The statewide, annual “Girl’s Only” Quiz Bowl was held in Seward at the Seward Living Word Lutheran Church at 1300 West Hillcrest on Wednesday, October 2^nd in an all-day quiz bowl competition from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm.  The event is annually sponsored by the GFWC Nebraska Federation of Women’s Club’s to showcase high school girls in a competitive academic “general knowledge” competition.  High schools were invited statewide to share in this event and 49 teams entered this year’s contest.

The day began with a “Round Robin” tourney, where each team was guaranteed three rounds of quiz bowl contest competition to “warm the teams up” with practice rounds and determine the seeding placement for the afternoon’s single elimination tourney.  The teams were divided into three divisions, based on school size by the NSAA numbers with small, medium and large schools in competition.  The afternoon contest featured a bracketed contest, with teams seeded to play in a single elimination contest for first, second, third and fourth place.   There were 49 teams and contests were held in nine rooms throughout the church. The first-place teams won a trophy and individual team medals and the runner-up team won a trophy-donated by the GFWC NFWC.

The winners of the contests included…

Large School Division: First Place-Seward High Team A-Coach Melissa Pohl, Second Place- Seward High Team B-Coach Melissa Pohl, Third Place-Elkhorn South-Coach Abigail Cleary, Fourth Place-York High Team A-Coach Sam Due. 

Medium School Division: First Place-Fillmore Central-Geneva-Coach Ryan Komenda, Logan Magnolia-Iowa-Coach Kathy Foreman, Third Place-Kearney Catholic-Coach Polla Renken, Fourth Place-Raymond Central-Coach Courtney Polak. 

Small School Division: First Place-Shelton High-Coach Shanna Held, Second Place-Nebraska Christian Team A-Coach Dee Flynn, Third Place-Howells/Dodge-Traci Sindelar, Fourth Place- Nebraska Christian-Team B-Dee Flynn.

Volunteers for the tourney included the reader/judges for each room-Sue Imig, Nancy Schulz, Ellie Janda, Bonnie Kruse, Andy Jensen, and Clark Kolterman-all from Seward, Melissa Pohl from Utica and Kathy Wilcox from Crete, Kathy Huggins from Papillion, and Laura Sabatka from Fullerton.  Kathy Huggins, the State NFWC President from Papillion served as a host for the day, with Diane Uher from Clarkson the GFWC NFWC Chair and local GFWC coordinator of the tourney.  Riley Nuttleman served as the Quiz Bowl Master and Clark Kolterman was the tourney manager.  Pastor Scott Krohn coordinated the church’s facilities.  GFWC NFWC members Brooke Chandler and Rene’ Chandler with the GFWC Seward Woman’s Club, coordinated the lunch for the coaches and judges over the noon hour.

The schools attending included Columbus Scotus, Cross County, Shelby/Rising City, McCool Junction, Falls City, Raymond Central, Crete, Exeter/Milligan, Central City, York, Seward, Howells/Dodge, Oakland/Craig, Sandy Creek, Tri-County, Heartland-Henderson, Logan Magnolia (Iowa), Norris, Fullerton, Fillmore Central, Gretna, Dorchester, Ralston, Elkhorn High, Elkhorn South, Elkhorn North, East Butler, Nebraska Christian, Humphrey, Cross County, Thayer Central, Bennington, West Point/Beemer, Fillmore Central, Dorchester, Humphrey,  Shelton and Kearney Catholic.

SHS Senior, Jena Eberspacher of rural Seward was named the 2024 September Seward Rotary Club’s Youth Rotarian at the recent September 18^th noon Rotary Club luncheon meeting held at the Jones Bank Auditorium.  She is the daughter of Jon and Jill Eberspacher. 

Jena places scholarship high in her values and enjoys as 3.93 GPA on a 4.0 scale.  She is a longtime member of the SHS Honor Roll and has enjoyed dual credits in Human Geography, United States History, Environmental Science, Marketing, College Algebra, Education, Public Speaking and Ag Intro-all through SCC, Concordia University or Doane.  She received the “All State” Academic Award and was a Ne Youth Salute Scholarship Winner.  She has been the recipient of the P.R.I.D.E. Awards many times and the Intentionally Selected P.R.I.D.E. Award winner twice.  She is a member of the SHS Quiz Bowl Team.

