Students celebrate learning at Boys & Girls Club Expo in Smithton

SMITHTON — Cameron Rucker stood front and center, stomping his feet and intently following along as Judy Moore signed the lyrics to “We Will Rock You.”

Sporting a maroon shirt and gray pants, the 5-year-old kindergartner’s gaze was only surpassed by his enthusiasm as he and fellow elementary members of Smithton’s Boys & Girls Club performed the Queen stadium anthem, as well as the accompanying “We are the Champions,” in American Sign Language.
 
The performance Monday afternoon at the Smithton school was part of the Smithton unit’s Club Expo, an annual event that allows Boys & Girls Clubs of West Central Missouri sites to celebrate what members have learned through the school year.

Each club site — Cole Camp, Green Ridge, La Monte, Leeton, Sedalia and Smithton — will host one of the tradeshow-style events.

Moore, the Smithton unit director, said it took the elementary students about four weeks to learn “We are the Champions.”

“We would teach a section, then teach another section, then another,” she said.

The sign language performance was part of the Youth for Unity module; other modules for the younger set included Music Makers, science, art and the self-esteem building Smart Girls and Wise Guys.

Sixth- through 12th-grade club members rotated through five six-week after-school programs: crime scene investigation, photography, video production, marketing and theater.

“I was so impressed with how sophisticated it is,” Moore said of the teen programming. “These kids got to use the proper tools for these careers.”

Before the teen awards portion of the expo, theater module leader Chris Clark reminded members that the club gives them an opportunity to “learn special skills you don’t always learn in school.”

Alexis McNeal, 16, a sophomore, is the Smithton club’s Youth of the Year. One of the large screens displayed her video module project “Ultra Playground Protectors,” in which she portrayed a superhero ridding a playground of unruly thugs. She said it took a day to shoot the video and another day to complete the editing.

“This place is my family,” she said of the club. “This is a place where I can be myself.”

Paula DeBates, youth development professional in charge of the teen program at Smithton, said the expo gives members “a sense of accomplishment.”

“They can see that their work is not forgotten,” DeBates said. “In a small community like this, they can see what they can achieve.”

After the awards ceremony, Clark told the members: “You need to do different stuff every day. (At the Boys & Girls Club) there is cools stuff to do, cool stuff to learn.”