THREE RIVERS AREA — Approximately 60 students at Cave City High School are involved in the Environmental And Spatial Technology - EAST - Initiative. Cheryl Bell serves as facilitator for three sections of EAST, guiding the students as they take part in a variety of projects that benefit not only the school but also the community.

Bell is a 1991 graduate of Cave City High School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Lyon College and a master’s degree in teaching and a specialist certification in curriculum and instruction from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville through a nontraditional teaching-tract program. For the past two years, she has been facilitator for Cave City EAST program, which was started six years ago.

“EAST gets kids involved in the community, helping solve some of their problems,” Bell said. “They get to pick and choose the projects they want to work on.”

Senior Tyler Tully, president of EAST, said, “If you have a good idea, you put it up on the board,” noting that the EAST students met during the first weeks of school to create a list of things they want to do. Tully has been in the EAST program at Cave City High School for three years.

“It’s a good opportunity,” he said of EAST. “It give students in high school a chance to work on projects professionally.”

Tully plans to attend Arkansas State University at Jonesboro and major in radio and television.

Junior Ashton Johnson serves as secretary for EAST.

“I agree with Tyler,” she said. “EAST gives students a great opportunity to do community projects as well as school projects.

“We’ve helped the middle school by going there and reading to the kids. We sponsored a Stamp Out Smoking program here at school, inviting a guest speaker, a local nurse, to come and speak during an assembly.”

Johnson said this is the third year for her involvement in the EAST classroom. One of her favorite projects is working on a special page, “Caveman Corner,” for a local newspaper. Johnson said she is thinking about journalism as a career.

Tully said an ongoing community project has been one that supports a fellow student, junior Alex Cossey, and his family. Cossey was hurt in an automobile accident and remains paralyzed from the chest down.

“We worked on sponsoring a benefit golf tournament for him and his family,” Tully said. “It was (assistant principal) Jamie King’s idea and we raised $13,000 for the Cossey Family.”

Bell said EAST students also produced a video to submit Alex Cossey and his family for the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition TV show.

“Tyler and Kaitlyn Castor filmed hours of video and sent it in to the show,” Bell said.

The EAST students have held several other fundraisers for the Cossey family as well.

Johnson said another EASTproject included making identification kits for 100 students. “We helped with fingerprinting the children for the parents to have a copy of their child’s fingerprints,” she said. The EAST students worked with Sharp County police officers and detectives on this project.

“They provided the kits,” Johnson said. “We had to have the parents’ permission to fingerprint their children.”

Bell said the EAST and technology students at Cave City High School were selected by the Bank of Cave City to develop an advertising campaign for the bank’s newest community service award, the Real Heroes Award. The award honors an outstanding member of the Cave City and Evening Shade communities and is presented four times a year. Bell said the person who receives the award is “someone who is nominated by the local citizens and must possess great leadership skills coupled with the heart of a volunteer.”

Bell said Cave City High School students were chosen to market the new award. Two teams of CCHS students competed for the right to advertise the award for the bank in an Apprentice-style competition. Students were asked to create a Web site, do radio advertisements and a TV commercial, as well as print media, to advertise the award for outstanding community service. The winning team included Tyler Booth, Whitney Bell, Holly Presley and Kalah Wooten. EAST team members Tully and Kaitlyn Castor helped build the Web site as well as edit the TV commercial.

The first recipient of the Real Heroes Award was Jamie King for his work on organizing the charity golf tournament for the Alex Cossey family.

During the 2009 ice storm, EAST students worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency using a Global Positioning System to gather destruction data. “Two of our EAST students - Aaron Green and Teisha Bagwell - plotted destruction points on our school district campuses and then reported that data to FEMA,” Bell said.

EAST students have also used their GPS knowledge to map a new high school football field that is planned for 2011 and to map school bus routes.

Other school projects sponsored by EAST students include a Little Tyke Halloween and a Veterans Day ceremony for the community.

Bell and her EAST students are now concentrating on attending the National EAST Conference set for March at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

“We went last year, just to look,” Bell said. “This year, we hope to compete.”

In addition to Tully and Johnson, other EAST officers are Tyler Downs, vice president; Dalton Palmer, treasurer; Julia Kober photographer; and Teisha Bagwell, reporter.

Three Rivers, Pages 54 on 01/28/2010