“Date night with Señora Stover” defines the best part of Spanish Club to junior Adam Strebel.
Señora Stover is the Spanish Club moderator and her “Spanish Club Board,” consisting of senior Ally Petitjean, juniors Strebel and Michael Curran and sophomore Cassie Bohn, all help to plan Spanish Club activities.
Stover believes Spanish Club has been active for seven years, and she now is on her fifth year as club moderator.
Señora Stover said she tries to get club members together once per week and that there are approximately 25 active members. Spanish Club meetings are by no means similar to other clubs. As Strebel explained, Spanish Club gets together to eat at local, authentic Hispanic restaurants throughout Brown County.
The purpose of getting out into the community and meeting at different restaurants is to “try to take what we learn out of class,” said Señora Stover. The Club does not go to just any Hispanic restaurant, however. To ensure the students are able to utilize the skills they learn within the class room, Stover ensures that the servers at restaurants are Spanish speaking. By providing Spanish-speaking waiters and waitresses, students are “forced to order in Spanish,” said Señora Stover.
She also emphasized that she tries to get her students to try dishes they have not tried before. Not only is it a good opportunity for students to practice Spanish, but also Stover said, “It’s nice to see the students outside of school in a casual environment and to expose them to the plethora of Spanish culture that we have available at our fingertips.”
Spanish Club does do more than enjoying Spanish food and culture. In fact, Spanish Club recently finished a project benefitting Unity Hospice. Junior Alex Fife approached Señora Stover regarding the service project idea of gathering new and used boom boxes, IPods, and Cds to donate to the hospice, and Spanish Club therefore carried out the task of collecting the items.
The collection was from January 25-February 5, and Señora Stover said a lot of CDs, several boom boxes and an IPod were collected.
Other Spanish Club activities include the skull-pop fundraiser held on the Day of the Dead and a spring activity for De la Bae Fest.
Students are more than welcome to be involved in Spanish Club, and Señora Stover encourages student attendance at the dinners. Restaurants that Spanish Club visit include Margarita’s, El Azteca and Los Magueyes. Spanish Club has yet to meet at Mi Casa and Calientes.