Category: Education

Faith Lutheran School in Plano hosted its sixth annual golf tournament on Friday, Oct. 6, at McKinney’s Heritage Ranch Golf & Country Club. The event raised $6,250 as of today, and donations continue to be accepted.

The money will help replace old uniforms and purchase equipment, stated the Rev. Stephen W. Kieser of Wylie, the school’s headmaster, in a press release. The money also will benefit the school’s tuition-assistance program.

Event sponsors included Thrivent Financial; Ear, Nose, Throat and Allergy Centers of Texas; Plano Magazine, Southwestern Chiropractic and Wellness Center; Anago Cleaning Systems of Dallas; Lenz Bus Service; State Farm – John Kraft; ABC Home and Commercial Services of DFW; Plano Sports Authority; and others.

Photo caption: (Left) Patrick Tauschek, athletic director of Faith Lutheran School, and (right) the Rev. Stephen Kieser, headmaster.

North Texas Book Festival, a Denton-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting school and public libraries and literacy programs, recently voted in its new board for the 2018 festival. Board members are:

Tina Hager – president

Jan Sikes – vice president

Judy Lowe – corresponding secretary and parliamentarian

Seraluna Sanchez – secretary

Katherine Boyer – treasurer

The next festival event is Saturday, April 7, at Patterson-Appleton Arts Center in Denton. More than 50 authors will sell and sign their books.

Raising Cane’s at 6010 Avenue K in Plano hosted Faith Lutheran School Night on Tuesday. The restaurant donated a portion of the restaurant’s earnings that day to the Plano school’s Washington D.C. trip-fundraising efforts, but the amount was still being tallied as of Wednesday afternoon.

Every other year, FLS students in grades seven and eight experience an educational tour of Washington, D.C. and the surrounding areas.  The trip is paid for, in part, by fundraising efforts.

Photo: (left to right) Elizabeth Crawford, Katie Riggs, Becky Endashaw and Mecka Sarty

Plano’s Heritage Farmstead Museum often is filled with small children on school field trips or hosts young families enjoying the 4-acre historic site, which is nestled in the center of the city. But folks at the museum are targeting a slightly different demographic with the organization’s senior-focused program Young at Heart: 55+ Exceeding the Limit.

The program is for seniors. The next event is 10 a.m. to noon Monday, Oct. 9, where Don Gates will give a demonstration of a traditional chuck wagon lunch; samples of the fare will be provided, and Gates will provide a history of the chuck wagon and the cattle drives in Texas.

The Botanical Research Institute of Texas and Texas Christian University recently announced an education and research partnership that enhances and expands TCU’s delivery of its undergraduate and graduate programs by adding plant science and field research to its curriculum, a press release stated. Both are in Fort Worth.

Undergraduate and graduate students in TCU’s College of Science & Engineering and College of Education will work with BRIT’s Ph.D. botanists and research staff performing plant science and field research to help satisfy their degree requirements.

“BRIT’s unique experiential learning coupled with its research labs and herbarium add a new learning dimension to our educational programs,” stated Dr. Nowell Donovan, TCU provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, in the press release. “Graduates from these TCU schools will be better prepared to make substantial contributions to their employers and to the environment as they enter the fields of their choice.”

The agreement provides the ability for qualified BRIT research scientists to develop and teach classes through appointment as TCU adjunct faculty. They will also help direct undergraduate research and after gaining Associate Graduate Faculty status, serve on graduate thesis committees.

The program is expected to be ready for its first students in fall 2018.

“In our 30^th year, BRIT is realizing its true potential as a regional research and education institution with the signing of this MOA,” stated Dr. Ed Schneider, BRIT’s executive director, in the press release. “We are aggressively pursuing academic and public partnerships that will advance conservation knowledge to the next generation of leaders.”

There is a joint signing ceremony for the agreement scheduled for Monday.

After a nationwide search, Fort Worth Academy recently hired Shannon Elders as the academic institution’s new head of school. It’s the school’s 35th anniversary.

Elders joins the Academy after 15 years at Currey Ingram Academy in Brentwood, Tenn., where she was most recently the upper school division head (2007-2017) and the previous upper school assistant division head (2002-2007), a press release stated.

“After admiring Fort Worth Academy’s stellar national reputation, it is a true honor to lead this exceptional academic institution into its 35^th school year,” stated Elders, who began leading the administration at the start of the 2017-18 school year. “When evaluating the next steps for my career, I also took into careful consideration where my two children would be getting their primary education foundation.”

Elders and her husband, Skip, have two children at the Academy – a son, Tommy, in the eighth grade and a daughter, Kennedy, in the sixth grade.

“As a parent, I applaud the Academy’s decade’s long commitment to small class size in an environment which removes the fear of failure, rewards intellectual risk-taking and encourages the pursuit of personal excellence,” Elders stated. “As an administrator, I look forward to helping the students of Fort Worth Academy grow and thrive.”

Trained at Harvard Business School, Elders also holds a master of science from the University of Central Arkansas and a bachelor of arts from Harding University.  She is a nationally-certified speech-language pathologist with numerous honors including being named a top three finalist for Nashville’s Emerging Leaders Awards in Education in 2008.  Elders is a member of both the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Fashion fete benefits Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County

Tickets and tables are now on sale for the sixth annual Wine, Women & Shoes fundraiser, presented by Capital One Commercial Banking and benefiting Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County. The event is 6-10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, at Ridglea Country Club in Fort Worth.

