DWS Jr. Beta Wins Second at State

November 21, 2018
By: Bill Conger

The DeKalb West School Junior Beta Club won second place in the Robotics competition at the Tennessee Junior Beta Convention.  As a result, they have been invited to compete at the National Junior Beta Club Convention in Oklahoma next summer.  On the DWS Robotics team were Isaac Brown, Bralin Moss, Alex Antoniak, Brayden Carter, Xavier Parker, John Ellis, Aniston Farler, and Matt Nokes.

“The group of students working with robotics worked really hard to prepare for the competition,” says DWS Jr. Beta Club Lead Sponsor Jessica Antoniak.

Antoniak says a mix-up with the order for the LEGO Mindstorms robot order delayed work on the project until three short weeks before the competition.

“As soon as the set arrived, they built a basic robot, so they could learn how to program it,” Antoniak explains. “They brainstormed ideas to represent the convention theme: Reduce, Reuse, and Refine. The students working on programming modified the basic robot to make it work for their idea. Simultaneously, the props team started working on ideas to help with their interpretation of the challenge.”

“As the programming team worked on the original plans, they decided the idea as well as the robot needed to be completely revised. They started over from scratch with only two days before competition and worked down to the last minute.”

Thirty-one students along with parents and sponsors attended the convention November 18-20 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville.

D-W-S students competing in the Performing Arts were Tess Barton, Blair Gipe, Alyssa Crook, Madison Martin, Brooklyn Sutherland, Brynn Harvey, Ally Tarpley, Kayleigh Overstreet, and Ella Hendrixson.  Parent Mary Puckett coordinated the event along with Maranda White, DWS 4th grade student teacher.

“I’m no Josh Isaac,” Puckett humbly says, referring to the talented award-winning coordinator for the DMS Performance Group. “He’s pretty special, but I do have rhythm, creativity, vision, and some dance experience so I just took what I knew and came up with a step routine.  I hadn’t stepped at all since college when I first learned about it from attending a step show at Duke University, but I loved the art form from the minute I saw it years ago.”

“Getting all those steps down after hundreds and hundreds of attempts was tough. They did it though!  Having never been on the Beta convention stage created some issues for us with our spacing, but we learned so much that will improve our performance next year.”

“Our performance went awesome despite a few mistakes,” says Puckett. “For most of the girls, this was their first time in front of a big audience. They brought tears to my eyes to see their energy up there. We were surprised to hear so many people say how much they truly enjoyed it and how they thought we made an impressive showing. Our routine was certainly different than any of the other groups in our category, and we learned from all those groups other elements we might want to incorporate for next year.”

“We really liked our routine and the type of dance we were doing,” says Jr. Beta member Tess Barton. “Everyone had to concentrate hard to not forget their lines.  We hoped so much that the judges liked us, but we were also feeding off the energy of being in front of an audience and on a big stage, so it was a total adrenaline rush.”

Brett Walker, Matt Nokes, Kayleigh Overstreet, Jackson Vantrease, and Ella Hendrixson made up the Engineering team.

“We were given a list of supplies to bring for a tower to build with no real direction or specifications until the competition started,” Antoniak explained. “Our group built their tower with craft sticks, straws, aluminum foil, and card stock. Their tower successfully held a tennis ball.”

Kolton Slager, Cameron Bailey, Lane Goss, and Riley Fuson were in the Technology competition. Ally Tarpley, Bonnie Hale, and Maressa Rose created the Service Learning Showcase project. Gabby Wheatley entered Two Dimensional Design, Madison Tarpley put pencil for paper for Creative Writing as did Trey Beilfuss (BILE-Foos). Also competing were Marshall Farler in Woodworking, Aly Griffith in Visual Arts Photography, Blair Gipe-Visual Arts Jewelry, Karson Smallwood-Social Studies, and Alex Antoniak-Math.

The D-W-S Junior Beta Club will be working out details for the trip to the national convention June 15-18 in Oklahoma City.

November 21, 2018
By: Dwayne Page

The County Commission may decide Monday night whether to proceed with the latest plan to build a new fire hall in the Four Seasons Community.

The project has been in the making for four years but has been delayed twice because bids to construct the facility were deemed too high by the previous county commission.

Original plans called for the fire hall to be a steel frame structure of 40’ x 55’ in size consisting of two bays, a restroom, shower, and a small meeting room. It was to be a turnkey project with all the work including construction, concrete pad, septic tank, etc all to have been done under one contract.

