Students Visit Rural AmeriTowne
On Thursday, April 11th, the St. Francis 5th and 6th classes visited Rural AmeriTowne in Wray, Colorado. The visit was a culmination of six weeks and 45 lessons of study about community living and local economics. Students studied various roles in the community, filled out job applications, and were interviewed by St. Francis community members for various community roles they would play when the time came for the AmeriTowne visit. Elections were held, and Karly Bandel was selected to be the judge, and Kouper McQuigg was elected mayor.
AmeriTowne is arranged like a town square with ten different businesses including: a city hall, bank, TV and radio stations, newspaper, hospital, sign and printing office, as well as other businesses. The students played the various roles they had been "hired" to do in the activities leading up to the visit.
The students were accompanied by Seth Swihart and Julie Wolters (5th and 6th grade instructors), and well as Robin Burr, Rob Schiltz, Teresa Moore, and Talley Morrow.
Cassidy Busse commented on the visit, "It was fun! I really liked the hands-on part." Cassidy's role was a worker in a bank at AmeriTowne. Aaron White thought it was a "fun experience." He also mentioned, "It taught us how a community works and gave us a 'heads-up' for when we grow up." Aaron served as a DJ at the AmeriTowne radio station.
The AmeriTowne visit was provided at no cost to the school. The visit was funded by Midwest Energy (Hays, KS), Sunflower Electric Power Corporation (Hays, KS), and and Nex-Tech (Lenora, KS).
Click the photos to see more photos! (Photos by Talley Morrow)
