Alpha students of Beta Club

Even though the City of Ville Platte is small in terms of area and population, it is continuing to get larger on the national scene through increased brand recognition of area products such as smoked meat and Swamp Pop music. A new way that the city’s name is growing on the national scene is that Ville Platte High School, for the first time, is sending two students to this summer’s National Beta Convention in Savannah, Ga.
“It just shows that even the smallest schools can rise up to the biggest of challenges,” said McKenzie Walker. “It just shows how we have grown over the years, and we’re not just Ville Platte that nobody knows where we are. We can actually go out and share the name and be proud of our school.”
Walker and fellow Beta Club member Logan Guillory qualified for the national convention this year after being spotlighted at the state convention. Guillory explained what spotlighting means. “If your club doesn’t place in any competitions at state, there is a certain time period where the clubs who didn’t place can go and register for four competitions.”
One of these competitions is convention invention, in which the pair from Ville Platte High will be competing at nationals. “We have to invent a new consumer product that makes life easier for someone in someway,” said the club’s co-sponsor Sarah Hamlin LaFleur. “We’re working on that right now, but it’s a secret. We’re not telling anybody what our invention is.”
Before competing at nationals, Guillory, Walker, and the rest of the Beta Club members from Ville Platte High attended the State Convention at the River Center in Baton Rouge. “The hallways were crowded from everybody walking, and they had talent competitions,” Guillory said. “They had games for us to play. Then we could even go outside and walk on the Mississippi River levee.”
“That’s where they elect the state officers,” LaFleur added. “There are competitions for every subject that can be taught in school, and there are other competitions like Beta Build where the students show up with their supplies and don’t know what they’re building until they get there. It’s all wrapped around academics and using their brain putting things together.”
Walker and Guillory competed at state on the Quiz Bowl team this year with Alex Soileau and Jillian Thille. LaFleur pointed out, “This was also the first year that Ville Platte High did a quiz bowl at state, so it was a good experience for them to see what it’s like.”
LaFleur also pointed out that membership of Beta Club is based on students’ grade point averages. “You have to have a certain GPA to be invited to join,” she said. “We check the entire student body’s GPA, and then we send out an invitation to the students to invite them to join the club.”
These two students from Ville Platte High both received invitations to join Beta Club after transferring from Sacred Heart during their sophomore years. Walker, who is currently a junior, stated, “I recently just transferred from Sacred Heart, and they don’t have Beta Club over there,” she said. “So, as soon as I transferred and got the invitation, I was intrigued in the club and joined.”
“I joined Beta because I heard that you have to get in a certain amount of service hours,” she continued. “It gets us more involved with the community, and, as we’re doing the service hours, we meet new people. It just helps with getting to know everyone in the community that we didn’t know before and getting to know different aspects of what life is in Ville Platte.”
The senior Guillory said that he joined Beta because he enjoys competing. He said, “Whenever I heard that I could compete against other people in intellectual tests, my adrenaline just started pumping.”
For Guillory, Beta Club at Ville Platte High has provided him a confidence boost. “I’ve gotten more confident with talking to people,” he said. “I used to be shy and would stay in the back. I wouldn’t talk to anybody. Once I started with Beta, I’ve made so many friends and still keep in touch with some people that I’ve met.”
Both students shared their favorite memories of being in Beta Club over the last few years. For Walker, it was about the journeys. “It’s just the journey that it has brought us on and all the memories like going on a two hour long bus ride with so many of our close friends,” she expressed. “You can imagine what chaos and excitement all of us have at 6:30 in the morning when we leave for state, and it just goes up from there.”
Guillory’s favorite memories of Beta revolve around the games played at the state convention, especially elbow tag. “Elbow tag works by running around and locking arms with random people,” Walker explained. “As long as you’re locked arms and no one comes tag you, you talk to the person that you’re locked arms with again and again.”
“It helps with their communication skills,” LaFleur said. “It also helps them to learn how to work hard to keep succeeding because, to keep being invited to Beta, you have to keep your grades up. If your GPA dropped, then you can’t be in Beta. The students who are in Beta have to learn how to work hard and how to keep those grades up so that they can stay in it.”
Besides keeping their grades up to stay in Beta Club, Walker and Guillory are both in the dual enrollment program at LSU-E. Walker already has 30 college hours, and Guillory has 22.
LaFleur also wished to thank the many gracious donors from the community for giving money to make the trip to Savannah possible. “Our goal was $2 thousand, and we just exceed it,” she said. “We did a raffle, and I can’t tell you how many raffle tickets we sold. And, then, there were all of the people who just made monetary donations. I want to thank them for all of that.”
The national convention will be another opportunity for Guillory to get a confidence boost before going to LSU-A for a bachelor’s degree in nursing. He concluded, “Whenever you’re at a Beta convention, you just go talk to random kids from around the state. By talking to other random kids, it’s gotten to where I can go up to random strangers and have a conversation with them easily.”