The "Manhattan Optimist Club Bulletin": Vol. 2025 #2:10-9-24

             VOLUME 2025          OCTOBER 9, 2024         NUMBER 2

President Greg McCune welcomed the membership and guests, then Greg Wurst presented the reflection, a poem by Maya Angelou.  The flag salute followed.

Thad Hall outlined the Manhattan High School Student of the Month Program.  The program recognizes Manhattan High School seniors who make a difference in their community through volunteerism and leadership of activities that have a positive impact on the MHS or Manhattan community.  The goal of the program is to inspire and encourage youth to get involved in their community in an effort to benefit others.  Applicants submit a résumé and are judged by a committee.  Six recipients are chosen during the year, and each receive $100 to donate to the organization of their choice and are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship as the overall yearly winner.

Salina works at UMI, a restaurant, 20 to 30 hours every week on the weekends with her parents.  She interacts with customers, handling a variety of customer service issues.  She always shows up on time and never skips a shift.  She has two younger brothers, one who was Youth of the month.  She likes to travel and toured Europe with her friends and saw them erecting some of the Olympic decorations around the Eiffel Tower.  She also has hobbies, such as puzzles and art.

Salina is involved in laboratory research work, where she spends ten hours per week after school working in a lab.  She is researching the relationship between copy number variants in camelina seeds.  She is writing a research paper to submit to science fairs and competitions.

Her leadership and activities include speech and forensics where she serves as captain and lead.  She spends t10 to 20 hours a week preparing for competitions.  She has explored and debated different issues, both niche and popular, such as drinking water, NATO, and women’s rights.  She has qualified to state every year and placed in the top 10 in almost every tournament she attended.  She was also a two-time national qualifier in Public Form.  She mentored incoming novices on the team, gave feedback for team bonding activities, and actively participated.  She has given over 30 hours of volunteering for judging and managing tournaments by tracking ballots, hosting, etc.

She is also American Field Service president.  She planned activities for the exchange students at the high school.  She organized and managed officer meetings, member meetings, and socials while working in a team setting and actively communicating with their sponsor.

Salina also tutors K-8 students in math and English on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school for two hours.  She works with three to five students at a time; many are from troubled backgrounds with behavioral issues.  Durning the summer she works with the Sunflower Art Program as a lead/tutor Thursdays and Fridays for three hours.  She helps them with a variety of art techniques and mediums.  The program is free for K-6 students.

She also was a Fiveable Cram Tutor and spent three months preparing to tutor students across the world for AP Biology.  She studied and reviewed topics during her free time to be prepared to tutor other students.  She balanced finding a teaching and tutoring style, reviewing the topics, going to tutoring sessions, and juggling schoolwork, studying, and AP exams.

She has organized a book drive at the high school and received over a hundred books which were donated to charities.  She also volunteered at the Manhattan Public Library.

She is founding member and vice president of MHS HOSA.  The mission of HOSA is to empower HOSA-Future Health Professionals to become leaders in the global health community through education, collaboration, and experience.

In the future she wants to be a psychiatrist.  She is donating the $100 to MHS Interpersonal Skills class.

Heather Peterson introduced Mike Dibbini, Jaycie Acherman, and Mario Felix.  Mike Dibbini was born in New York City and raised in the Los Angeles, California area.  Mike enters his ninth season at the helm of K-State women’s soccer in the 2024 season and his 19th season overall as a collegiate head coach.  In just eight seasons as a program, Dibbini has recorded a MAC Hermann Trophy candidate, a Senior CLASS Award All-American, a CoSIDA Academic All-American, a United Soccer Coaches All-Region selection, five All-Big 12 recipients and 100 Academic All-Big 12 honorees.  K-State broke through and reached the program’s first Big 12 Soccer Championship during his seventh season in 2022.  Mike introduced assistant coach Jaycie Ackerman (formerly Johnson) and assistant coach Mario Felix.

