Redding Adventist Academy closed the school year with crunching, booms and prayers of praise. The annual constituency meeting and spring open house was held on Thursday, May 27, and featured the testing of student-built bridges, a spring thunder storm, and dedication of the new playground and hand-print wall. The new tentative budget was approved as well.

The crunching started at 5 p.m., when math teacher Mark Waterhouse began testing the load-bearing capacity of the student-built bridges. “Each bridge had to meet certain guidelines, including being composed of no more than 200 craft sticks and one bottle of school glue,” Waterhouse said. “We had all kinds of shapes and sizes of projects turned in. We had all different levels of success, too. One bridge held no weight at all, while another maxed out my scale.”

Winning student projects were Jonathan Golles, grade 11 with 142 pounds; Kris Mitchell, grade 10 with 263 pounds; and Rebekah Widmer, grade 7, with a school high of 330 pounds.

Students were invited to do research about successful bridge design and experiment. More than 20 bridges were turned in for testing. If a bridge held less than 50 pounds of force, the student had to write a follow up paper evaluating why the bridge failed.

Following the bridge testing, the playground dedication was delayed a few minutes while several thunderstorms rumbled through the area. Adults ran for awnings and overhangs, while children splashed in the puddles.

“Volunteers have worked for the past two years to bring our playground up to insurance guidelines,” said Gary Brown, principal of RAA. “Part of the fundraising for the playground was done through sponsoring tiles featuring hand or foot prints. This past spring, the tiles were mounted on the wall. This was a celebration of the completion of our playground.”

The tiles were collected, one by one, at various school and church events over the past year. The name of the person whose hand or footprint is on the tile was written on the tile in thick black glaze and the tile was fired in the academy’s ceramic studio. Nearly 300 tiles have been sponsored so far, and there is room for more as new students arrive over the next couple of years.

The RAA constituency meeting followed where delegates approved a preliminary budget, expressed appreciation to outgoing school finance director Connie Dacre, and distributed academic awards.

“We thank God,” Brown prayed, “for all divine blessings over the past five years — our new buildings, our new playground, our academy program and our dedicated parents, teachers and church members.”

Redding Adventist Academy is the constituent school for the Anderson, Palo Cedro and Redding Seventh-day Adventist churches in the heart of Shasta County, Calif.