GASTON, S.C. — Nearly 30 students at Frances Mack Intermediate has earned their way to compete in the National Junior Beta convention in Austin Texas.
Dr. Kari Furtick, the instructional coach and the Beta sponsor at Frances Mack Intermediate, says they had more than 50 students participate in the station competition last week in Myrtle Beach.
"They did very well. This is a good opportunity for students to implement the 21st century skills that they're learning in their classrooms and take those and apply them in new situations and in different competitions," said Dr. Furtick.
Some of the competitions include engineering, marketing communications, speech, woodworking, and other topics.
Dr. Furtick says there's a lot of work that goes into preparing for these conventions.
"We start right after our competitions last year. Last summer we started planning and getting together," explained Dr. Furtick. "We have some really supportive parents who blocked out some time at churches and the neighborhoods so that they could all get together and practice."
The district also allows the club to meet after school and on weekends to get prepared for the competitions.
After months of hard work, 29 students from the Frances Mack Intermediate Junior Beta Club team qualified for the national convention out in Texas in June.
Some of the students who qualified include Daniel Rojo, Anthony Villasana-Borbon, Tyler Squire, Kimi Johnson, Hudson Sebok, Meredith Grice, Jaina Stevenson, McKenly Allen, Kayla Johnson, Alexandra Barrios, Carleigh Brown, Justice Jones, Madson Painter, Eva Taylor, Dalton Black, Cailyn Lubic, Gabrielle Struckman, Molly Turner, Brianna Torres, Charlotte Beth Burns, Adin Busbee, and Logan Sightler.
Kayla Johnson, who's in sixth grade, said she loves the convention because you can a lot of new people.
"Having the opportunity in a convention is worthwhile being in Beta for and also the service we do. Conventions are just a lot of fun for everyone to get together and know each other better," said Johnson.
Johnson was in a couple of different competitions. She was in speech, social studies tests, learning service showcase, scrapbook, and marketing and communications.
Dr. Furtick says a lot has changed since she started working with the club four years ago.
"For us to go from our first year where we had no qualifiers, to the second year where we had five or six, last year we had nine, and this year we have 29 between our school and the middle school and that's a huge deal," said Dr. Furtick.
It wasn't an easy road to victory. The students had to compete against more than a thousand other students and more than 50 teams from across the entire state.
Johnson says their ready to head to Texas and compete on the national stage.
"Last year we went to Oklahoma City, which was really exciting, so this year I feel really excited to know what to expect a little bit and also I'm just excited about going to Texas," said Johnson.
The sixth grader says she's also really proud of her team.
"It's just be an amazing year with them because we've all worked together a lot to make this happen and all of their hard work has really paid off with all these awards we've won," explained Johnson.
"We will be upping our game to make sure we can compete nationally," said Dr. Furtick. "Last year we had a few national titles so we'll see, with so many students, if we can go and we can bring some more titles home this year."