Harrisburg High School wins $100,000 State Farm award
Harrisburg High School is one of only 22 schools in the U.S. to be awarded $100,000 by State Farm Insurance.
Principal Dr. Kevin Lein made the announcement to students on Wednesday, accompanied by a giant check made out to the school.
"Until it runs out, we just want to help people ... in the Harrisburg School District community," Lein said. "Everybody's always been good about that anyway, now we just have a little extra flexibility to do that."
Twenty-two high schools in the U.S., including Harrisburg, were named the winners of State Farm's Celebrate My Drive contest. The contest helps promote safe driving education by having schools submit videos demonstrating their commitment to driving carefully. With only 635 students, Harrisburg was one of the smallest high schools in the large school division of the contest.
Two students in Harrisburg's Family, Career and Community Leaders of America chapter were integral in getting the school nominated. Myckenzie Kuchar, 17, was asked by her adviser to help get the program together. She recruited a fellow senior and two freshmen to assist in the process.
"A lot of it was word of mouth," Kuchar said. "We spent half a day out on the football field filming."
Whitney: Hero stands tall in Harrisburg
Senior Joe Fuhr, 17, emphasized the role of the Harrisburg area in helping the school gain its footing in the contest.
"The community just really helped bring everything together," he said. "We contacted every parent who has a student going here. ... We went out and helped spread the word but it was the whole community that made it possible."
$22,000 of the $100,000 prize will go toward safe driving education, per the rules of the contest, while the rest will be divvied up among various charities and causes chosen by a committee of students.
"The rest of the money is going to be grant-based, so people will approach us and we'll spread it out in the way we feel it is needed," Kuchar said.
While a lot of safe driving education has been geared toward high school students, Lein said Harrisburg High School has considered using the money to help educate elementary school students about car safety starting at an early age.
"Some of the things we would like to do we haven't been able to do because of the (lack of) financial resources," Lein said. "I think we'll do some things with the parents and the community about how you drive in school zones ... We want to do as much as we can."