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Tabor receives KCAC’s first award for sports excellence 
Tabor College has earned the inaugural KCAC Commissioner’s Cup for its athletic achievements during the 2012-13 school year.
“It’s exciting, it’s fun,” said Rusty Allen, Tabor vice president of athletics. “One of the things we had set as our goal was to finish in the top three of this every year, and so in the inaugural year to win it, we feel like we’ve accomplished a lot.”
The award—designed to recognize the accomplishments of student-athletes and the KCAC schools they represent—will be given annually to the school with the greatest overall performance throughout the three athletic seasons, based on points.
“Many of our peer conferences have a similar award,” said KCAC Commissioner Scott Crawford. “To align ourselves with those conferences, but also to highlight excellence at the athletic-department level, we moved forward with this award last spring knowing our first recipient would be recognized in spring 2013.”
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Hillsboro council approves ‘Youth Adventure’ concept
Written by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 27 November 2012 14:26
Sixth- and seventh-graders at Hillsboro Middle School may have an opportunity to participate in a local “adventure” this summer.
The Hillsboro City Council gave initial approval at its Nov. 20 meeting to proceed with the creation of Hillsboro Youth Adventure, a program that intends to use fun and food to teach students entering the seventh and eighth grades about the inner workings of their community.
The intent of the program, according to the three-person organizing committee, is to send an early message that Hillsboro will have a place for them when the students are ready to choose a place to live and work.
“We really want to be intentional in targeting our young families and developing an entrepreneurial mindset,” said Clint Seibel, Hillsboro’s economic development director and a member of the organizing committee.
“That begins with junior high and high school students,” he said. “That’s where you begin to plant a seed for our town and provide career opportunities and awareness. We’d like to do that specifically through our local city government.”
Based on Great Bend
Read more: Hillsboro council approves ‘Youth Adventure’ concept
Grateful for ‘normal’ days
Written by Patty Decker Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:48
Thanksgiving means different things to different families. But for Pete and Krista Richert of Hillsboro, seeing their daughter enjoy the holiday like most other children this year is reason for gratitude and celebration.
Their daughter, Lindsey, now 6, has been in kidney failure since she was 6 weeks old. About a year ago, her condition worsened.
“Lindsey’s kidney doctor said her labs were getting progressively worse, and last year around Christmastime is when her doctor said we needed to step up with dialysis or decide not to do treatment,” Krista said.
“But no treatment was not an option.”
Four surgeries later, their daughter is stable, for now, and looking forward to a traditional holiday with family.
“We have family coming here and we are going to see family,” Krista said. “(Pete and I) are so thankful that Lindsey can maybe have a normal Thanksgiving and Christmas with nothing in her stomach and not having to see any doctors.
“We are so ready for a normal time and are very grateful (this remission) came now. We were all so stressed and at our limit, but are ready to enjoy holidays, enjoy family and friends, and hopefully after the new year then take it day-by-day.”
Local educators enlist digital tool to battle digital plagiarism
Written by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:47
In these day, when writing a research paper is as easy as a Google search followed by a few cut-and-paste commands, local educators are turning to an Internet tool to help monitor the academic integrity of their students and improve their writing.
With a database of more than 20 billion Web pages, 220 million student papers and millions of articles, the sophisticated algorithms harnessed by Turnitin.com can indicate the percentage of “original work” in a student paper in mere seconds.
“You upload (the student project), it digitally reads it and then produces what it calls an origirnality report,” said Frank Johnson, vice president of academic affairs at Tabor College. “It will show with color coding exactly what in the parameters of the algorithms the similarities were of the paper and the source.”
Johnson became acquainted with the program several years ago as a classroom professor at a previous institution.
This is the first year the program is being used at Tabor. At Hillsboro High School, a few instructors have been using it to varying degrees the past five years.
“I use it for all of my English classes on essays and research papers,” said Darrel Knoll, an English instructor at HHS. “It helps me by identifying papers that have a high tendency toward plagiarized materials, which then allows me to do more investigation.”
Bob Woelk, another HHS English instructor, said he doesn’t use the program as much as he could—even though he largely was responsible for bringing it to the USD 410.
“I looked at it and thought it might be something that would help us because in the past we’d just have to go on a gut instinct: ‘This doesn’t feel right, it’s not really how a student should write,’” he said.
Read more: Local educators enlist digital tool to battle digital plagiarism
Youth gathering toys for children in hospital
Written by Patty Decker Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:45
As the Christmas season approaches, ideas for giving can come in many forms, but a freshman at Hillsboro High School, plans to give hospitalized children a special surprise.
Lillian Benda, 14, said she knows firsthand what it’s like to be in the hospital and how difficult it can be.
Diagnosed with epilepsy last summer, Benda said she spent a week at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
After checking with hospital officials, the administration was agreeable to her idea.
“For 14 years, I have gotten my special Christmas, but some children may not get their special Christmas,” she said.
Thus far, Benda said she has spent about $62 from her Christmas fund to buy toys.
In addition to money, she said she has devoted many hours to making flyers and distributing them to fellow students and others in town.
“I made a box located in the HHS office so students can drop off toys,” she said.
Principal Max Heinrichs, who approved the flyers and boxes, said he sees this as a chance to reach out and help other kids.
“Lilly is very excited about it,” he said.
High school musical ‘Willy Wonka’ presented to appreciative audience
Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 13 November 2012 15:27
Willy Wonka (played by Daniel Nelson) reacts as Veruca (Daniele Melton) sings at the top of her voice that she wants the whole world NOW—and if she doesn't get it she will scream. The scene is from the Hillsboro High School production of the musical “Willy Wonka” presented Nov. 8-10.
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