The Elizabethton Board of Education convened to a packed house Tuesday night to give recognition to the T.A. Dugger football team, East TN Tuff Tales winners at the school, and the Integrated US History and English project at Elizabethton High School. The board also handled a comparative brief agenda.

The board recognized the T.A. Dugger football team with its former head coach Travis Smithdeal. Coach Smithdeal resigned in March and has been replaced by Brock Pittman.

T.A. Dugger teacher Sarah Morris was next up to proudly present her class winners for the storytelling contest at the school called East TN Tuff Tales.

The board next heard an emotional presentation from EHS students enrolled in an integrated US History and English course regarding Todd McKeehan. The students had made a podcast about the former ATF agent who was killed during a raid on the Branch Davidian compound in McLennan County, near Waco, in 1993.

Tony and Jane McKeehan, parents of the slain ATF agent, spoke about the professionalism of the students who participated in the project. “When we cried, they cried; and when we laughed, they laughed,” said Tony McKeehan.

Another student group who did a podcast on Donnie Davis in the same combined program at EHS also spoke and received recognition from board members.

The board voted unanimously on the following regular agenda items: approval of bid for the purchase of a 66-passenger school bus for $87,933; approval of ratification of a contract with Buck Institute for Education for staff development training for a cost of $8,250 to be paid from XQ funds. The board also passed a motion that created two new positions, an online content manager and special project lead. The board closed out the meeting with the approval of an application of a new CTE special program of study in virtual reality that would be submitted to the state.