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Rotary Club of Grand Island's high school Interact Club to be heavily involved in Supervisor Candidates' Night

Sat, Oct 12th 2019 07:00 am

Four students will moderate questions for three candidates

The Rotary Club of Grand Island’s first Town Supervisor Candidates’ Night, with assistance from the Grand Island High School Interact Club and supported by the Island Dispatch, will be held Wednesday, Oct. 16, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Grand Viking Theater inside the high school at 1100 Ransom Road.

The candidates running for supervisor are Thomas Franz, Conservative Party; Jim Sharpe, Democratic and Working Families parties; and John C. Whitney, Republican and Independence parties.

The Rotary Club is excited to announce two dozen students from its high school Interact program will participate in the event as moderators, greeters and runners to obtain questions from the audience.

The three candidates will be seated behind a table on the stage and four students will serve as moderators, asking the questions. They will be assisted by Rotarian Mike Billoni, chair of the event.

Seniors Lucas Kruse and Luke Hess and sophomores Alexis Nguyen and Natalie Carter will be the moderators. Junior Amina Shaibi will serve as timekeeper. Kruse and Hess are co-presidents of this year’s high school Interact program under Laura Estenoz, a high school teacher and the long-time Interact advisor.

Serving as greeters and runners will be: senior Breckin Morris; juniors Emily Cohen and Jaime Lechner and sophomores Ashley Battaglia, Riley Joseph, Hannah Martinez, Hayley Pizur, Tom Banas and Riley Weber.

“It is extremely inspirational by the way these students have accepted our invitation to participate in this important event and how they have stepped up into leadership positions,” said Sherry Miller, president-elect of the Rotary Club of Grand Island and the club’s liaison with the high school and middle school’s Interact Clubs and the Earlyact Clubs in Huth Road Elementary School and William Kaegebein Elementary School.

“We are very proud of these students,” she added.

The Interact Clubs are Rotary International’s service clubs for young people ages 12-18 that are sponsored by individual Rotary Clubs, which provide support and guidance, but the high school and middle school clubs are self-governing and self-supporting. The Earlyact Clubs are service clubs for elementary students from ages five to 13 and they are also are self-governing and self-supporting.

This Candidates’ Night fits perfectly into the Rotary Club of Grand Island’s Mission of “setting the standard as the premier service club in our community, fostering fellowship and goodwill, emphasizing high ethical standards and promoting “Service above Self.”

After the candidates are introduced by the moderators, each will have five minutes to present his position. That will be followed by questions with candidates having two minutes to answer. Rebuttals will be one minute. The format will not allow for audience members to ask questions from their seats. The questions must be sent via email to [email protected] prior to the Candidates’ Night or they can write their question on a card that evening and they will be brought to the moderators by the student runners.

The Rotary Club of Grand Island has been meeting here for 61 years. To learn more, visit www.rotaryclubgi.org.

For more information, contact Billoni at 716-578-8948 or [email protected].

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