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Nationwide Contest Sends Five Ozark Students To Presidential Inauguration

OZARK (KFSM) — Five Ozark Middle School students and their civics teacher are preparing to leave on a trip that will take them to the 2017 Presidential In...

OZARK (KFSM) -- Five Ozark Middle School students and their civics teacher are preparing to leave on a trip that will take them to the 2017 Presidential Inauguration on Friday (Jan. 20) in Washington, D.C.

"I'm most looking forward to bringing back experience about the whole thing and getting to come back and share it with all the students," said ninth grader Raelynn Hall.

Winning an invite and a paid trip came with a lot of hard work and a little luck.

"The Discovery Channel had a nationwide contest for schools across the country to go and vote for their schools to win a trip to the inauguration," said civics teacher Jessica Culver. "From the whole country, we won."

Culver said the school received around 35,000 votes from students, teachers, parents and people within the community. The five students chosen to attend were picked from winning essays they wrote about the history of the presidential inauguration.

"The students are going to hear from speaker Malala [Yousafzai], who won the Nobel Peace Prize," she said. "The students are going to actually meet General Colin Powell and they will watch the inauguration."

It's an experience that will tie in nicely with what the students have been learning in their civics class.

"We had a huge unit in class over the presidential election," Culver said. "We watched the debates, we visited the candidate's websites, we had a vote in here."

President-Elect Donald Trump won the popular vote among the students. If given the chance to meet the president-elect the students said they have a few questions they would ask him.

"What's his plan for the next four years?" asked student Elizabeth Durning.

"What's the plan for the country? What does he plan to do to make our country great?" asked student Gavin Sanders.

The students and their teacher will leave Wednesday (Jan. 18) and return Sunday (Jan. 22).

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