BREMCO awards Bright Ideas grants
By Caroline Monday
cmonday@mountaintimes.com

Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperative awarded more than $6,000 in Bright Ideas Grants last week to eight educators from Watauga and Avery counties at a luncheon Thursday, Nov. 8.

Blue Ridge Electric sponsored the Bright Ideas program in conjunction with the North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation and its 26 other member electric cooperatives. Bright Ideas is an academic grants program supporting educators and funding projects that enhance traditional academic learning, for which funds would otherwise not be available.

This is the 14th year Blue Ridge Electric has been involved in the Bright Ideas program. The company received 72 grant applications from schools in its service territory of Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Avery and Wilkes counties. It awarded 22 grants to educators in those counties, totaling $19,109. Six of those grants, totaling $4,293, went to educators in Watauga County. To date, Blue Ridge Electric has awarded approximately $250,000 in support of local education, impacting more than 66,000 students.

The winners for this year's Bright Ideas grants in Watauga and Avery counties are:

Wendy Jessen and Natalie Willis of Green Valley School, who received $500 for “Brain Benders,” which will benefit 5,000 advanced level students by creating specialized learning centers in K-2 classrooms.

Amanda Ward and Michele Nichols of Mabel School received $1,273 for “Text Talk,” which will increase listening, speaking, reading and writing vocabulary skills for 142 language arts students in grades K-6.

Robin Lowe of Watauga High School received $500 for “Poetry Alive,” which will allow 100 English and Language Arts students to learn from two resident poets who will conduct an intensive week-long workshop on performance poetry.

Kathie Rider of WHS received $475 for “Quilt It,” which will allow 110 math students to combine geometric shapes, patterns and concepts to design quilt patterns by involving math, arts, crafts and computer skills.

Tammy Gragg of Parkway School received $795 for “Speak to Me,” which will benefit 40 students in need of speech and language learning assistance.

Beck Reis, Kathy Butler, Sondra Edwards and Jeanie Hawkins of Blowing Rock school received $795 for an “Eighth Grade Chorus Festival,” which will allow 310 eighth grade students to create and participate in an all-day choral rehearsal and evening concert at Appalachian State University.

Kimberly Tufts of Cranberry Middle School received $795 for “Popular Product Project,” which will allow 55 seventh graders to create a product in packaging, as well as develop TV and magazine advertising to market their product.

Frank Taylor, Donna Burnop, Jason Jones, Melanie McLeod, Sharon Johnson, Bill Krupicka, Adele Byrd and Carolyn Parlier of Beech Mountain Elementary School received $1,000 for the “Empty Bowls Project.” The project will allow 60 students to study child hunger in various geographic areas to learn more about those areas of the world. They will also create ceramic bowls to be auctioned off in order to raise money to donate to those areas.