Tickets are available at www.winewomenandshoes.com/cisfw. Contact Rachel.Peters@cistarrant.org for sponsorships or more information.

• Individuals – $200 each, including one ticket for pre-party at Neiman Marcus on Oct. 5
• Tables – $2,500 for 10, including 10 tickets for pre-party at Neiman Marcus on Oct. 5
• VIP Tables – $5,000 for 10, including 10 tickets for pre-party at Neiman Marcus on Oct. 5, as well as exclusive champagne reception and access to VIP lounge, exclusive seating, entry into VIP luxury raffle and special gift. (A limited number are available.)

Attendees will sip varietals from some of the country’s top winemakers and shop the latest trends in the exclusive marketplace, dine on a buffet dinner and cheer on local leading ladies as they strut the runway in a fashion show produced by Karl Marshall. The 2017 Celebrity Models include:

• Leslie Distler – Feathers
• Marcie Ditto – Mustard Seed Jewelry
• Beth Hutson – Hutson Creative
• Melissa Ice – The Net
• Sharon Leite – Community Volunteer
• Michelle Miles – Fort Worth Woman
• Carley Moore – Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty
• Rachel Navejar – Community Volunteer
• Stephanie Perry – D Method
• Cynthia Sadler – Signature Cuffs
• Tracy Syler-Jones – Texas Christian University

Back by popular demand are the ever-popular Sole Men – dozens of the community’s charming gentleman serve up this season’s must-haves on silver platters.

Vendor partners include home and fashion from new Fort Worth retailer Feathers, along with return favorite Mustard Seed Jewelry and and the popular Stanley Eisenman Fine Shoes. Additional retailers include Carmella Designs, Casey & Co., Consuela Bags, Granny Bee’s Homemade Candles, Jim Irwin Floral, JJ Caprices, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Kendra Scott, Love 13, LulaRoe, Rebel With Cause and The Class Act.

Twenty percent of sales during the evening benefit Communities In Schools. 

Highlights of the live auction include:

• In-home brunch for 10 from the wildly successful pop-up, Hot Box Biscuit Club.
• A week’s accommodations at a seaside Florida cottage, including AAdvantage miles
• Children’s private practice with TCU women’s basketball coach Raegan Pebley
• Instant wine cellar package
• Private makeover party with Dior Beauty at Highland Park Village

 Wineries in attendance will include Boisset, Cornerstone Cellars, Conondrum, Emmlo, JCB, Justin, Landmark, and Le Grand Cortage.

The sixth annual fundraiser is chaired by Cynthia Farquharson and Robin Froeschke, with a host committee including Shannon Baumgardner, Brooke Baumgardner, Tiffany Cason, Vaughna Galvin, Karen Green, Lisa Gunter, Stacey Happel, Annie Miller, Carley Moore, Rachel Peters, Rebecca Rucker, Kay Sanders, Marion Snipes, Ivet Taneva and Chandler Wallace.

Wine, Women & Shoes is presented by Capital One Commercial Banking. Additional sponsors include:

• Couture– American Airlines, INDULGE Luxury Magazine/Fort Worth Star-Telegram and an Anonymous Horned Frog
• VIP Level – BBVA Compass
• Diamond Stiletto – Double Eagle Energy Permian LLC, Frost Bank, Pinnacle Bank, Cynthia Farquharson, Robin Froeschke and SouthWest Auto Group
• Blingin’ Boot – D Method, Fort Worth Woman, Holt Capital Partners, Insperity, Sharon Leite, Neiman Marcus Fort Worth, Northern Turst, Teresa Paslay, Plains Capital Bank, Range Resources, Rebel With Cause, Marion Snipes, Tarrant Dermatology, Tolleson Wealth Management, VLK Architects and Whitley Penn and Weaver

Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County serves the following independent school districts: Azle, Crowley, Everman, Fort Worth, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Keller, Lake Worth and Weatherford. For the 2015-16 school year, the latest figures available, 37,252 students were served by CIS-GTC, with 4,572 students receiving intensive case management, and of those students:

• 87 percent improved their grades
• 94 percent improved their behavior
• 94 percent were promoted to the next grade
• 94 percent of high school seniors graduated

About Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County

Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County is a 501c3 non-profit that is part of a national network of CIS programs serving more than 1.2 million students. CIS-GTC is currently placed in 47 schools across eight Tarrant County school districts this year, serving students who are identified by their schools as most at-risk of dropping out. CIS-GTC serves not only students, but their families, assessing their unique needs and working with more than 80 community partner organizations to connect the students with the resources they need to address a wide range of issues. The mission of CIS-GTC is to surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.

www.cistarrant.org

The country club is at 3700 Bernie Anderson Ave.

DoubleDave’s Pizzaworks in Denton will host a fundraiser 5-9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4, to benefit Emerald Eagle Scholars Organization. The pizza restaurant will donate 10 percent of its sales during that time to EESO, which provides peer-led support, academic success and campus connection to Emerald Eagle Scholars at the University of North Texas.

The Emerald Eagle Scholars program provides access to higher education for academically talented students with high financial need. The fundraiser will help EESO to host more social events for its members, and it will help to finance awards banquets and recognition ceremonies.

“DoubleDave’s loves to help support good causes, especially ones that encourage academic success,” stated Ali Kohandani, the restaurant’s co-owner, in a press release.

DoubleDave’s is at 220 W. University Drive. Other DoubleDave’s locations are not participating in the fundraiser.

To order online, go to doubledaves.com. To call in an order, use 940-243-DAVE (3283).

The fundraiser includes delivery orders, Kohandani said.