Staff and students at Verne Critz Elementary have good reason to be very proud. Charlotte Keyes, a kindergartener in Mrs. Montick's class was recently named a first-place winner at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Science Fair.

Charlotte's science project titled, "Fast Foods," was inspired by her mother's love of running. "My mom runs a lot and is running a really big race in May", said Charlotte. For her project, Charlotte analyzed what type of food would "make her fast". She ate four different types of food for dinner and then ran around the whole school field, timing each trial to see which meal would give her the fuel needed to run her fastest time. She tried pizza, pasta, chicken with potatoes and broccoli with rice. Based on her analysis, Charlotte exclaimed, "It was PASTA! PASTA made me run the fastest! She then sighed, "Pizza-not so good. I love pizza, so it's too bad." Yes Charlotte, that is too bad.



Asked how she felt to receive such accolades for her hard work, Charlotte replied, "I felt like singing "Everything is Awesome" but I couldn't in front of everyone". We know how you feel, Charlotte. We all think YOU are pretty awesome. Congratulations, Charlotte Keyes!