W-1923-CFMB.doc

Cleo Fisher & Marba Jean Bobbitt

Cleo Fisher Marba Jean (Bobbitt) Fisher

Granddaughter

Science teacher named winner of grant award

Rhonda Reist

Rhonda Reist was recently named the recipient of a $31,200 grant for a project she has been working on for

three years. at Olathe North High School.

The Kansas Department of Education gave her the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Award to design and build a hands on traveling science museum. The project, was selected from thousands of applicants across, the state. North's science club, the Faraway Society, will build the exhibit.

“We'll have a 3 to 4 foot model of how soap works,". Miss Reist said. "It. will demonstrate, in a hands‑on way, why you need soap to get, grease off. We'll also have a kaleidoscope that you can step into.”

Miss Reist also won the Chemical Manufacturers Association's Regional Catalyst Award, which compares with the Pulitzer or an Oscar for chemistry teachers who have been teaching for at least 10 years., The association gives out one national and two regional awards every year.

I always thought in my dreams it would be nice to win one of these before I retire, let, alone the first year I was eligible," she said.

Her students describe her as "incredible, unpredictable, understandable. “She makes it interesting. She makes you want to learn it for the knowledge not just learn it for the grade."

Her students have said such things about her since she started teaching years ago, but lately, the rest of the world has joined in the chorus.

She is the daughter of Steve Reist of Kansas City and Donna (Fisher) Reist of Olathe, who are both graduates, of Decatur Community High School. Her grandparents are the late Denzel and Marguerite Reist, and Cleo and Marba Jean (Bobbitt) Fisher. Gisela Fisher of Oberlin is her step grandmother.