S-C hall of fame may extend beyond games

A proposal to establish a Smith-Cotton High School Athletic Hall of Fame may be morphed into a plan to honor high-achieving students in academics and the arts, as well.

During Monday evening’s meeting of the Sedalia School District 200 Board of Education, board member Jeff Sharp questioned whether the athletics hall concept would require the creation of separate halls for academics, music, and so on.

Martin White, who retired this year as principal of Smith-Cotton and is spearheading the hall effort, said the board has the discretion to set criteria for induction and that he has no objections to expanding the hall’s horizons.

Board member Stan Bowlin said the district should seize the opportunity to add recognition for non-athletes. He also asked the trio presenting the hall proposal — White, Athletics Director Rob Davis and incoming Smith-Cotton High School Principal Steve Triplett — what other high schools in the region are doing. Davis said he made calls to various schools, but none provided information before the meeting and he will continue to look into the issue.

White said that after the retiring of Kim and Kathy Anderson’s jerseys last year, “there was a lot of community input, ‘Can we expand on this?’ ” So he started looking into creating an athletics hall of fame. He found that few schools have established halls, but he got some guidance from Darren Pannier, athletics director at State Fair Community College.

The original plan allows for recognition of individual athletes, coaches, teams and volunteers. It also restricts inductions to three per year, except the inaugural year, when six inductees would be allowed. Sharp questioned those limits, saying, “Surely there have been more than six (worthy nominees) in 85 years.”

He suggested giving the selection committee more discretion in the number of inductees, at least for the first few years.

Board President Scott Gardner agreed, noting that allowing more inductees the first few years increases the opportunity to honor older graduates who are still alive.

Assistant Superintendent Brad Pollitt stressed that hall induction should be reserved for “a select group, it should be hard for people to get in. These should be the best of the best.”

Board members will submit their suggestions for selection criteria to Davis, Triplett and Superintendent Harriet Wolfe, and the issue will be on the agenda for the board’s Aug. 22 meeting.

Also Monday night, the board approved increasing meal prices for the 2011-12 school year. Breakfast at elementary schools will be 80 cents, an increase of 5 cents; lunch at elementary schools and Sedalia Middle School will be $1.50, an increase of 10 cents; and lunch at the junior high and high school will be $1.60, an increase of 10 cents.

Pollitt said, ‘If you’ve been to the grocery store, you’ve seen the price of food increase over the past six months.” He also noted that La Monte is the only school district in the area with lower meal prices than Sedalia.

The price increases are expected to bring in an additional $15,000.

The board also voted to keep out-of-district tuition at the same rate as last year, $7,575 per student. Wolfe said the greatest impact is on the 20 to 25 students in grades 9 through 12 from the Dresden district who annually choose to attend Smith-Cotton.

In other business:

• The board set the district’s tax rate hearing for 6:15 p.m. Aug. 22, in the Smith-Cotton High School media center.

• Heard an evaluation of the At Risk Program from Kristee Lorenz, district director for educational support. She said a full-time social worker will be added to the staff at Sedalia Middle School for the upcoming school year and that the 30 percent increase in students classified as “at risk” is because the district is “doing a better job internally of identifying students” who need assistance.

• Davis displayed a portrait of longtime Smith-Cotton swimming coach Joe Arbisi, which was donated to the district by Arbisi’s wife, Becky. The portrait will be reframed to match the portrait of former baseball coach Ross Dey and will hang with Dey’s portrait in the high school gym. Davis said the image is not being placed at the pool at the middle school — which is named for Arbisi, who died of a heart attack in 2008 — because the chlorine in the water could adversely affect the portrait.