2023 Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair - Warren McClure Interview

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2023 Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair - Warren McClure Interview

SECO News: This is Adrian Hart with your Southeast Colorado News on seconews.org. We are here at Otero College in the Jim Rizzuto Ballroom, the ballroom is decked out with our science fair projects. It's the Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair?

McClure: Yes, sir. Got it.

SECO News: And right with me, Warren McClure from Otero College. Now this guy's day job is in the science department, so that's why they threw him under the bus. He's got a lot of experience with the science Fair. Do you want to give us an overall Iook at the science fair?

McClure: Sure. I can give you just a little bit of history on it to start with. We've been doing this, I believe it's for 27 years now. Otero took it back over, I think, when Dr. Grey got here on campus and so we've been doing it ever since. This is my 14th year of doing it. I took it over from Wayne Beatles and we've had a litany of people come through here helping us out. Setting this up and we've got some new people helping run it this year, and we draw schools from all over Southeastern Colorado. We have some projects from Trinidad that have come up here today. We've had La Veta in the past. Some of our local schools for sure like La Junta of course is participating.

SECO News: I saw the Las Animas bus heading through.

McClure: Las Animas has some Rocky Ford has some I don't wanna leave anybody out. I apologize if I do, but we definitely have local schools represented as well as a few from outside, at least our immediate area.

SECO News: Yeah. All right. Very cool. So the regional science fair, that's where that comes in. That's right. You guys have a couple different divisions.

McClure: Basically, we've got the young kids and then the older kids. We have the two youngest divisions. We do K through second, and then third through fifth, and then once they reach middle school and high school, they have a chance starting at sixth grade, they have a chance to go to state. And so we put them in the upper division category and they will compete to get a chance to go to state, which is at CSU Fort Collins. We had a really successful project last year from Las Animas that went and actually won some prize money.

SECO News: Oh, wow.

McClure: Had a couple other kids win some prize money too. One from Hoehne, I don't think they're back this year, but we've had some good success with some of those kids going up there and winning some and some of them place. A couple years ago we had a gal from La Junta go up and win a college scholarship to CSU Fort Collins.

SECO News: All right, so some opportunity for our budding scientists. Of course you guys, we just finished the morning session and that was for the young kids?

McClure: Yep. K through five is in the morning, and then any of 'em that can go to state will come in this afternoon starting at one o'clock we'll be judging and we have faculty and community members. Some former faculty that come in, Judy Hensley's over there and she helps judge.

SECO News: Hey Judy! We'll try to pan a little and get Judy in the camera. Hey, Judy!

McClure: So she's one of our longtime judges and been helping with this for years and years. So yeah, we get community member flying, the city managers here, helping judge.

SECO News: Yeah, we see him sitting down just the way we were gonna go ask him about his project?

McClure: Yeah. At least the one he's judging. I don't know if it's actually his project.

SECO News: That's right. Anyways yeah, so the community really coming together for this event 27 years in a row of course the community has an opportunity to come view the projects.

McClure: Yeah, after judging is done at three o'clock we'll let community members come in and look for a little while. We used to in the past, have longer periods of time, but as everybody knows, COVID kind of changed schedules on everybody.

SECO News: So got a couple participants here running around, waving at me. There we go. We're getting photo bombed here. There we go. . .So chaos is definitely the fun part.

McClure: The kids are done what they're judging for the most part now. So that's why we're getting these guys running around. What were we talking about? I forgot.

SECO News: We were talking about the Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair going on all day today. Come check it out after three o'clock. That's something I wanna mention too. If you're somebody who has an area of expertise, we always need judges.

McClure: Oh, there you go. And we have a website if you just search science Fair on the Otero website there's a link to the science fair and there are volunteer judges sign up in there. And we just need to get your information. Over the last few years, we've lost contact with a few people and we would love people to come back and also new judges coming in to help us with these projects. So if you have an area of expertise that you would like to come and do some judging, either with the little guys or with some of the older guys, we really would appreciate that help.

SECO News: There you go. Your opportunity to impact your community in a great way.

McClure: Absolutely.

SECO News: Thank you so much, Warren.

McClure: Thanks Adrian.

SECO News: All right. For the people of Southeast Colorado at the Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair at Otero College, where we keep the sign off going here for you all, I'm Adrian Hart with your Southeast Colorado News.

Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair Website

Related Content:

Over a Decade of Judging the Arkansas Valley Regional Science Fair - Steve Keefer Interview

2023 Arkansas Valley Science Fair Winning High School Project

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