The Mountain Home Education Foundation hosted its second annual BOMBER PRIZE PATROL on Thursday, August 25, 2011.  Members of the community were invited to join MHEF Board members and Mountain Public School Board members to visit 37 classrooms while cheering for the teachers and students throughout the MHPS district.  Over $28,000.00 worth of Teacher Grants was awarded to the 37 teachers in these classrooms.  The grant money was obtained from endowments to the MHEF, fundraisers sponsored by the MHEF and through automatic payroll deductions given by over 100 teachers of the district.

Conner-Hankins Funeral Home recently donated $500.00 to the Yoland Condrey Memorial Scholarship Fund. During our recent open house there was a $1,000 drawing, with half of the money being won by Jeff Hughes and the other $500.00 given to his local charity of choice, the Yoland Condrey Memorial Scholarship Fund.  Mrs. Condrey had been the pediatrician for Mr. Hughes’ children.  These funds will help another student in the Twin Lakes Area pursue a college education.

Pictured: Bob Knight, MHEF President, Sonia Litty, MHEF Board Member, Marie Moore, Executrix of the Tempelmeir Estate, and Mollie Morgan, MHEF Executive Director

The ability of the Mountain Home Education Foundation to aid deserving students in the furtherance of their education received a boost on Tuesday when a bequest from the Estate of Louise Tempelmeir in the sum of $150,000.00 was delivered to the Foundation.

Lane Strother, attorney for the Tempelmeir Estate, explained that while Mrs. Tempelmeir and her husband had no children of their own, they had cared for numerous foster children and had a deep love for young people.  Mrs. Tempelmeir wanted to make sure that scholarships would be available for needy children who wished to further their education at a vocational and technical school.

According to Mollie Morgan, Executive Director of the MHEF, the funds will be used by the Foundation to provide scholarships to indigent students who wish to attend vocational and technical school.  Morgan reiterated that it is through the generosity of families such as the Tempelmeirs that allows the Foundation to provide scholarships to deserving MHHS graduates.  Last year, the Foundation awarded over $56,000.00 in scholarship to 87 students.

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passage of Connie Dryer Barnett (’71) who passed away on June 13, 2010.  Connie served on our Board and was involved in all of our activities.  At our Night of Honors, Connie served as a gracious hostess; during our recent Phone-a-thon, Connie could be found conversing with other Board members creating calling lists for the students and encouraging them as they learned the art of volunteerism; Connie served on our scholarship committee and generously helped to grant as many scholarships to as many Mountain Home graduates as our funds allowed.  Connie was faithful to our Board meetings and contributed much wisdom to our decision making process. 

 The Barnett family graciously suggested the Mountain Home Education Foundation as one avenue for memorial donations.  You can donate on-line through this web page or mail a check to MHEF, 2465 Rodeo Drive, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653.

 The Mountain Home Education Foundation appreciates the work Connie contributed to our organization.  We will miss her.

The Mountain Home Education Foundation held is annual phone-a-thon on April 20, 2010, at the Mountain Home Public School Administrative Offices.  Students eagerly called community members to make pledges to the MHEF.   The pledges will help with the providing of student scholarships and teacher grants.  Prizes such as scholarships, printers, and flash drives were awarded to the students for raising the most money, for receiving the first hang-up call, for making the most calls. etc.  It was a great night of “students helping students”

that produced over $5,500.00 in pledges for the MHEF.

The 2010 Night of Honors was held at Big Creek Country Club on Thursday, February 26, at 5:30 p.m.  Honorees included Dean Curlee (student award), Renata Jenkins Byler Student Award, Dr. Bob Ahrens (student award) and Robert Nelson (Teacher Award).  Elaine Hughes, former secretary to the MHPS superintendent, received the Earnest Perry award.  A new award, the Community Partnership Award, was added this year.  The recipient of the Community Partnership Award was First National Bank & Trust of Mountain Home. 

Students at Pinkston Middle School will be using  Hyper-Interative Teaching Technology (H-ITT) Classroom Response System in their math classes.  Roger Fisher and Kristi Nelson each received a grant to purchase this system.  The system allows for wireless, electronic student responses for bell work, quizzes, study guides, tests and many other functions.  Students can use technology (a growing interest among youth that will keep them engaged in the lesson), respond anonymously among peers, and get instant feedback on their responses.  The system integrates with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and other programs and also includes its own software for creating lessons.  Each student has their own remote “clicker” that they use to enter an answer to a teacher generated question

which can come from an article on the internet, a class quiz or test, discussion question, or even a daily critical thinking questions.

The HHS Academy at MHHS sponsored a CSI project.  Student from the HHS academy researched and prepared activities centered around the Crime Scene Investigation theme.  These activities were placed into project centers describing digestion (dental impressions; digestive tract); circulation (heart dissection;blood typing); and, the nervous system/skin (eyeball dissection;finger printing).  The projects were displayed at the Baxter County Fairgrounds for Pinkston 6th grade students to visit and “solve” the crime.  Other HHS students were rotated through 6th grade classrooms at PMS for sessions on heart rate, reaction time, muscle elasticity, bone scramble, bone dance and lung capacity.

The MHEF raised over $1,200.00 at its annual chili supper.  The event was held before the Mountain Home/Little Rock Hall basketball game on Tuesday, January 26, in the high school cafeteria.