Students honor memory of classmate

FORT RECOVERY - Junior students at Fort Recovery High School are honoring the memory of classmate Cody Wehnes, who died in August from injuries sustained in a traffic accident.

High school principal Jeff Hobbs told board of education members during a meeting Tuesday the junior class raised $300 selling bracelets to remember Wehnes and to pay for a gift basket for his mother, Theresa Wehnes. She has been traveling to hospitals to tend to her other son, Joseph Steinbrunner, 19, who was injured in the same accident. He remains in a coma, Hobbs said.

"The junior class has done a great thing; they've stayed in contact with the mom," Hobbs said.

Hobbs said the students made him proud by taking on the initiative by themselves and delivering the gift basket of gas cards and food gift certificates to the home when school was out of session.

"It was really good for the kids," Hobbs said, adding the situation was tough. "I think it was an eye-opener for them."

Hobbs said Steinbrunner has a fiancee and a young daughter.

Hobbs also reported the high school student council and Future Career and Community Leaders of America are spearheading an Adopt a Family program. They will be providing practical items and gifts to nine families and a handful of individuals in Fort Recovery in need of assistance.

The operation is largely being funded from the sale of Christmas poinsettias.

Middle school principal Matt Triplett reported the eighth-grade students recently took a practice ACT test and performed very well. Triplett said entrance to four-year colleges requires at least a composite score of 18.

"Our eighth-graders nearly qualified for college in math and science and aren't too far away in English and reading," he said. "But again, this is a test intended for high school juniors and seniors ... and once again, I made that abundantly clear."

All students took the test, and no special accommodations were made for students on individual education plans, he said. The students averaged a 14.05 in English, a 16.93 in math, a 15.9 in reading and a 17.3 in science.

Triplett said the test was intended to prepare them for future exams.

"Just to get them to sit down for three-and-a-half hours was interesting for me," he said.

"So the test they take, is it exactly the same as the high school kids'?" council president Dave Hull asked.

Hobbs and Triplett said the test contains retired questions from previous ACT tests administered to high school students. It also was taken online instead of on paper like the real ACT.

Many of the math questions involved algebra II and trigonometry, subjects the eighth-graders haven't been exposed to yet.

"We had some very outstanding scores," Triplett said. "We had a 31 in science by a young lady and a young man had a 30 on math."

The practice ACT test will be given to the students again in May.