POMEROY — Meigs County’s archery students again this year made it into the winner’s circle at the Ohio National Archery in the Schools state tournament and will be honored at a recognition dinner hosted by the Wild Horse Cafe Monday.

Meigs Local Superintendent William Buckley presented the results and announced plans for the recognition dinner at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Meigs Local Board of Education. He expressed pride in the archery program in the Meigs Local Schools and commended the students for their outstanding performance in the competition.

The tournament was held in Columbus last weekend in conjunction with the Arnold Sports Festival spearheaded by California Governor Arnold Schwearzenegger who addressed the crowd of archers and fans during the awards ceremony.

From the more than 800 students from 34 teams participating in the state tournament, the Meigs High School team was selected to receive the team spirit award which recognized their enthusiasm and support of fellow archers in the tournament.

Jacob Riffle of Meigs High School and Kelsey Taylor or Morgan High School were ranked as the top overall male and female archers and awarded fill two-year scholarships to Hocking College in Nelsonville. The top male and female archers were determined by a shoot-off between the top three boys and top three girls from each of three divisions — elementary, middle, and high school.

In overall team placement, Meigs Intermediate came in first in elementary schools; with the Meigs Middle School and Meigs High School coming in second in their respective categories of competition.

Top scoring elementary students in the team competition from Meigs County were as follows:

Meigs Elementary, female: Paige Phillips, 264, first, and Sariah Brinker, 257, third.

Meigs Elementary, male: Josh Gilkey, 288; and Dalton Bush, 273.

Meigs Middle School, female: Selena Reynolds, 276.

Meigs Middle School, male: Treay McKinney, 281.

Meigs High School, male: Jacob Riffle, 295, first; Eugene Patterson, 285, third.

Twenty-six Ohio teams received qualifying scores, making them eligible to attend the NASP National Invitational Tournament, scheduled for May 8 and 9 in Kentucky. NASP teaches target archery right in the school gym. The curriculum covers archery, safety, equipment, technique, concentration skills, and self-improvement.

Other business

In other business handled at the brief school board meeting, approval was given to a three year contract renewal with Sammy L. Stramm and Co. for conversion of the district’s financial statements at $4,000 a year; and Marilou McClung and Nicholas Michael were hired as substitute teachers for the remainder of the school year.

In a financial report from Mark E. Rhonemus, treasurer/CFO, he noted that the last two payments on the sewer project at the high school had been made.

The Board then convened into an executive session for the purpose of discussing possible hiring, dismissal and discipline of employees along with negotiations.

Attending besides Buckley and Rhonemus, treasurer/CFO, were Board members, Roger Abbott, Ron Logan, Barbara Musser, Larry Tucker and Scott Walton.