HILLSDALE, Ill. - State Rep. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale, held a Community Education Forum on Monday, May 4 at Moline High School to have a conversation with parents, educators, administrators and the community about education policy in Illinois.

"I want to thank Superintendent Dr. Dave Moyer, Superintend Scott Kuffel, Tammy Muerhoff of the Regional Office of Education and all the administrators, teachers, parents and concerned citizens who joined me to share their views and keep up the work to make sure our children get the education they deserve," Smiddy said. "Our schools are threatened in Illinois today, and I'm encouraged to see that many people are willing to fight for our children's future."

The free, open forum meeting held at Moline High School featured Smiddy, Dr. Moyer, Superintendent of Moline-Coal Valley School District, Tammy Muerhoff of the Regional Office of Education and Scott Kuffel, Superintendent of Geneseo School District, who made brief presentations about state and local education issues, discussed current and threatened budget cuts, and fielded questions and comments from attendees.

BATON ROUGE, LA (05/07/2015)(readMedia)-- The following local residents recently were initiated into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.

Katie Noble of Bettendorf was initiated at Carroll University

Benjamin Wyant of Coal Valley was initiated at Western Illinois University

These residents are among approximately 32,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni to be initiated into Phi Kappa Phi each year. Membership is by invitation and requires nomination and approval by a chapter. Only the top 10 percent of seniors and 7.5 percent of juniors, having at least 72 semester hours, are eligible for membership. Graduate students in the top 10 percent of the number of candidates for graduate degrees may also qualify, as do faculty, professional staff, and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction.

Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine and headquartered in Baton Rouge, La., Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest and most selective all-discipline honor society. The Society has chapters on more than 300 college and university campuses in North America and the Philippines. Its mission is "To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others."

More About Phi Kappa Phi

Since its founding, more than 1.25 million members have been initiated. Some of the organization's more notable members include former President Jimmy Carter, NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence, novelist David Baldacci and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley. The Society has awarded approximately $15 million since the inception of its awards program in 1932. Today, more than $1 million is awarded each biennium to qualifying students and members through graduate fellowships, undergraduate study abroad grants, member and chapter awards and grants for local and national literacy initiatives. For more information, visit www.phikappaphi.org.

1.       Cardboard boat race - Friday, May 8^th, from 8 to two students will take their sea-worthy vessels onto the waves of the Bettendorf Middle Park Lagoon.

There's a record number of teams!  Detailed info here http://bit.ly/1IkIBbC

2.       Biztown - Tuesday, May 19^th, PV students will be at JA's biztown.  Students interview for positions in the city and then go to work.  Always good visuals, but good lessons, too, as students learn what it takes to run a community.  We'll be there from 9:00am to 2:00pm

MOLINE, Ill. - Midwest Technical Institute is proud to announce seven Moline-area high school students as the winners of the 2014-2015 mrWF/MTI Scholarship Program.

This year's winners were determined by a public voting campaign via Facebook and include Jeff Farny, of Sterling High School; Colin Jones, of Mercer County High School; Daniel Reed, of Rock Island High School; Andrew Fitz, of Moline High School; Jace Jennings, of Kewanee High School; Madalyn Brown, of Moline High School; Logan Wheeler, of Louisa Muscatine High School.

Winners of this year's scholarship program will receive a 100 percent tuition-paid scholarship for any of MTI's courses and programs, including those in welding, HVAC, medical assisting, dental assisting, medical coding, CDL and others.

Founded in 2013 as a collaboration between MTI and Mike Rowe - best known as the host of the reality show 'Dirty Jobs' and CNN's 'Somebody's Gotta Do It' - the program is committed to assisting today's high school students in receiving the hands-on, workforce training necessary to help close the nationwide skills gap in a number of skilled-labor industries.

To be eligible for the program, students submitted a short essay and video detailing why they deserved to win one of this year's scholarships. Submitted videos were then subject to a period of public voting via MTI's Facebook profiles where the videos with the most votes were selected as winners.

MTI's Director of High School Development Eric Gleason believes the scholarship program offers winners more than just a free, skills-based education.

"The Mike Rowe scholarship gives winners a sense of accomplishment and pride, not to mention the recognition," Gleason said. "The effort these students put into this scholarship can give them the confidence to accomplish great things in their career and life."

A partnership between MTI and the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, the program awards seven students at each of MTI's five campus locations annually with a tuition-free scholarship. The program also works to promote the value of hands-on, vocational training for a number of in-demand mechanical trade, allied health and transportation industries.

For more information on MTI or the scholarship program, contact MTI Director of Marketing Stacey Wierman at (309) 427-2750, extension 1228, or via email at swierman@midwesttech.edu.

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