Senior Beta Bulldogs will be traveling to Columbus, Ohio for the Senior Beta State Convention. 41 students along with adviser and English Department teacher Angela Sarko, chaperone and English department teacher Kari Milliron, and chaperone and Math Department teacher Dean Shanower will be taking a 3 hour bus ride on February 12 to the event held at the Columbus Convention Center.

While there, every student will be competing in one way or another whether that be on a test or another type of competition. Thursday is a full day of academic, artistic, and talent competitions such as quiz bowl, engineering, living literature, on site art, academic tests, and talent contests. This is Sarko’s 18th year taking students to convention and she has seen it grow every year.

“We’ve had to change venues three times over the years to accommodate for the growing convention,” said Sarko. “Each year we’ve seen new competitions, and increasingly ones that allow students to collaborate and create together, such as the engineering competition. My goal is to find someone to fund a robot for us so we can compete in the robotics competition.”

This year will be Senior Megan Cross’s third time traveling to the convention. She will be competing in the Agroscience test section. She also tackled this section last year. She encourages any underclassmen to attend next year if they haven’t already planned on going.

Cross responded, “I’m super excited to be away from school for a couple days and it is always a lot of fun!” 

However, for some people this is their first time traveling to the convention. Senior Alex Sweet will be attending for his first time this year and will be competing in the poetry section of the competition. He is very confident in his abilities.

Sweet said, “I’m excited to compete in the poetry section and hopefully win as well as hang out with my friends.” 

The seniors and current president, Jeffrey Jiang, have been working hard on a line dance that they will be presenting to the entire convention.

Senior Lyndsey Saxton said, “I’m excited to dance will all of my friends at our last convention together.” 

This year, Lakeview will be supporting another student battling for state president. Caitlyn Kachurik will be competing for Ohio Beta President. Last year, Jeffrey Jiang took home the title and is hopeful Caitlyn will do the same this year. Her slogan, as seen on the Beta students shirts, is “All Aboard the Kachoo-choo train.” That is the same slogan her sister, Lauren Kachurik, used when she ran for the presidency.

Kachurik commented, “It’s really exciting to have the opportunity to run for president, but it is definitely stressful and nerve wracking leading up to convention.” 

The Beta bus leaves Lakeview at 4 PM Wednesday and returns at 6 PM Friday.