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Last Updated: Feb 15, 2010 - 2:25 PM |
read by Pastor Bob Johnson
The Honorary Swede is a recognition given at each year's Swedish Festival to a person who grew up in this community, but who has spent most or all of their adult life in a location other than here, and who has made significant contributions in their professional, business, civic, community and religious life.
This year's Honorary Swede had an active childhood, involving himself in many and varied pursuits including Boy Scouts, newspaper carrier, piano lessons, band, basketball and track. He was a member of the Stromsburg boys basketball team that played in the State Tournament. Outside of school, he worked summers at an area church camp as a lifeguard and pool manager. He also earned a private pilot's license at age 16.
After graduating with honors from Stromsburg High, our honoree continued his education at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, earning a bachelor's degree in social science and elementary education. During his time in college, he lettered four years in tennis and was awarded the Top Senior Band Award.
Our Honorary Swede began his teaching career in Wall Lake, Iowa in 1979. He was married in 1980 and in 1982 they moved to her hometown area where he began teaching 6th grade language arts and science. Besides his teaching responsibilities, he also made time to earn his instrument pilot's license, be granted a Master's degree from South Dakota University and race sailboats with his wife.
Our honoree's use of innovative science learning projects were loved by his students. He was an early leader in implementing computer usage on the elementary level. Beyond the classroom, he also coached varsity girl's volleyball and track. His volleyball teams placed first or second in their conference every year but one over a 12 year coaching span.
But it is in the classroom where our Honorary Swede really made his mark. Applying what he had learned at a teacher workshop held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, he set up a project for his students that required them to work in teams and develop a plan for living on the planet Mars. For the Mars-Base Project, students shared their work with two partner schools over Iowa's Community Network, the first statewide two-way audio-visual network in the nation. This was the first use of this network by elementary students. Later that year, Sony asked him to re-create this and other similar demonstrations as models for other teachers using telecommunications networks. These were also presented at the National Governor's Conference and the National Science Teachers Convention. For this work, our honoree was presented the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching along with a $9,000 grant. He was also named to the Governor's Leadership Council on Education.
In the midst of our Honorary Swede's teaching and coaching duties, he began working summers as coordinator of NASA's Educator's Workshop at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. His Mars-Base project was shared with educators across the nation as well as in the country of Wales. In 1999, he was recognized for outstanding contributions to schools, teachers and students by the Education Business Partnership Limited organization in Wales.
Our honoree was also employed by the Western Hills Area Education Agency in Sioux City as a science specialist and technology consultant. He also wrote a proposal that resulted in that agency being selected to house the NASA Educational Resource Center for the state of Iowa. Also, he promoted a science center for the agency which stores and refurbishes over 200 hands-on science kits used by schools in NW Iowa.
In 1999, NASA convinced him to work for them half-time out of Houston in helping astronauts better know how to communicate with students about their missions and their science topics related to their work. Because of this, our honoree knows a number of the astronauts on a first-name basis. He has written two experiments that have been selected for use on NASA's Zero-Gravity Plane.
In 2001, our honoree was noted by his alma mater, Northwestern College, with their Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement.
The 2009 Honorary Swede is Jim Christensen of Holstein, Iowa. He and his wife, Kim have two children. Their son, Korey graduated this spring from Creighton University and will attend Duke University Law School this coming fall. Their daughter, Jaime, will be a high school senior this coming fall and among other achievements is an ace softball pitcher. Our honoree plays drums on the worship team at his church and is also part of a rock band of 50-ish guys who play tribute concerts to Crosby, Stills & Nash. Jim was the Commencement speaker for Stromsburg High School in 2000.
© Copyright 2009 by polkcountynewspaper.com
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