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Dear Members of Western District,

I wanted to remind everyone that we are having an IAHPERD Western District business meeting on Monday August 2nd at the Avanti's in Pekin. For those of you who have not attended in the past, this will be your chance to be heard and give us feedback on how we can be stronger as an organization and district. I hope to see many of you there. Please send me an email and let me know if you can attend so we have an idea of how many to expect. Thanks,

Avanti's Restaurant

3610 Kelly Avenue

Pekin, IL 61554

309-346-3400

PLEASE READ THIS VERY IMPORTANTANT NEWS!!! CLICK HERE

There are several bills - amendments out there that could eliminate PE as a mandated subject in Illinois schools. If they pass, the consequences could be devastating to our profession and our jobs. This would also be harmful to all of the students that would be deprived of the chance to participate in physical education classes. Please contact your legislators immediately and let them know not to vote for these bills for the sake of our children. The link below will help you figure out who represents you.

CLICK HERE to Find Your Legislator

Make plans to attend the next Western District business meeting on Monday, August 2nd @ 6:00 in Pekin at Avanti's.

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to everyone. My name is Jim Huneke, and I'm the new president of IAHPERD's Western District. I’m a K-3 Physical Education teacher at Madison Elementary in Quincy, IL. This is my 6th year at Madison and 10th year of teaching overall. I also am very active in coaching and teaching tennis. I’m excited to get to know many of you throughout the course of this year.

I’m very excited for the upcoming year and bringing new ideas to the Western District! We already hosted a one day conference in June; We're working on our membership drive, and increasing attendance at our Western District meetings. I have a lot of ideas to help our district grow this year, but I'm going to need a lot of help in this.

My biggest goal for this year is to spread the word about what a great organization IAHPERD is to all of our colleagues who are not current members. Our next Western District business meeting is in Pekin @ Avanti's at 6:00 pm.

I'd love to meet all of you and have a very productive meeting. In order for this to happen, we need your attendance. Please make plans to attend, and email me if you are going to be coming, so we know how many to expect. I really hope to see all of the College students at the meeting, because our students are an important part of our organization. I'll look forward to working with all of you, thank you.

I do want to pass along - IAHPERD is vigorously opposing all bills that involve removing mandated programs from Illinois schools that are listed at the right. The legislation that has been proposed is a short sighted fix for a bigger state budget problem. The intent of each of the bills is to allow individual school districts to decide which mandated programs (if any) they want to keep. This is essentially the dismantling the Illinois School Code.

Please contact your legislator today to voice your concern regarding the proposed legislation. Additional information may be found on the IAHPERD government website.

Jim Huneke

Madison Elementary School

IAHPERD Western District President

Some Up-Coming Events Include:

August 2nd - Western District Business Meeting in Pekin ... 6:00 @ Avanti's

Childhood Obesity Epidemic Costly In Many Ways

1. The average 10-year-old girl weighed 77 pounds in 1963; today, 88. The 10-year-old boy weighed 74; today, 85.

2. A 2006 study tracking 2,000 low-income children in 20 cities found that a third were overweight or obese

before the age of 4. Most at risk: Hispanics.

3. Even more than smoking or drinking, says a UCLA/Rand study, obesity triggers significant health problems and

increases health spending.

4. Children and teens consumed 110 to 165 more calories than they burned each day over a 10-year period,

adding up to 58 pounds of extra weight, according to a Harvard University study.

5. 2 percent of U.S. children eat a healthy diet as defined by the Agriculture Department.

6. "Husky" car seats were developed several years ago. More than 250,000 children younger than 6 exceeded

the weight standards for regular car seats in 2006.

7. Soft-drink consumption has increased 300 percent in 20 years and is the leading source of added sugars for

adolescents.

8. 25 percent of all vegetables eaten in the United States are french fries or chips.

9. 25 percent of all Americans eat fast food at least once a day.

10. Americans consume 20 percent more calories than a generation ago; most come from fats and oils (up 63%),

grains (up 43%) and sugar (up 19%).

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ADVOCACY:

You can find your state representative and senator and their contact numbers at www.ilga.gov

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DO YOU KNOW A GOOD TEACHER?

THEN WE NEED YOUR HELP!

At the state convention, IAHPERD recognizes numerous award winners. Do you know an outstanding individual in the professional fields of Physical, Health, Dance, Adapted or Leisure Education? Recognize these people by nominating them for Teacher of the Year (TOY). These awards are given in recognition of outstanding instructional performance for elementary, middle, and secondary school physical education as well as in adapted, dance, health, and leisure education. Elected individuals have shown their great ability to motivate today's youth to participate in a lifetime of physical activity.

An FYI; anyone can nominate an outstanding teacher. You can nominate anyone, as long as the individual is eligible for the respective award. To check requirements and perhaps nominate someone in the future, check out the applications located on the IAHPERD main web site.

To download applications for any of the awards below; click HERE

(A) Elementary Physical Educator (B) Middle School Physical Educator

(F) Service Award & (G) Honor Award

Join our Mailing List:

Located now on the IAHPERD Web site: Just click on the IAHPERD Tab atop the page and click on Western District. Once you plug in your e-mail address, you'll receive periodic updates on what's happening within Western District and IAHPERD.

Notes:

If you send me someone's name and e-mail address, I will include them in our e-mails for Western District. Thanks again for visiting our web site.

Sincerely,

Jim Huneke

President Western District