BROOKINGS The Brookings Area Chamber of Commerce hosted the first Civics Bee in the state on March 27. Awurama Dwomoh won the local event. She and nine others will compete at the state finals for the right to represent South Dakota at the National Civics Bee in Washington, D.C.
Layne Manson is membership director at the Brookings chamber and said the national chamber of commerce started the program in 2022.
They basically have seen the importance of civic engagement, Manson said. Civic literacy is helping students learn how to be engaged in their community, how to make a difference and how to be productive and active citizens. Thats why the US Chamber of Commerce launched this program several years ago. Theyre hoping every state will eventually participate, and we had a strong start here in Brookings.
Forty-three Brookings students from grades 6-8 submitted essays. The top 20 were invited to a live, on-stage competition at the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center. The top five finalists from Brookings and the top five from Rapid City the only other South Dakota city competing this year will attend the state finals, hosted June 6 in Brookings.
Eleanor Wehseler is business operations intern at the Brookings chamber and helped coordinate the live event.
Round one was 10 multiple choice questions, Wehseler said. Then the second round was another 15 that were a little bit harder Then we had to do a tiebreaker round there was a six-way tie for the top five slots. Round three was a live Q&A where students summarized the essay they wrote in front of the judges individually, and then they had three minutes of questions.
The judges were: Ope Niemeyer, Brookings mayor; David Gilbertson, retired South Dakota Supreme Court chief justice; Mellissa Heermann, district 7 state representative; Kelsey Lovseth, Brookings social sciences teacher; and Tony Teesdale, attorney and owner of Teesdale Law.
I was thoroughly impressed by the depth and maturity of these students ideas and genuinely proud to see such a strong civic mindset being fostered at a young age, Teesdale said. Ranking their insightful answers was a challenging but rewarding task. Our communitys future is clearly in excellent hands.
Dwomoh won $500 cash. The second- and third-place finishers received smaller cash awards, and each of the 20 local finalists were given an Android tablet. The national championship will feature $50,000 in cash awards for the top finishers.
Manson hopes to make the local civics bee an annual event and encourages prospective sponsors to reach out to the chamber to help ensure the program continues.
From a chamber perspective, we understand that in order to have a strong community we need to have a strong economy, a strong workforce, and engaged and informed citizens, Manson said. This program just supports all pieces of that. Healthy communities have citizens who care, who are engaged and who understand their civic duties. This is just a great way to teach the next generation and help them dip their toes into that civic engagement piece. Its about setting Brookings up for success.
Contact Jay Roe at [email protected].
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