School board OKs club trip plans

Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School clubs are planning trips to Seattle and Montana, following Monday night’s school board blessing.

The school’s Knowledge Bowl competitors will head to the University of Washington on a trip paid partially by their own fundraising efforts and supported by the gifted program and the Colville Tribes.

Members of the team and advisor Pam Johnson advised the board of a transportation problem that is worsening as the group grows: They don’t fit in a Suburban.

Johnson said they have a dozen high school students in the activity that travels to competitions where they are asked 50 questions on any subject in competition with other teams, and many current eighth graders will come on board next year. She expects to field three teams of six students.

Superintendent Rod Broadnax said they’d work through the transportation problem.

Director Alex Tufts noted the issue may dovetail with another the board has been working on for a couple months, hoping the Associated Student Body will decide to help fund the purchase of a large passenger van for such needs.

The AISES group also got the nod for their planned trip to Pablo, Montana in May, where members will tour Salish Kootenai College.

Advisor and science teacher Derek Atkins said he did his undergraduate work at the college, which now offers master’s programs too.

Atkins said 20 students would be going, along with another LR grad, Spuce Wilder. The group raised funds for it and has also gotten support from the Colville Tribes and the Indian Education program at LR, which has funds for college visits.

The overnight trip May 1-2, Atkins said, will “hopefully turn them onto a possibility in the future.”

They also plan to see the tribe’s bison range. Pablo is north of Missoula, on the Flathead Reservation.