Fulton County Ohio Media

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The final round of the Swanton Middle School (SMS) Amazing Shake was held this past Thursday in the SMS gymnasium in front of the entire student body, staff and faculty.  Amazin Shake is part of the Swanton Seven Initiative (SSI), a program that focuses on building soft skills in students, placing strong emphasis on manners, discipline, respect, and professional behavior.  There were several rounds of the competition that began with all seventh-grade students.  The first round pared the number to 20, the second round to 10 and the final round to just four well deserving students, Kourtney Fulton, Brooklyn Kahl, Josie Dryer and Evelyn Keys.

Each of the contestants fielded a variety of questions from 13abc Action News Anchor James Stark, who served as the emcee for the event.  The students were judged on their overall responses and professionalism by six members of the Swanton area business community.  Serving as judges were Jason Kos of McNeill Chevrolet, Jessica Double and Kelsey Kaiser of Worthington Steel, Ashlee Never of North Star Blue Steel, Stephanie Fessenden of Equity Planning Group, Mark Moll of DesignEtics and Delray Busch of the Swanton Area Chamber of Commerce.

Kourtney, Brooklyn, Josie and Evelyn all performed very well on stage.  They were poised, confident, articulate and gave well thought out answers to Mr. Stark’s questions.  At the end of the Q & A session, the judges were sent to another room to compare notes and total their evaluations.  In the end, the judges awarded Evelyn Keys the 2025 Amazing Shake Champion.

Prior to the trophy presentation, SMS Principal Leigh Pancoast paid a special tribute to the late Brandon Johnson, former owner of Team Johnson Limo and Charter Bus who served as a judge every year since the beginning of the Swanton Seven Program and was a major financial supporter of the Amazing Shake.  Several members of Mr. Johnson’s family were in attendance and presented the trophy to Evelyn.

“I was extremely surprised.  I was scared, everyone was talking,” said a very happy Evelyn.  “I knew I had to study extra hard because of my opponents.”  The Amazing victory now sends Evelyn to Atlanta and the Ron Clark Academy sometime next year to compete at the national level.  Ron Clark is an American educator who created the Amazing Shake philosophy approach to education.

Click on the link to access photos from the Amazing Shake competition as well as some from the Swanton Middle School’s Got Talent show performed during the intermission. Photos are in the jpeg format to allow editing and can be downloaded for NO CHARGE courtesy of the fultoncountymedia.com website.

Photo: Evelyn Keys and family