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Bronaugh parents, students have a blast at Back to School Bash
BRONAUGH — Bronaugh R-7’s inaugural Back to School Bash was a grade school smash, with scores of parents bringing their students on campus Monday afternoon to take advantage of free haircuts, dental screenings, eye exams, and more.
Local sponsors helped counselor and teacher Whitney Hinkle organize the event, which was part of the district’s annual open house before the new school year begins on Tuesday. In addition to meeting teachers and touring classrooms for every grade from kindergarten to 12th, as well as browsing free clothes in the library that were donated as part of elementary librarian/secretary Diane McNeil’s third Give and Take, parents brought their kids into the cafeteria for some new cost-free offerings in 2021 — including dental screenings from Compass Health, haircuts courtesy of stylist Ally Shumaker, and eye care services by Dr. Jeremy Fast.
Each of the sponsors’ booths, including one for On My Own, which assists people with disabilities, gave away items like pencils, toothbrushes, and coloring books with crayons, among other goodies.
For Hinkle, it was rewarding to see so many families show up and leave with smiling faces (and new hairdos).
“It feels amazing. I’m just glad we’ve had a lot of people show up and take part in the bash,” said Hinkle, who jumped at the opportunity to organize the event when West Central Missouri Community Action Agency and Healthy Nevada struck up the idea and offered the necessary resources.
Bronaugh superintendent Jordan Dickey added that several parents told her how much they appreciated the free services.
“It’s just a nice service to our community,” Dickey said of the four-hour event. “We just want to highlight the people that are here giving their time. There’s so many in there. We’ve just been overwhelmed by the things that the people in Nevada are doing for us, those organizations. They serve the whole county, but it’s nice that they intentionally reach out and want to do things.”
Some parents who come to open house every year were pleasantly surprised by the additional services offered at the bash.
“We come every year for open house, anyway, and she’s been asking for a haircut for a long time, so it worked out great to get two birds, one stone,” said Katrina Borders of her daughter, Graycynn Murphy. “We’ve checked out some of the health services, and then we’re going to do an eye exam also.”
For other parents, like Jessika and T.J. Goodwin, they could not pass up the opportunity to get their incoming first-grader Steven a free haircut by a professional stylist.
“Better than his dad doing it,” Jessika joked.