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Another perfect day
6 students win bikes at Eisenhower
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Six students from Eisenhower Elementary had perfect attendance for the 2017-2018 school year and were rewarded with bicycles on Wednesday. Pictured are, from left: Kendra Scheideman, Payge Cain, Parker Coleman, Caleb Hayes, Brogan Unruh and Tyler Scheuerman. Bicycles were donated by a group of community members to encourage school attendance. Bikes will be delivered to Park Elementary on Thursday morning, which is the last day of school. - photo by photos by Susan Thacker/Great Bend Tribune


The great bicycle giveaway continued Wednesday, when Eisenhower Elementary celebrated its six students with perfect attendance for the year and 46 more with “near perfect attendance.”
This is the sixth year that a group of community members has purchased several bicycles for the purpose of encouraging and rewarding attendance at USD 428’s five elementary schools. In the past, with four bikes per school and several students eligible, those students were entered into a drawing to determine who would ride home on a new Trek-brand bike.
“I have six kids (with perfect attendance) and four bikes,” Eisenhower Principal Laurie Harwood told the students as they assembled in the gym. But shortly after she announced four names, she surprised the remaining two with good news; there were actually bikes for all six of them.


Karen Shaner with the community group explained earlier that so far this year they have had enough bicycles to award one to every student with perfect attendance. “It was a tough flu year,” Shaner commented, noting the number of perfect attendance students was lower than usual.
The winners at Eisenhower were Tyler Scheuerman, second grade; Parker Coleman and Kendra Scheideman, third grade; Brogan Unruh, fourth grade; and Payge Cain and Caleb Hayes, fifth grade.


Those weren’t the only winners at the assembly. Students from Barton Community College visited the school and helped hand out T-shirts for perfect and near-perfect attendance. Then there were drawings for other prizes, such as camp chairs, balls and games – including one science game. A hopper was filled with entries that students have earned over the course of the year, and Harwood had 46 prizes to give away.
After the assembly, which included some stretching/dancing to “Uptown Funk” and other popular music, the students headed to the playground for the annual kickball game featuring Staff vs Sixth Graders.
Thursday is the last day of school and will be Fun Day at Eisenhower.
The bicycle giveaway will conclude Thursday when the last bikes are delivered to Park Elementary.