Published: March 01, 2007 06:18 pm         

Bridge Creek High School receives recycling award

BRIDGE CREEK — Students in the Bridge Creek High School Science Club are gearing up to be community leaders in recycling. The school was awarded a Weyerhaeuser grant to start a recycling program for their school.

Bridge Creek High School is one of 11 schools that won $1,000 each in the 2006 Weyerhaeuser "Excellence in Recycling" Award Program. The money was presented in a special ceremony in the Chambers of the Oklahoma House of Representatives at the State Capitol on January 25, 2007.

Representative Susan Winchester and Senator Anthony Sykes congratulated the students and praised them for this leadership initiative. Steve Thompson, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality presented the awards with Pamela Baade, manager of education and volunteer programs of the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, Jana Rowland with the Oklahoma State Department of Education and John Burris with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Bridge Creek High School, Blanchard is starting a recycling program for the high school to collect aluminum cans, plastic bottles and paper. The Bridge Creek High School Science Club will be responsible for running the recycling program and training volunteers.

The High School Science Club will begin with educating the student body about the benefits of recycling through mini-seminars. In the seminars they will discuss the location of collection bins, specific materials to recycle and what items can be recycled at home. Most of the award funds will be used to purchase durable recycling containers for the program.

Other schools receiving awards were: Anderson Elementary School - Sand Springs, Bethel Public Schools, Cherokee Elementary - Catoosa, Choctaw High School - Choctaw, Clyde Boyd Middle School, Hinton Public Schools, Madill Middle School, Ripley Public Schools, Rockwood Elementary - Oklahoma City, and Stroud Public Schools.

This is the 12th year the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation has provided funding for this program in Oklahoma. A steering committee identified the award recipients through a competitive application process.

Representatives on the committee are from the Weyerhaeuser Company, Oklahoma Department of Agriculture - Forestry Services, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Oklahoma Kids in Environment Education, Inc., State Department of Education, Oklahoma 4-H Youth Development Program, Keep Oklahoma Beautiful and the Metropolitan Environmental Trust (The M.e.t.) and the Solid Waste Research Institute of Northeast Oklahoma.

To receive information on the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation's "Excellence in Recycling" Award Program contact Richard Chapman at (580) 981-1231.

For more information about recycling at Bridge Creek High School, contact Christy Esterbrook at (405) 387-3981.