Jena is a very involved young woman at Seward High with many, varied interests.  She was recently elected the State President of the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and has been a member of FBLA for four years, serving as the Chapter President and Secretary and co-chair for many of the SHS Chapter Committees and Activities.  She was named the FBLA All Sate Quality Member and qualified for nationals in the Social Media Strategies Competition -placing Third. She is a member of the FBLA National Board of Directors and travels the state and now even the nation to promote FBLA and Nebraska.  Jena was selected the SHS FBLA Member of the Month

She also has a strong Ag tie and very involved with the local FFA Chapter.  She served on the SHS FFA Board as the Chapter Reporter and won the FFA Greenhand Degree.  She was an FFA District Runner-up and FFA District Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking and qualified as a State FFA Extemporaneous Speaker as well.  She chaired many FFA local projects and served as a voice for FFA in the Bluejay Leadership Team (Student Council).

Jena has also been an involved and dedicated member of the SHS Skills USA Chapter, the SHS Family, Community, Career Leaders of America (SHS FCCLA), Key Club and the SHS Ambassadors, a member of the Mixed Choir at SHS, as well as the SHS Honor Choir.

She has participated in a variety of sporting activities over the years, involved in Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer (lettered twice) and Varsity Golf (lettered twice).  She was named State Honorable Mention for Soccer Goalie in 2024.

In the community, Jena has a variety of activities she points to as assisting in her development, including membership in 4-H and 4-H Junior Leaders programs.  She has a ten-year affiliation with her 4-H membership and been involved in a host of 4-H activities over the years at the County Fair and in the community.  She was also very involved with Girl Scouts and served as a helper for the Summer Horizon’s Program at St. John Lutheran Church in Seward.

She is a youth leader and youth voice in her church, a member of their God Parent Program and taught Vacation Bible School and Sunday School and served as the Photographer and Videographer for the Seward United Methodist Summer Bible School for ages 5-6.

Jena has been employed and worked as a pollinator in the fields and served as a Nanny for three children.  She has been employed as a Coffee Barista at the local Scooters Coffee shop and helps at the family farm when time permits.

Her community service includes membership in the “100 Club”-one hundred hours of documented community service (in fact Jena has logged 321.5 hours of community service in her high school career to date!).She is a volunteer coach for the Seward Lighting Volleyball team, a volunteer SMS Volleyball Coach, has participated  as a volunteer coach in a host of girls’ sport camps and involved in numerous clean-up efforts with 4-H and FFA.  In fact, many of her community service hours revolve around the local SHS FBLA, FFA, Skills USA, Key Club and Leadership Team community service activities, as well as her involvement with 4-H and her church and their outreach and educational efforts.

She plans to be involved in some type of Ag Business in the future and has left the specifics “wide open” and will decide once the time comes and she has not decided on a college or university to attend next fall to date.

Jena was recognized at the Rotary Club meeting and presented with a Rotary banner, a bag of Rotary and Seward Promotional material and a Seward Gift card to assist with her college expenses.  She is a finalist for the Seward Youth Rotarian of the Year and will be honored again at the May SHS Honors Night.  Youth Rotarians are selected each month of the school year at SHS and applications are available with the SHS Counselors. 

If you are interested in online payments regarding school meal purchases, please see the message below. We will continue to accept check and cash payments in the school offices as usual.  

 

School Payment Portal is being offered as a safe, secure and convenient way for parents/guardians to manage school lunch payments. You will have the opportunity to track purchases, create reminders and set up automatic payments. If you do not want to pay online and would like to continue sending in money with your student, you are still able to create a username and password to track your students’ purchases and see how much money is on the account.

 

Below is a guide to setting up your student’s account. Any questions or concerns with a student’s account should be directed to the office of your child’s school.  

 

To set up your account you can visit https://www.schoolpaymentportal.com

 

• The first time that you visit the website, you will be directed to Click the green button marked CREATE ACCOUNT. Enter your First Name, Last Name, email address and a password. Then click the Create Account button located in the lower right corner. Once you have established an account, you will need to use the Parent Login button from the main site to access your account.

 

• You will see confirmation that your account has been created successfully. Next, click the Parent Login Page button, enter your login credentials and click Sign In

 

• Once you are logged in, click the Add Student button.

 

• Enter the School’s Zip Code, 68434, in the field for zip code, then click Continue

 

• Available schools will be displayed. Click on the blue Select to the left of the School name

 

• Enter the required information for the student that you wish to add to your account, then click Continue

 

• Verify the information and click on the blue Add Student to the left of the student’s name

 

• You will be returned to the Student Access page. Follow the above steps for each student you wish to add to the account

 

To make payments to lunch accounts:

• Click the blue button marked Make Cafeteria Deposit

• Enter the Deposit Amount for each Student listed and click the Continue button.

• Follow the screen prompts to set up your payment options.

 

Lunchtime also offers a Mobile App and this information can be found on the login screen.

Click on the following link to access the newsletter.

SPS District Newsletter - Fall 2024