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 Members of the Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council pose for photo outside the classroom earlier this year. To date, the group has raised nearly $2,300 in which they have donated to various local and area organizations throughout the 2009-2010 school year. Photo provided By KRISTA HAYES
Staff Writer
With the end of the school year nearing, Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council members are hoping to end their term on a positive note.
During the school year, the school government raised nearly $2,300 for various local and area organizations.
“Each year, we try and raise as much money as we can for various clubs and organizations that we vote on and decide to help support at the beginning of the school year,” Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council President Neal Maxson said.
Elected a Student Council representative of his homeroom, Maxson, a seventh-grade student, said this is his second year serving on the council. This year as president, his main responsibility is to set forth an agenda and preside over the group’s monthly meetings which are held the first and third Thursday of each month.
“I joined the Student Council because I was looking for a new activity to do and thought it’d be challenging experience,” Maxson said. “Politics have always been one of the things to stick out in my head and when I grow up, I want to be a lawyer.
“Overall, as president I think I have done a pretty good job,” he said. “Being president is a lot harder than what I thought it would be since I have to make the agendas, run the meetings, and keep the advisers in the loop. I have the whole weight of the council on my shoulders, and at times it can get frustrating, but I would recommend it to all the kids coming to the middle school next year because it’s a fun activity to be involved in.”
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Industry policy sought for recovery |
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Thursday, 24 September 2009 |
By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
Ohio, similar to other states, is suffering because of the recession — and that is why an Ohio Congressman, and members of an Ohio contingency, say they are pushing for a national manufacturing policy to help the Buckeye State and the nation recover.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, announced Wednesday he and Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland shared the senator’s manufacturing friendly proposals with Ron Bloom, President Barack Obama’s senior counselor for manufacturing policy.
“The administration is demonstrating that it understands what Gov. Strickland and I already know and that is manufacturing is the ticket to the middle class,” Brown said Wednesday during a media teleconference. “We have started to show signs of recovery, but we need a manufacturing policy that works, invests in our workers and rebuilds the middle class.”
Brown briefly outlined tenets in his national manufacturing strategy which includes “investing in manufacturing innovation, strengthening the component supply chain, connecting workers with emerging industries, improving federal response to economically distressed communities, ensuring trade policies are aligned with our national interests” and realizing work force development and economic development are linked.
He also is pushing for creating a favorable business climate through tax and health care policies and helping manufacturers retool for 21st clean energy industries. Brown said the city of Toledo has more solar energy jobs than any state in the nation.
During the teleconference, Strickland noted he met earlier in the day with Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Fernandez to discuss the departure of DHL from Wilmington and the need for money for a revolving loan fund.
During meetings in Washington, D.C., Strickland was joined by Ohio Department of Development Director Lisa Patt-McDaniel and Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhutt as well as Ohio Manufacturers’ Association President Eric Burkland and Ohio AFL-CIO President Joe Rugola.
Strickland said he talked with Fernandez about Ohio’s efforts to create “hub communities around Ohio” such as the first one started in Dayton for “innovation and opportunity in aerospace.”
He also addressed efforts made in Ohio to improve education and the availability to education to create a better trained work force for the future.
“Ohio’s manufacturing industry has been supplying what the nation needs for generations, and we’re now supplying what the world needs,” Strickland said in a news release. “Ohio manufacturers are leading the way by innovating and utilizing new technologies to stay competitive. As a state, we are working every day to help manufacturers tool up to better meet the demands of a modern economy.
“Even in the face of difficult economic circumstances, manufacturing in Ohio is competitive, and at the forefront of new technologies. I believe that Ohio’s manufacturing story is really only just beginning,” he said.
Strickland also stressed the importance of a cooperative effort between the state and federal governments with businesses to position Ohio and the United States to take advantage of opportunities as the economy emerges from the recession.
Ohio was recently awarded more than $1.3 million in federal funds through the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program at the U.S. Department of Commerce. This partnership, which is designed to help small and mid-sized manufacturers improve their growth, productivity and efficiency, has assisted approximately 3,500 Ohio manufacturers employ 670,000 Ohioans.
“I am convinced that without the partnership that our good Sen. Sherrod Brown, our federal government and the Barack Obama administration has worked on with the private sector — we will not emerge from this recession in the strongest possible position,” Strickland said during the teleconference. “That is why we are working every day and why we are in D.C. today, making sure and establishing the kind of relationships to develop these partnerships.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 25 September 2009 )
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