Smoketree Students to
Share Lunch with Mayor
School won Domino’s Pizza Fundraising Competition

LAKE HAVASU CITY—Having won a fundraising competition sponsored by the local Domino’s Pizza restaurant, administrators and teachers at Smoketree Elementary School have chosen 25 students to have lunch with Mayor Mark Nexsen next week.

Picking 25 students out of the 578 that attend Lake Havasu City’s largest elementary school might seem like quite a task, but not for a bunch of teachers. They did it the way you would expect any self-respecting teacher to do it.

They held an essay contest.

Led by first grade teacher and PTSO president, Laurie Ellzey, students were asked to write an essay, answering one simple question: Why should you be chosen to have lunch with the mayor?

“Of course we used it as a teaching activity,” Ellzey said. “That’s what teachers do.”

Not only did the competition give instructors another writing lesson, it also opened the door for other classroom activities.

“The teachers also started explaining to the students what exactly a mayor does and what he represents,” Ellzey said. “I guess you can say, it was a civics’ lesson too.”

It was an exercise that may have inspired some students to follow in the mayor’s footsteps, or at least follow his example.

“I am also interested in politics,” wrote fourth grade student Jacqueline Fotino in her letter to Mayor Nexsen, “and I would be delighted to hear about them from someone as great as you.”

Fotino goes on in her letter to declare her candidacy for president next year. That is-- Smoketree student council president.

“I also work hard in school, as I would just love to work in the government when I get older,” she continued. “Maybe I could get a few pointers from you.”

“Those are quite some kids,” Nexsen said after reading all of the winning letters. “I don’t know how great I am, but I’m sure looking forward to having lunch with them.”

The lunch is being provided by Domino’s Pizza, which recently finished its first wave of donations as part of the local company’s “Domino’s Delivers Dollars for Lake Havasu Schools” campaign.

The local store raised more than $800 for the city’s seven elementary and middle schools in the first four weeks of the program. Smoketree raised the most money and is being rewarded with next week’s lunch with Mayor Nexsen.

“We are very pleased with the generosity of our customers,” said Domino’s Pizza district manager Sam Medrano. “Our schools already have a huge task in teaching our children, and we wanted to do our part in making it a little bit easier for them.”

The money raised for Smoketree Elementary will go toward the school’s efforts to replace shade covers for the campus’ playground equipment. The school needs $6,000 to complete the project.

Domino’s donations won’t completely cover the costs associated with the project, but as Ellzey said, every little bit helps.

Domino’s Pizza is continuing to collect donations for local schools. Every customer that orders in Lake Havasu City will be asked to contribute to the cause. Every school has it’s own specific day of the week. For Smoketree, that day would be Friday.