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School briefs

Contest teaches students about older generations

By ELISABETH DYER
Published June 3, 2005

BALLAST POINT - Ballast Point Elementary third-graders learned a thing or two recently from older family members and friends.

Twenty-three students in Molly McLoughlin's class interviewed elderly friends and family members during May and wrote essays for National Older Americans Month. Home health care agency American Eldercare sponsored the essay contest to encourage interaction between generations.

Seniors living at Hudson Manor on Davis Islands judged the essays May 19 after students read the essays aloud. Winners received gift cards and books from Barnes & Noble.

TAMPA - Too often music teachers in Hillsborough County schools don't have enough musical instruments for students.

To help end that problem, the Unsinkable Molly Brown Foundation is matching every dollar raised, up to $3,000, to spend on new musical instruments through its Musical Instrument Challenge Fund. Since 2001 the fund has raised more than $47,000 for elementary school music programs.

Recently, the Don and Erika Wallace Family Foundation pledged to help the fund and bring even more instruments into schools.

TAMPA - Tampa native Delavane Diaz won the British Air Squadron's 2004 Cadet of the Year at a Pentagon ceremony April 28. The award comes with a Millennium Sword, a symbol of the enduring British-American friendship.

Diaz was honored for her performance as a cadet while enrolled at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where she was a cadet wing commander, NCAA athlete, Academic All-American and Rhodes Scholar. As cadet wing commander, she commanded more than 4,000 cadets and was the second female cadet wing commander in academy history.

Second Lt. Diaz graduated with a 3.95 grade point average and received a degree in astronautical engineering. She is pursuing two master's degrees at the University of Oxford. She graduated from Berkeley Preparatory School in 2000.

CULBREATH HEIGHTS - Jennifer Lamb, a Coleman Middle School seventh-grader, was recently awarded the outstanding student of the year and top overall student in three subjects: math, social studies and language arts. She also received an outstanding award for orchestra.

"For her it has been a year of continuous effort to achieve these awards," said her father, John Lamb. "She never quit or slowed down."

[Last modified June 2, 2005, 08:00:13]