By Alexis Ramsey
Round Table reporter
The Key Club is returning to Middletown High School next semester.
Sponsored by the Kiwanis, a global organization with more than 5,000 clubs worldwide, the Key Club does service projects for the community. Projects include making cards for nursing homes, Trick or Treat for UNICEF, walks for diabetes and cleaning up the neighborhood by planting flowers or picking up trash.
Middletown High School previously had a Key Club, which was last active in the 2002-2003 school year. Lisa Boyll, an MHS spanish teacher, started the club in the 2000-2001 school year and ran it for two years until Casey Rogers, a math teacher at MHS, took over for one year in 2003.
Both Boyll and Rogers enjoyed the club, but neither Boyll nor Rogers “had enough time to organize it,” Rogers said, so the club was taken off of the sign-up sheets.
Middletown Middle School has a Builder’s Club, the middle school equivalent to a Key Club. It was first started in 2002 and is run by Linda Caron, an MMS social studies teacher. Caron said that she enjoys working with the Builder’s Club and helping out the community.
MHS sophomore Samantha Weaver was in the Builder’s Club and became the president in her eighth-grade year. Weaver’s sister, MHS freshman Jacky, was in the club during Weaver’s reign and when her sister moved on to high school, Jacky took over as the club president.
Caron said that both girls were organized and enthusiastic and she figures the traits “run in the family.”
Now in high school, the Weavers have decided to start the Key Club back up again as president and vice president with MHS social studies teacher John Miller as their advisor. They’ve recruited MHS sophomores Rosa Vaz as treasurer, Jessica Ramsey, as secretary and Alexis Ramsey as historian.
Weaver is looking forward to the club getting on its feet and said she’d like to have at least 20 people sign up (as 15 is the needed amount of people to start a club.)
Middletown isn’t the only school in the area that has a Key club; Tuscarora, Walkersville, Urbana and Linganore all have clubs.
Walkersville High School junior Allie Fogle, the Walkersville Key Club secretary, gave some insight on their club, saying that the club has been around longer than anyone can remember and that it has been a “tradition for the mission.”
Frederick County Kiwanis clubs are part of District Nine, along with all of North West Maryland, to a total of 16 clubs.
Each District has a Lieutenant Governor; District Nine’s Lieutenant Governor is Stephanie Feinberg, a South Carroll senior who started participating in Key Club her freshman year.
At the first meeting of MHS’s Key Club, Feinberg came and explained how to set up the club and gave a few ideas on how it should be run.
She said that the advisor shoudn’t have to do too much of anything. “It’s a kid-run club and teachers leadership skills to officers and members alike,” she said.
MHS Key Club will be starting next semester and sign-ups start in the spring.
