The Minot CHARACTER COUNTS! Coalition hosted their annual Youth Character Awards Banquet on January 31, 2007.  Six outstanding students were presented with awards honoring their positive attitudes and community contributions. The 2006-2007 award winners include Lindsay Aarseth, Cassandra Kraft, Amber Kroke, Mason Eisenzimmer, Micah Holmen, and Jacob Trailkill. Annette Olson, Miss North Dakota, was the keynote speaker for the event.  

To learn more about this event and the honorees, visit the Minot CC! Coalition website. 

The Herald News reports:

When older students help their younger schoolmates with a project, it sends a positive message and speaks volumes about character education, Taft Principal Kim Sekulich said.

That's why Taft School in Lockport, Illinois, began its Character Counts initiative with such a project Friday.

Students in the upper grades helped their younger counterparts in making bracelets of intertwined strings of yarn. The six strings were different colors, marking the six pillars of character emphasized in the program.

The initiative has been adopted by many other schools across the country, and Taft students will learn more about these traits in the coming months.

Read the full story here.

When the small group of kids from Lennox Middle School watched in awe from courtside as the Lakers warmed up before a recent home game, student Michael Morales said to himself, “And I thought I was tall.”

The students, the first of 30 who will receive free tickets over the next few weeks, were the guests of forward Brian Cook, who treated them to tickets for demonstrating good character as part of his Cook's All-Stars community program.

Judging from the letters the kids wrote Cook afterward, his gesture meant a lot to them and their school.

'I had a sign that said DO IT FOR BRICK, COOKIE! because your biography said you had a dog you adopted from Katrina named Brick. ' – Michael Morales

'I enjoyed meeting Brian. He told us to keep up the good work and never give up because following the Pillars will take you where you want to be.' -- Unsigned

'I feel very fortunate because usually Lennox doesn't get recognized, but we are a school of good character and want students to share character skills with their family.' – Melissa Rocha

'It was inspiring how you and your teammates play a part in CHARACTER COUNTS! When you guys lose, you aren't mean. You just say, ‘Hey, you guys won, we lost. Congratulations.' You're an example of character because you inspire kids like me to become better persons.' – Christina Martinez

'I hope you can make more kids smile in the future.' – Jose Morales

Students living by the Six Pillars are easy to spot in Chamberlain School System, thanks to a clever collection of “CHARACTER COUNTS! Moments” developed by Bruce Blankley, a K-6 counselor. Blankley devised a box filled with simple acts of kindness written on slips of paper as an inexpensive tool for reinforcing the Six Pillars outside of the classroom.

Students select a “Moment” to perform, including holding the door for someone, doing something nice for an elderly person, putting stray shopping carts in the corral, picking up litter, sharing the Six Pillar song with an adult, volunteering in the lunchroom, choosing to read a book rather than turn on the tv, and other small, yet meaningful, tasks. An honor system trusts students to complete the task without supervision.

Blankley started passing the box through the older grades, and word spread fast throughout the school. Soon, second graders were asking for their turn to draw a good deed. Blankley says he has been “gratified at the positive response” and hopes other schools will try a similar reinforcement technique to share the same success.