Franklin County students compete statewide thanks to RC&D grant
The annual Envirothon Competition, hosted by the Franklin County Soil & Water Conservation District, is held at Northwest-Shoals Community College’s Phil Campbell campus and provides a venue where students from Franklin County Schools and Russellville City School can test their knowledge of current environmental issues.
The categories that students compete in include forestry, soils, aquatics, and wildlife, with the winner being invited to compete at the state Envirothon competition.
The Northwest Alabama Resource Conservation & Development Council (RC&D) has been a long-time supporter of Envirothon, and this year was no different.
The Northwest AL RC&D Council provided a $1,000 grant to Franklin County SWCD to help offset costs associated with hosting the event.
The grant funds were used to purchase Envirothon t-shirts for all participating students and their teachers, as well as to pay the registration fee for the Franklin County winner, Belgreen High School, to go compete at the state level.
Beth Rhea, district administrative coordinator for Envirothon host Franklin County SWCD, spoke very highly of all the teams who competed in the county competition this year.
“We had a great group of students this year who were excited about the competition,” Rhea said.
“Belgreen High School continued on to the state competition where they placed second overall statewide, missing out on winning by only 12 out of 700 total points.
“Russellville High School also chose to go and they placed first in the Current Issue category. We could not offer such an outstanding event to our local students without the continued support from RC&D.”
“Schools from Franklin County have done really well at the state Envirothon competition over the last few years, so we at RC&D were happy to provide some funding assistance to make it possible for local teams to compete at the state level,” Roger Hayes, chairman of the Northwest Alabama RC&D Council said.
Hayes also expressed his appreciation to Senator Roger Bedford and Representative Johnny Mack Morrow who represent Franklin County’s District and provide support for the RC&D program in the State Legislature.
