Tygarts Valley High/Middle School winner of competition

West Virginia University, WV Forward and LIFT sponsored the competition, and awards and prizes for the students were given during the first assembly of the school year Friday afternoon.

The assembly began with a performance by the school’s band and cheerleaders before Assistant Principal Matthew Postlethwait made introductions.

First to speak was Vanessa Licwov-Channell of West Virginia MakerMinded, who welcomed the students and thanked everyone for participating in the competition.

She then passed the microphone to Robbie Morris of the Randolph County Development Authority, who gave a short motivational speech to students about what the students can achieve if they put their minds to it.

“Don’t let anyone fool you, opportunities are out there,” Morris said.

Awards were then given to the winning students and one chosen teacher, Debbie Rice, who made a difference. The students are listed as follows: Ryan Arbogast, Veronica Brown, Abigail Cabanis, Briar Daughterty, Ryan Defibaugh, Bethany Hanshaw, Madison Knight, Landon Kyle, Emily Lanham, Sydney Lindsay, Sommer McAtee, Shane Pritt, Aiden Row, Alexis Shiflett, Josh Stanley, John Sutton, Chloe Sycafoose, Gavin Teter, Joey Weese and Chase Wilman.

While not all the winning students were in attendance, prizes and fun were had by all before a few closing remarks from Randolph County Superintendent of Schools Debra Schmidlen and WVU representative Liz Wiles.

Students and teachers can sign up for MakerMinded before completing activities and career experiences related to STEM activities in schools.

Using social media, the students can document their progress in the competition and receive points that are tracked in an online leaderboard.