By ELLEN BROWN

Staff Writer

SEYMOUR — Seymour High School Principal Greg Clark says he has a long list of people to thank for helping his school win $100,000 — basically, the entire Seymour community.

“It just picked up momentum,” he said of U.S. Cellular’s “Calling All Communities” campaign, which awarded $100,000 to the 10 schools in the country receiving the most votes. “You’d go out in the community — to the grocery store — and you’d have people who didn’t even have kids in school tell you that they picked up cards (to vote).”

Individuals 18 and older could go into any U.S. Cellular store to pick up a card with an online code to vote for their school.

SHS, Seymour Middle School, Seymour Intermediate School and Seymour Primary School all rallied for voter support for the high school by hosting pep rallies, marching in the Christmas parade, creating their own “Calling All Communities” holiday carol and ornaments, posting signs in local businesses and stuffing flyers in mailboxes.

SHS senior Wesley Burkhart remembers hearing about the campaign for the first time.

“An announcement came on the intercom, saying we would be participating in U.S. Cellular’s contest and how we’d by trying to get the most votes for $100,000,” Burkhart said. “We knew the money would be divided up among the schools. The chorus was working hard (to get money) for our new room and our new musical. I just kept going into U.S. Cellular.”

“It’s awesome that we had the opportunity to do this for ourselves,” added fellow senior Olivia Crisp. “I know we’re a small town, but we have a really great community. Every time we were out on the weekends — at Turkey Creek, West Town Mall — we would go into a U.S. Cellular store. It was essentially us going out and gathering as many cards as possible.”

Senior Juliet Sutphin enlisted help from family around the country.

“I got lots of cards to send — I have an uncle in California, an aunt in Pennsylvania and a brother in Chattanooga,” she said.

Sutphin was also impressed with how all of the Seymour schools pulled together.

“Everybody was working toward one goal,” she said. “I’d like to give a huge thanks to U.S. Cellular — I don’t know many companies that give away $10,000, much less $100,000 to 10 schools.”

Seymour Middle Principal Faye Nelson said her school will use the money to upgrade computers and printers.

“Each school had team captains — ours were Mary Manners and Tanya McCarrell — and they would meet periodically,” she said. “It was a lot of hard work.”

Clark credits Shirley Clepper, a local independent agent with U.S. Cellular, for suggesting Seymour schools participate in the campaign.

“We basically lived and breathed ‘Calling All Communities,’” said Clepper, whose husband, Chris, is also an independent agent. “We went and got banners made and went to basketball games, anywhere there were events. This has been tremendous for our business — it’s increased our traffic by 1,000 percent.”

“We’re thrilled,” Seymour Intermediate Principal Peggy Oakes said. “This was a great community effort; everyone rallied behind us. It was a lot of work, a lot of hours.”

ebrown@themountainpress.com