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More perfection: Students with perfect attendance win bikes
RileyBikes2022
Pilot Club members join Riley Elementary School fifth grader Mili Orozco and her nephew Adriel Salinas for a photo Monday morning at the school. Mili received a bicycle from the Perfect Attendance committee, a group of community members who donate bikes to encourage school attendance, and a helmet from Great Bend’s Pilot Club, whose initiatives include brain safety. Pictured are, from left: Daniel Watson, Barbara Watson, Mili Orozco and her cousin, Vicki Richardson and Betty Schneider. Adriel is a future Riley Roadrunner. Not pictured is Karen Shaner from the bicycle committee and Connie Cale from Pilot Club. Shaner was at all of the bike presentations; Cale helped the other Pilot Club members fit children for helmets Monday at Eisenhower Elementary. - photo by photos by Susan Thacker/Great Bend Tribune

Wednesday, May 25, is the last of classes at Great Bend USD 428 schools. The perfect attendance recognitions that began last week continued Monday and Tuesday.

Each year, a group of community members collects money to buy several bicycles. The goal has always been to encourage school attendance. Usually, students at USD 428’s five elementary schools are entered in a drawing for one of the bicycles if they had perfect attendance and no tardies during the year.

This year, the community group planned to offer 25 bikes but wound up giving away 28. Every student at Eisenhower, Jefferson, Lincoln, Park and Riley Elementary School who met the goal received a bicycle. They also received fitted helmets donated by the Pilot Club of Great Bend.

Riley Elementary School had one student with perfect attendance and no tardies, fifth-grader Mili Orozco.

Eisenhower’s bike giveaway was Monday afternoon. Principal JoAnn Blevins also recognized the oldest students, who would attend a sixth-grade graduation that evening.

Blevins told the students that dozens of community members had donated money to purchase the bikes as an incentive for kids to make it to school on time every day. “They do this because they believe in you so much,” she said.

The six students who received bikes were Arianna Bott, 5th grade; Jamison Link, 4th grade; Abigail Lopez, 4th grade; Eastyn Schridde, kindergarten; Ellie Scheid, 1st grade; and Reid Urban, 4th grade.

Lincoln’s bike giveaway was Tuesday afternoon. The eight students with perfect attendance were Daniel Vazquez, 5th grade; Derrien Vazquez, 4th grade; Vivica Loera, 4th grade; Kyndall Chansler, 4th grade; Viren Fnu, third grade; Brynlee Snook, 5th grade; Tyson Wilburn, kindergarten; and Preston Real, kindergarten.