The club fair is a great opportunity for many Freshmen who may not be involved in sports to learn specific skills, or perhaps just find people who share hobbies, allowing real friendships to be formed.
From building an airplane to performing plays, Pleasant Valley offers one of the largest varieties of clubs in the state of Iowa. This year’s PVHS club fair attracted over 400 Freshmen who interacted with older club representatives to learn about and sign up for clubs.
A very popular club at the event was FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America). The club focuses on developing business skills and competing in various business-related competitions. Club President, Senior Nathan Musal noted, “We had 40-45 people put their name down for interest in the club…FBLA has an overwhelming breadth of options including some things that aren’t even directly related to business,” he said.
Another popular club was PV’s robotics club. Teacher Jason Franzenburg, who attended the event, reflected, “It is of great benefit to the Freshmen, they are very overwhelmed with their options, but it’s more about getting the word out about our team.” Around a dozen freshmen joined the first team’s meeting, far above the expectation.
Many freshmen who attended the fair ended up joining at least one club. Freshman Danica Hammond voiced her opinion. “It was an interesting experience. I signed up for girl’s tennis and badminton during the fair,” she said.
Many non-CTE clubs also attended the fair, including ceramics, tennis, environmental and drama clubs. These clubs hope to foster a community where like-minded people can gather and become part of a community, as well as learn valuable skills that could be important later in life.
Attentive students may have noticed several fliers in the hallway about the ceramics club, a club that focuses on pottery and ceramic art. Aurora Hartley, a representative from the ceramics club is excited to open the club to the new freshman. “At ceramics club, we’re focused on the expression of creativity. We love to give everyone an outlet to make artwork that they might not normally get in the school day. Our introductory meeting went very well, but we’re always trying to gain more members by promoting the club on our Instagram page and putting posters up” Hartley shared.
Over 35 individual clubs attended the fair, still just a sampling of the many clubs offered here at the high school. Some clubs, such as Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and Ceramics Club, are also reaching out to a broader audience by placing posters throughout the hallways. Others, like Robotics Club, invited Freshmen to an introductory meeting to better explain what the club does.
