School board updated on scholarship fund

The Hot Springs County School Board received an upbeat update on its scholarship fund, and approved two new bus loading zones, during its July 15 meeting.

Chauncy Johnson, business manager for the district, provided the update on the McCurdy Stump scholarship investment fund.

“Last fall, the board approved changes in the investment structure with Edward Jones, who manages this fund, to be more of an ongoing, hopefully profitable investment structure, as opposed to sort of acting like we were in retirement, if you will, and just living off of a smaller portion of interest,” Johnson said.

Although the district was down on its earnings by $1,713 at this same point in the year in 2020, Johnson credited “stronger performance in the stock market, as well as the adjustments that the board approved,” with bringing the district up $69,119 at this point in the year.

“Obviously, that’s a combination of things,” Johnson said. “We can’t guarantee we’ll have earnings like that every year, but I do believe that change in structure is going to help us continue to make that money work for our students.”

Johnson told the board he would be speaking with Hot Springs County High School Principal Breez Daniels and career counselor Elisa Daniels, about how those scholarship funds will be dispersed to students in the future.

“For several years, it looks to me like we’ve set a specific amount of money, somewhere right around $15,000 a year, that we push through this scholarship to our students,” Johnson said.

“But in the meantime, tuition has gone up, housing expenses have gone up, all these things continue to go up for our students.”Johnson expressed the hope that the district may be able to start providing either more scholarships to our students, or scholarships of a higher value, to help them as they embark on college educations.

Superintendent Dustin Hunt opened the discussion of bus stops and loading zones by pointing out that, as Johnson had noted in an earlier report, the district is “struggling” for drivers, so Barb Allen, the district’s transportation director, is working on what the bus routes may look like.

“So if you see slight changes, that’s in relation to our current numbers of drivers,” Hunt said. “Pending what our staffing looks like during the year, we could actually bring this back for a change, if we have more staff midyear, or before school starts.”

“But she’s just making a plan to deal with what she has for now,” said Kathy Groh, administrative assistant to the superintendent and board of trustees.

There are currently no changes in bus stops, just bus routes. Some routes may be consolidated, and then split back out as we get more staff.

The state allows local school boards to establish town bus stops when a hazard exists, and Hot Springs County has two major highways, a river and a railroad intersecting in Thermopolis. The state also allows the school board to establish bus loading zones.

The board not only approved the town bus stops for the 2021-2022 school year, as presented in the memo from Allen, but it also designated the Thermopolis Middle School bus loading area and the bus transfer area at Ralph Winters Elementary as bus loading zones.