State Rep. Travis Clardy

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - State Rep. Travis Clardy kicked off the opening ceremonies of Stephen F. Austin State University's Charter School and Parent-Teacher Organization's Walk-Through-Texas walk-a-thon Friday morning in William R. Johnson Coliseum on SFA's campus.

SFA's Charter School and PTO have been working on this fundraising event for the past few months. This year's "Walk-Through-Texas" theme blended Texas history and exercise. Each class in the SFA Charter School selected a city in Texas to research and created a PowerPoint presentation, which Clardy read aloud at the event. Clardy has a special connection to SFA's Charter School. All of his sons attended the school, and he helped in its startup.

"It is really fun and exciting to be back with the Charter School kids," Clardy said. "I think it is great to get all of the children here at one time to study Texas history and encourage them to be active and healthy. I'm very pleased and honored they asked me to be part of it."

Dr. Linda Bobo, SFA associate professor of kinesiology and health science and co-chair of the walk-a-thon committee, was pleased with the attendance and announced the school raised more than $15,000.

"The heart of the event is the children who found sponsors and individually raised the funds. This is our only and primary fundraiser that we do for the whole year for the Charter School," Bobo said. "These dollars go toward student-learning education, educational excursions and social events for the students. The money is just wonderfully phenomenal, and we are so grateful for the amount we were able to collect."