Thursday, March 28, 2024

Betas make history for VHS

IMG_2526Submitted by Kirsten Trambley

Meighan Smith

On March 10-11, 2014, 63 Beta Club members from Vienna High School attended the annual Illinois Senior Beta Club Convention in Springfield, culminating in bringing home 23 awards, the most in the state.

This year’s convention theme was “Making History with Beta.”

At convention, VHS junior Meighan Smith ran for the office of Illinois Senior Beta Club President. She vied for the position with the slogan, Head Out on the Beta Highway with Meighan Smith.

Smith delivered her speech during the campaign rally on Monday evening. VHS Betas performed in her candidacy skit.

Smith participated in a question and answer segment on Tuesday morning which led to Smith receiving enough votes to be elected into office over her three competitors.

The office of president is often quite a competitive part of the convention, and it is an honor for Smith and the club as a whole to win this office for the second consecutive year.

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Megan McCuan, Meighan Smith and Courtney Sanders prepared for Meighan’s campaign speech and skit.

Smith said, “I feel greatly honored to be the new state president. Since I was the Illinois Junior Beta Club vice president in junior high, I know that it is a great experience and I am looking forward to everything this year has in store for me.”

“What I plan to do as president is to try to get more clubs in Illinois involved with Beta Club.

Illinois is a small state, number-wise, at national convention and getting us more involved at the national level with more numbers would be awesome,” Smith said.

 

Individual Betas won first place in numerous competitions including creative writing (Taylor Bundren), graphic design (Sammy Gray), jewelry (Natalie Keeling), mixed media (Miranda Brookshier), on-site colored pencil (Natalie Chambless), product design (Collin VanAusdoll) and Spanish (Andrea Botello).

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VHS Beta 1st place banner. The banner was done by Taylour Daubert and Miranda Brookshier.

Entries which had two or more participants and received first place honors are convention sweepstakes, group talent, banner (Miranda Brookshier, Taylour Daubert), electronic scrapbook (Andrea Botello, Ryan Bradley, Jami Shipley, Bryce Shoemaker) and poster (Jerret Blackman, David Santellano, Cole Smith, Hunter Smith).

Second place winners from the state competitions are ceramics (Taylour Daubert), drawing (Natalie Chambless), math (Megan McCuan), mixed media (Natalie Chambless), on-site painting (Miranda Brookshier) and textile and fiber (Ashton Loyd).

Third place winners are campaign skit, architectural design (Justin Tanner), ceramics (Courtney Craig) and drawing (Miranda Brookshier).

During the two general sessions, Beta members, sponsors, chaperones and other guests of the convention heard from Lucas Wright, senior at VHS and outgoing Illinois Senior Beta Club president, who gave a keynote address about living one’s life to the fullest.

Natalie Chambless' 2nd place artwork in Mixed Media.
Natalie Chambless’ 2nd place artwork in Mixed Media.

Dominick Tedeschi, a VHS alumnus of the class of 2013 and the 2012-2013 Illinois Senior Beta Club vice president, gave an inspiration.

Also, VHS senior Ashton Loyd and freshman Hannah Loyd sang the National Anthem.

VHS performed well at convention, and they were not the only ones, as many of the surrounding high schools were represented in Springfield which included Goreville High School winning first place in special talent and second place in convention sweepstakes along with more awards.

VHS Betas are looking forward to attending national convention in June and are in the process of planning fund raising events for the trip.