A Gift Of Gears
Bryon Moudy, center, master fit technician for Phat Tire Bike Shop, presents Coulter Fitzner, 17, and Breanna Swadley, 16, with new Trek mountain bikes Friday, May 17, 2013, during their small business operations class at Bentonville High School. The students were awarded the bicycles by Moudy for their class attendance history and completing a 3-part essay.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
BENTONVILLE — Two Bentonville High School students went home Friday with a new pair of wheels.
Colter Fitzner, a junior, and Breanna Swadley, a sophomore, both were chosen to receive a new mountain bike donated by Bryon Moudy and Phat Tire Bike Shop in Bentonville. They got the news along with their classmates just before school let out Friday.
Moudy, a master fit technician at Phat Tire, helps teach a business class at Bentonville High through the Gateway program, which offers small-class settings and alternative methods for students who have trouble learning in a traditional way. To help motivate the 14 students in the business class, Moudy promised to give away two bikes at the end of the school year to deserving students.
Students had to have a good attendance record and write an essay in order to qualify for one of the bikes, said Jessica Imel, the Gateway business teacher.
“I can’t stress enough how important attendance is in the corporate environment,” Imel told the Gateway students, adding Fitzner and Swadley have had attendance rates better than 90 percent this year.
At A Glance (w/logo)
Bentonville Graduation
• Graduation: 8:45 a.m. today at Bud Walton Arena at the University of Arkansas
• Number of graduates: About 790
• Amount of scholarships received: $7,322,275
Source: Staff Report
Fitzner, 17, said being chosen to receive a new bike was “really humbling.”
“I didn’t expect it at all,” he said.
Fitzner said he owns “a bunch of cheap bikes,” but only one that works. He expects to use his new one to travel between school and the restaurant where he works.
Swadley, 16, said she didn’t have a bike before the one she received Friday. She plans to use it on the bike trails near her home.
Gateway’s small-business class is in the early stages of launching a student-run bike shop. The shop will start out as a repair center for the 540 bicycles that were donated to the Bentonville School District earlier this school year. Eventually, Moudy said, the shop will open its services to the public.
The bike shop will be important not only to the community, but also to the students, Moudy said.
“It will take students who are close to dropping out and give them a life skill that allows them to work in any job in the bicycling industry,” Moudy said.
He said there is a nationwide shortage of people who know how to work on bicycles.
“So we’ll be a training ground for local bike shops and those across the country,” Moudy said.