Take Charge! team honors educator with green focus

Iola’s Take Charge! Challenge team is throwing a party to celebrate the area’s newest conservationist.
Brian Pekarek, stepping into his role as USD 257 superintendent of schools in July, has a history of being a green-conscious go-getter illustrated by the Kansas Association of Conservation & Environmental Education naming him its 2011 Rising Star.
While superintendent of schools at the Clifton-Clyde school district, Pekarek was instrumental in USD 224’s acquisition of a wind turbine. During his two years there, the district also began composting all cafeteria food waste to fertilize a student garden.  
Iola’s Take Charge! Challenge team will host a community meet and greet for Pekarek from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday in the North Community Building, 505 N. Buckeye St., so he can “share his green vision for our USD,” said Take Charge! Challenge Team leader Becky Nilges.
The challenge, hosted by the Climate and Energy Project and the Kansas Energy Office, is a competition among 16 cities in four regions of the state to see which can do the most to save energy and promote energy efficiency. Each regional winner receives $100,000 to be used for a renewable energy or energy efficiency project in their city.
“We also get points for everyone who attends” Thursday evening’s event “as part of our competition,” Nilges said.
As of today, Iola is in third place behind Chanute and Fort Scott, according to the Take Charge! Challenge website  
If Iola is able to move into first place by Sept. 30, Nilges said the $100,000 prize would be used to make recycling something that’s easy for the community to do. Currently, Iola residents have to travel out of town to recycle anything other than aluminum cans and newspapers.
“Our community is very interested in recycling but the avenue isn’t there,” she said in a July interview, adding that with only two weeks’ notice, Iola residents brought “truckloads of plastic bottles and jugs” to the May 21 Hogfest event.
Although not set in stone, the city has a fluid plan to spend the potential prize money on recycling trucks, trailers or balers to sort recyclable material to help with recycling accessibility.