RLCC Oklee receives ten-year Participation Award from Red Basin River Watch

Red Lake County Central High School in Oklee attended the 20th annual Red River Basin River Watch Spring Forum on March 17th. The event was held at the University of Minnesota, Crookston campus. The event included a keynote speaker who gave a fascinating speech about her 2011 canoe trip from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Hudson’s Bay, Canada. The voyage took three months and included a flooding Minnesota River where she was lucky to paddle upstream at a mile and a half per hour.

 

Those attending broke into two different sessions to hear many different speakers.  Most of the RLCC group did not attend the second session, however, for they went to talk about their poster with the judges. RLCC’s poster was entitled “Paddling through history on the Clearwater River.”  The poster was about the kayaking trip on the Clearwater River that the group took back in September.

 

After lunch, the prizes and awards were given out.  RLCC took part in a Jeopardy! Game and came in second out of nineteen schools.  RLCC received a plaque for participating in River Watch for over ten years.  Both Oklee and Plummer schools started participating in the River Watch program back in 1998 and have been a part of the program for all but one of those years. 

 

The students who attended the Spring Forum were Ric Ven Auman, Brandi Jensen, Shawnee Styles, Nick Plante, Shelby Gunderson, Lynsey Morris, and Kyle Gagner.  All of the students said that they had a really good time and are looking forward to monitoring the rivers once again.

 

Throughout the 18 years of the River Watch program at RLCC Schools, there have been two advisors. The first advisor in Oklee was Mr. Steven Strutz who advised from 1998 to 2011. In 2011, Ms. Shelley Steva began her role as advisor in Oklee and previously had been advisor in Plummer for five years. Both are science teachers at RLCC High School.