Future City Competition

Volunteers Dave Mennenga, Tim Ross and Dennis Cantrell.

GBA participated in this year’s Great Plains Region Future City Competition held in Manhattan, KS on Saturday January 24^th.  61 teams from 39 schools  participated in this years’ event.  GBA sponsored an award in the essay portion of the competition for Best Technical Writing.

During the fall semester, Future City teams work on a variety of tasks, and then compete at the regional competition in January.  This year the event was  held on the campus of Kansas State University.    Each team does a research paper and writes an essay and a narrative. They also develop a Sim City model, as well as a physical model that they take to the competition.  On the day of the competition each team presents their concepts for an amazing city in the future to a panel of volunteer judges who then rank teams to help determine the ultimate winner.

This year the winning team was from Southwest Middle School in Lawrence, KS.  The GBA award for best technical writing went to the team from Republic County USD 109 in Belleville, KS.   The name of their future city was “Agritopia”.

GBA Brought Christmas to Newhouse

Volunteers spreading joy at NewHouse.

The holiday season was brighter at NewHouse through the efforts of GBA. Company employees donated a variety of items (electronics, household goods, clothing, toys, and more) to the domestic violence shelter that accommodates women and children. The gifts were set up in the Christmas store where women and children shopped for one another. After the shopping excursion, the gifts were wrapped and put under a tree for Christmas morning!

Founded in 1971, NewHouse’s mission is to “Break the cycle of domestic violence by providing the tools that allow women and children to make positive choices and lead self-sustaining lives.”