventors. Students will read nonfiction and conduct research and experiments of their own design to gain a sense of history but also of the technicalities of flight.
Kelly Holleman, Ron Watson, and Steve Scott, of Ashe County Middle School, for “History in Our Hands” to benefit 35 students. This grant of $1,200 will benefit 7th and 8th graders reading the novel The Monument to study current memorials. They will conduct research about Ashe County’s history and design a memorial of their choosing on school grounds.
Dianne Eldreth, of Blue Ridge Elementary School, for “Math Attack” to benefit 788 students. This grant of $1,440 will allow students to use Math 24 materials to master math facts involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and equations mentally in grades four through six.
Blue Ridge Electric is awarding Bright Ideas grants totaling $18,029 to 19 different academic projects that will benefit thousands of area students, teachers, schools and communities. The cooperative is celebrating 15 years of offering Bright Ideas grants as part of its support and commitment to local education. To date, Blue Ridge Electric has awarded more than $268,000 that has improved the educational experience for more than 75,000 students. North Carolina electric cooperatives joining together have awarded more than $4 million in Bright Ideas grants to benefit students all across the state.
To learn more about the Bright Ideas grants program, visit Blue Ridge Electric’s web site at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com or contact your local Blue Ridge Electric office.
