Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline and The Foundation for Daviess County Public Schools recently announced the continuation of a partnership in support of the Apollo High School and Owensboro Innovation Academy Robotics teams.
Jonathan Loehr, robotics coach for the Apollo and Daviess County High School robotics teams
“This marks our third year of partnering with Southern Star; it has been an incredibly rewarding partnership. We provided a robotics demonstration in their building, their engineers met in mentoring groups with students, their engineers volunteer as judges for our competitions and they have provided T-shirts for every student competitor in our competitions which traditionally have 250+ students competing. This partnership is so much more than just a monetary donation which, of course, we greatly appreciate. We are thrilled to have this connection and look forward to a continued partnership.”
Stephanie Gray, coach of Owensboro Innovation Academy robotics team
“At Owensboro Innovation Academy, our core mission is to prepare students for college and careers by shifting focus from training students for one individual test to training them for life beyond the classroom through project-based learning. We could not achieve this mission without collaboration from our community partners. … Since Southern Star’s partnership, OIA has had numerous robotics teams qualify for the Kentucky VEX robotics state tournament, and one robotics team qualify for the World VEX Championship in 2019-2020, the first in the history of Owensboro. OIA’s TEAMS group, which is a competition that the national chapter of the Technology Student Association hosts, has qualified for the National Competition the past two years, finishing 4th in the nation in 2019 in the design/build portion of the competition.”
Jimmy Staton, President & CEO of Southern Star
“At Southern Star, we continuously recruit employees for jobs related to the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Our company wanted to get involved with the local schools to help promote STEM studies. Three years ago, after a conversation and guidance from Vicki Quisenberry at the Foundation for DCPS, a partnership was formed with two local high school robotics teams, Apollo and Owensboro Innovation Academy. We are proud to be a corporate partner with both programs.”
Karen Goedde, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Southern Star
“We understand that this year’s robotics program and team competitions have been impacted by the challenges of the pandemic. Southern Star is very proud of the students and teachers who continue to push forward with STEM education during these uncertain times.”
Companies interested in partnering with the Foundation to provide educational enhancements for DCPS students may contact the Foundation for DCPS at 270-231-5583 or email Vicki Quisenberry at [email protected].