 

Jaycie Ackerman is from Lee Summit, MO.  As she was planning her college program, KSU did not have a soccer program, so she played soccer at the University of Nebraska in the big Ten.  She is in her first season on the K-State coaching staff.  Ackerman served as an assistant coach at Kansas in the 2023 season. Prior to her time as an assistant coach, Ackerman was drafted 27th overall in the 2017 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Draft by the North Carolina Courage in Raleigh, NC.  She also was a member of the United States U23 women's national team in 2015.  Ackerman played five seasons in the NWSL as she was with the North Carolina Courage (2017), OL Reign (2018-19) Seattle, WA and the Kansas City Current (2021-22) during her professional career.  Ackerman retired in late 2022 following multiple injuries and is proud to be a part of the K-State coaching staff and to work to improve the program at KSU.

 

Mario Felix is from the Los Angeles area.  He went to school at the Nazarene Bible College in Lenexa, KS and began his coaching career there.  He joined the K-State soccer coaching staff as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator on January 3, 2024, and will be in his first season with the Wildcats.  He spends a lot of time evaluating players.  Prior to joining the K-State coaching staff, Felix served as the Kansas Rush Soccer Club girls academy director during the 2023 season.  Felix also brings collegiate coaching experience, as he served as a volunteer assistant at Missouri for the 2022 season and was the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at Southern Utah for two seasons from 2020 to 2022. In his first season in Cedar City, Utah, he helped the Thunderbirds to the program’s second winning season in program history.  He noted K-State recruits early and have completed the recruiting for the 2026 class which will be on campus in two years.  They are playing against top 25 teams and are recruiting talent that can be competitive with other teams.

The program is eight years old, and it is difficult to start a program from scratch; the next youngest program is 25 years old.  They had to graduate all the equestrian team before they could get all the funding over to soccer.  In the last four years, they made the Big 12 championship.  Last year they made it by one, but they were starting seven freshmen.  They are coming back this year and they are off to a good start.  They have three seniors this year and a lot of sophomores and freshmen.  They are trying to make it to the Big Twelve Tournament.  It has been a challenge the last eight years with lots of changes in facilities and recruiting.  They have a very good group and are very competitive and they are excited about the future of the program.  The Name-Image-Likeness challenges have come to soccer also and they are working with the administration to receive competitive NIL funding for their players.  The program has been building and in the next couple of years the soccer program will move forward.  Link to K-State Soccer

MHS Student of the Month Salina Wang, and her mother, and Mike Dibbini, KSU Women’s Soccer Coach, and his assistant coaches Jaycie (Johnson) Ackerman and Mario Felix.

President McCune announced the Manhattan Optimist Club received a $1,000 health and wellness grant for children from Optimist International and it is designated for the Manhattan High School interpersonal skills class. 

Jim Franke announced Manhattan Optimist Club grants for 2024-25 have been approved by the board and notices have been sent out to the recipients.  A summary was on each table.  Twenty-six groups were funded.  He also announced we are looking for other organizations that meet our criteria for funding who might be interested in applying next year.

Bill Wisdom noted the Chili Crawl will be on October 19th and signup is nearly complete, additional volunteers would be helpful.  Tickets can now be purchased online.

Buy tickets – 2024 Annual Chili Crawl    

He also reminded the group of the Dime-a-Day program from Optimist International Foundation.  Flyers were on the tables. Link to the Dime-a- Day Form

He noted there was a District Meeting Saturday, October 12th and he had one space open if someone wanted to attend. 

Thad Hall announced the Hoop Holler & Shoot is nearly organized for its 25th year and volunteers are needed to help with the contests.  Six elementary schools are signed up and we expect others to sign up soon.  Signup sheets were on the tables.

President Greg is looking for a Social Committee Chair; if interested, please contact him.

SAVE THESE DATES: October 19, Aggieville Chili Crawl; October 31, Bewitching in Westloop.

Adjourned with the Optimist Creed

OCTOBER 16: MORNING MEETING: Program: Sgt. Jared Hayes, Riley County Police Department Service Dog Supervisor: Topic: Sgt. Hayes will talk about his experiences as a service dog handler.

OCTOBER 30 – MORNING MEETING:  Program: Greg McCune: Topic: “Business Meeting”