Deb Leiker getting pied in the face.

The Nemaha Central Elementary & Middle School hosted its Annual Pi Day Celebration this year on Friday, March 3. Pi day includes penny wars, pie baking, pi day activities, and an assembly all throughout the day. All the money raised this year went to Zena Schmelzle to help with her medical expenses.

The week before Pi Day, the penny wars start. Each class has a bucket to put coins into to help their class have the most money on pi day. The twist is, the students can also bring bills and deduct points towards any class bucket of the students choosing. On Pi Day, they count up the money and the winners get to choose which students and staff to pie in the face. The total money raised from the penny wars was $1,745.82. 

To start off Pi Day, the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students and their grandparents or grandfriends made pies. There were 5 sessions of pie making and every student was able to make two pies with their grandparent or grandfriend. There were around 70 grandparents and grandfriends there to help make pies and they made more than 270 pies. Most of the pies were sold and they raised around $1500 more to donate to the Schmelzle family.

Alyssa Griffith said, “I thought it was a lot of fun. I was really excited for my grandma to come up from Topeka, and It was even better that making pies was for a good cause.”

The eighth grade students worked together to create and play pi day games with the kindergarten through sixth grade students. They taught the younger students about pi, helped some of them create artwork, and others played games involving pi. Some of the fun activities that the eighth graders did with the students were matching games with pi cards, making hats, playing cards, watching a play, making bracelets, and a scavenger hunt. The students also had the opportunity to have pi sayings painted on their faces by seventh graders.

To end the day, everyone joined together in the gym to congratulate the students and staff on working hard and raising so much money to help the Schmelzle family. Then there were multiple staff and eighth grade students who were called down to the gym floor to possibly get pied in the face. The teachers who were pied in the face were Ms. Deb Leiker, Mrs. Heidi Holthaus, Mrs. Katie Heiman, Mrs. Dani Reinecke, Ms. Heather Sullivan, Mrs. Bailey Holthaus, Mr. Terry  Stueve, Mrs. Lindsey Haug, and Mrs. Kristin Deters. The students who got pied in the face were Carson Edelman, Kyler Ganstrom, Kalem Schmelzle, Ben Bletscher, Caleb Hynek, and Harry Langill.

“It was fun because I won top five in the penny wars and got to pie someone in the face,” said Colt McKee.

To finish off the week, pi day was a thrilling and exciting day for lots of students and staff. In total, the NCEMS students and staff raised over $3000 for the Schmelzle family. Thank you to everyone that donated and helped be a part of an amazing pi day this year!

Click the links below for more photos.

https://www.facebook.com/perma...

https://www.facebook.com/perma...

https://www.facebook.com/perma...

https://www.facebook.com/perma...