By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

Print Story | e-mail Story | Visit Forums

Featured Advertiser

Independent/Barrett Stinson Walnut Middle School seventh-grader Kathryn Kalvelage (left) and sixth-grader Sequoia Miller paint the alphabet blocks they created in the schoolıs wood carving club with acrylic paint. The club is now in its third year. Independent/Barrett Stinson Salvador Ceballos, 11, concentrates as he creates a dog figurine at Walnut Middle Schoolıs wood carving club. Independent/Barrett Stinson Walnut Middle School seventh-grader Megan Puckett works on an alphabet block she plans to give to her sisterıs newborn child. Click Thumbnails to View

Some students were silent, focusing intently on the projects in their hands. Others grouped together, giggling and chatting as they worked. A constantly replenishing line of students asking advice followed the teacher around.

But this scene was not taking place during school hours, but after the final bell. The students were there because they wanted to be. And they wanted to participate in an activity light years away from texting and video games good, old-fashioned woodcarving.

One of those students, 11-year-old Salvador Ceballos, was diligently chipping away at a dog figurine.

The sixth-grader joined Walnut's woodcarving club, now in its third year, at the beginning of the school year. As soon as his brother told him about it, he knew it was somewhere he wanted to be.

"I always liked playing with knives and wood," he said, a sheepish smile on his face.

Over the past several months, he has learned that woodcarving requires much more carefulness than just whittling away and sharpening sticks.

He'd love to have woodcarving club meet more than once a week, its current schedule. No matter he's bought his own carving knife, and he now carves at home on his own several nights a week.

Loretta Broberg, a seventh-grade math teacher at Walnut, points Salvador out as an example of the type of excitement she has seen since she started the club.

"It's the joy, the pride that they have," Broberg said when asked what she enjoys most about the club. "They didn't know they could do this kind of stuff."

The club was born after Broberg, who has been carving since about 1980, showed Walnut administrators her carvings. They thought a club for students would be a good idea, but the costs of knives, gloves and sharpeners made it difficult to start. Once funding became available through a grant, the club was a go.

Broberg said she hopes the club gives students a place to do something productive after school, as well as a social outlet and an opportunity to work on art in a different medium.

For help, Broberg has recruited members of the Pioneer Wood Carving Club, of which she's a member, to assist students and answer questions.

She usually gets three or four members at each session. Connie McCartney of Grand Island is one of her regulars.

"He lives for Tuesday, I swear," Broberg said.

McCartney said he enjoys helping the kids pick up his hobby, and he's surprised at how eager they are to do just that.

"They'd like to come every night," he said. "But we just can't do it."

Among the 15 or so students who attended Tuesday was Christina Zarek, a 13-year-old eighth-grader who showed up for the first time.

Christina couldn't fit an art class into her schedule this semester, so she saw the club as a great way to get her art fix.

As she got started on an arrow for a Valentine's Day project, she said she'd definitely like to come regularly.

"It's nice to be able to do something away from just sitting at home and sketching," Christina said.