Ohio Region History and Honors

Ohio held its first competition at the Engineering Complex at The Ohio State University in January, 1999. That first year was a pilot year to “test the waters” of school interest. Dr. Nadine Hinton and Dr. Sue Amidon of Westerville City Schools led the initiative with the American Ceramic Society. Seventeen teams were present from 14 different schools. While our winning team could not compete at Nationals due to the nature of the piloting, a generous judge Dr. Dan Fleisch, Professor of Physics at Wittenberg University, donated the funds to send the five-member team to the National Finals competition to take notes, pictures, and network.

In the fall of 1999, Dan teamed with Aimee Zerla and Mark Glasper of the American Ceramics Society and Lisa Huelskamp of Westerville City Schools to move the event from pilot to program status and recruited more schools and judges to participate. Mark Farrell was also there to help lead the way.

The program has grown in popularity with Ohio often enrolling the record number of school registrations for the nation. A strongly committed Steering Committee collaborating with highly motivated and dedicated students, teachers, and engineer mentors lead the way to future successes.

In 2005, we received a special honor. See press release below:

2005 Organization of the Year Award

as selected by

Environmental Education Council of Ohio (ECCO)

In addition to exhibiting at two Environmental Education Council of Ohio (EECO) conferences, the Future City Competition - Ohio Region received the 2005 Organization Award at EECO’s annual awards ceremony March 19, 2005 in Marietta. This award and information about the Future City Competition is being publicized in the EECO newsletter that reaches 1800 school contacts and 400 nonformal environmental educators around the state. In addition, Ohio Region competition dates and deadlines are featured in EECO’s statewide online searchable database of environmental education resources and calendar of events, at http://www.eeco-online.org/calendar.html

Lisa Huelskamp accepts the Environmental Education Council of Ohio’s 2005 Organization Award from Carolyn Watkins.

In 2007-08, our Ohio team helped us celebrate our 10^th anniversary by earning first place at the National Finals in DC. It was a very proud moment for all of us and speaks to the level of dedication of our teachers, students, families, schools, engineers, and committee members. The following year, Ohio made national history as the first Region where the students earned 1^st place at nationals two consecutive years in a row!

In April of 2010, Peggy Panagopoulos- Flaherty, Direct Account Manager at ITT Industries, Inc., took the reigns as the Ohio Regional Coordinator and leads the way to another successful Future City chapter.