School garden of the year
Two of the region's schools were recognized in the 2017 Arkansas Grown school garden of the year contest sponsored by the Arkansas Agriculture Department and Farm Credit of Arkansas. King Elementary School in Van Buren was recognized as having the best nutrition-education based school garden, and James R. Tate Elementary in Van Buren was recognized for the best community collaboration school garden.
The schools each will receive $500. The Arkansas Grown program promotes food and products grown in Arkansas by Arkansas producers and helps make the connection between growers and buyers.
University of Kansas
Christopher McClinton of Fayetteville earned a certificate in radiation oncology this summer from the University of Kansas.
Southern Arkansas University
The Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia presented Madagascar on Nov. 16-19 at Harton Theater.
Students from this area who were involved in the production include Timothy Starr of Van Buren, playing Alex the Lion; Darby Taylor of Barling, playing Gloria the Hippo and working as part of the set construction and electrician crew; Simon Tursky of Van Buren, playing Zookeeper Zeke and serving as part of the male ensemble; and Mikayla McCoy of Rogers, serving as the makeup designer.
George Junior High
An Environmental and Spatial Technologies (EAST) class at George Junior High in Springdale recently won second place in a national contest focusing on genetically modified organisms.
Students created a 15- to 30-second video that answered the question, "If you could use biotechnology to solve any food problem around the world, what would it be and why?" The contest was designed to showcase real-world problems facing the food supply and food production system that could be solved using GMOs and biotechnology.
GMO Answers awarded the George EAST class, led by teacher Robert Beard, second place for their entry. The class submitted a video that demonstrated how biotechnology can help solve world hunger, citing that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates one in seven people in the world suffer from chronic hunger.
GMO Answers was launched by the agricultural biotechnology industry in 2013 to answer consumers' questions about genetically modified organisms in crops in the U.S. food supply.
NAN Our Town on 11/30/2017