PC students honored for fitness

By Staff
Kim West, Franklin County Times
PHIL CAMPBELL – Eleven Phil Campbell Elementary students have received national recognition for their physical fitness
Physical education teacher Gary Stancil emphasizes fitness training over free play in his classes, and his efforts paid off when two students won the Presidential Fitness Award and seven students earned the National Fitness Award.
"The program is required every two years, but we've been turning it in every year," Stancil said. "This is a program we started working on from day one in August.
"They work on events a few minutes every day, and sometimes we spend a whole period running since it's the hardest because of the times. The running times are very hard to reach."
The awards are part of the President's Challenge Awards Program, which measures fitness levels in the mile run, sit-ups, push-ups, shuttle run and the sit-and-reach. The presidential award recognizes students whose event times rank in the top 15 percent of their age group, and the national award honors the top 50 percent.
Third-grader Matthew Stancil and sixth-grader Brandon Smith each won the presidential award. Stancil had to run the mile in under 8:31, and Smith's qualifying time was less than 6:50.
First-graders Darby Elliott and Destin Ozbirn, second-grader Bailey Motes, third-graders Hope Cook and John West, fourth-graders Vickie McAlister and Hunter Milam, fifth-grader Allen Bohannon and sixth-grader Brooklyne Hallman won the national award.
The President's Challenge was originally founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, and was expanded by President George W. Bush in 2002.