The county altered the bid specifications during the latest round of bidding hoping to bring the costs down.

“There is no steel structure proposed on the inside. It would have wood posts and wood trusses. No storage upstairs. It does have a bathroom facility with a shower and a septic tank. It would have six inches of concrete to support the fire truck and two 12 foot doors,” said County Mayor Tim Stribling during Tuesday night’s All-Committees meeting of the County Commission.

Four bids were received for this design of the firehall. The lowest came from Johnson Builders of Doyle, Tennessee. Their base bid was $160,820 with alternate deducts of $8,000 for work on the parking lot and $4,000 to add insulation to the building. The other base bids were $178,787 from Bates Construction of Smithville, $188,500 from Fuel Tank Maintenance of Cookeville, and $221,409 from Garver Builders of Gallatin.

The county already has budgeted $165,000 this year for the project from the capital projects portion of the budget.

“We have bid this three times and I can’t see bidding it again. This is about as basic as you’re going to get for a two bay fire hall. There will have to be some site work. Some dirt will have to be moved but this bid includes that,” said County Mayor Stribling.

“This is a pole barn not a steel frame right,” asked County Commissioner Myron Rhody?

“This is wood poles with wood trusses two feet apart. We can go to a single bay if you think it’s too high,” answered Stribling.

“That’s awful high for a pole barn. I know a farmer who built a 60’ x 100’ (barn) with two big bay doors, concrete and all for $50,000. He added a shed on to it for $10,000 more. His is insulated with electricity and water and I think he has a bathroom in it. I know it was built five or six years ago but I don’t think things have increased that drastically. We’re talking about building one half that size for $170,000. I am not knocking the fire hall but I just don’t see it,” said Rhody.

“I think it’s pretty high. We could build two (firehalls) for that. We need one down there (Four Seasons) but I think it would be better if we could spread the money out a little bit further and get more for our money. It could be done cheaper,” said Commissioner Bobby Johnson.

“We had the same conversation with the last commission. We all felt it was too high. People were building pole barns everywhere so much cheaper. Why? Guys, I am telling you it’s not going to get any better. This has been dragging on for four years,” said Commissioner Anita Puckett.

“Well I am not going to be for any $170,000 barn,” responded Commissioner Rhody.

“Are there other alternatives? Could the county be the contractor and sub out portions of the project,” asked County Commissioner Bruce Malone?

“You could but you still must have an engineer. Any project over $25,000 requires an engineer or architect,” replied County Mayor Stribling.

“I know this looks like a lot and I thought the same thing that we could go out and buy something for $60,000 and look just as nice but this is the third time we have done it (sought bids for the project). They (bidders) know it’s a county government and that they can get more money from it. We’re going to have to spend a little more than we would like to. I really wish it wasn’t that way. They see us (county) for what we are. They (contractors) know we have money and they want their chunk of change out of it,” said Commissioner Matt Adcock.

During the previous round of bidding in May Triton Construction of Rockvale had the lowest base bid at $257,000 with two deductive alternates totaling $19,200 (deleting graveling and leveling the parking area and deleting external stairs and lowering the walls). Quality Builders of Sparta submitted a base bid of $278,060 with no deductive alternates and Preston Brothers of Woodbury offered a base bid of $285,300 with two deductive alternates totaling $27,690 (deleting graveling and leveling the parking area and deleting external stairs and lowering the walls).

During the first round in March two bids were received including one for $284,000 from Preston Brothers of Woodbury (minus $11,000 if the county put the gravel on the parking lot) and $197,000 from FTM Contracting of Cookeville (deductive alternate of $2,400).

A new fire station at Four Seasons would be the 12th station in the county operated by the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department. The other fire halls are on Short Mountain Highway, Midway Community, Belk, Keltonburg, Cookeville Highway, Austin Bottom Community, Liberty, Temperance Hall, Main Station, Johnson Chapel, and Blue Springs.

The county commission will meet in regular monthly session Monday night, November 26 at 6:30 p.m. in the downstairs courtroom of the courthouse.

November 20, 2018
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County School Board Chair, Dub Evins, spoke to the Smithville Rotary Club on Tuesday, November 13, 2018. Mr. Evins highlighted many of the great accomplishments of the School System over the past year as well as the tremendous need for a new school in Dekalb County. For more information about the Smithville Rotary Club, visit our Facebook Page at Smithville Rotary Club of Tennessee-District 6780.